THE G.W. BUSH PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

Found in my e-mail today:

Dear Fellow Constituent:

The George W. Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages and accepting donations.

The Library will include:


1. The Hurricane Katrina Room, which is still under construction.
2. The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you won't be able to remember anything.
3. The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don't even have to show up.
4. The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don't let you in.
5. The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don't let you out.
6. The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room, which no one has been able to find.
7. The National Debt Room, which is huge and has no ceiling.
8. The Tax Cut Room, with entry only to the wealthy.
9. The Economy Room, which is in the toilet.
10. The Iraq War Room. (After you complete your first visit, they make you go back for a second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth visit.)
11. The Dick Cheney Room, in the famous undisclosed location, complete with shooting gallery.
12. The Environmental Conservation Room, still empty.
13. The Supreme Gift Shop, where you can buy an election.
14. The Airport Men's Room, where you can meet some of your favorite Republican Senators.
15. The Decider Room, complete with dart board, magic 8-ball, Ouija board, dice, coins, and straws.

Note: The library will feature an electron microscope to help you locate and view the President's accomplishments.

The library will also include many famous quotes by George W. Bush:

1. 'The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country.'
2. 'If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.'
3. 'Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child.'
4. 'No senior citizen should ever have to choose between prescription drugs and medicine.'
5. 'I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy -- but that could change.'
6. 'One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is 'to be prepared'.'
7. 'Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.'
8. 'I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.'
9. 'The future will be better tomorrow.'
10. 'We're going to have the best educated American people in the world..'
11. 'One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.' (during an education photo-op)
12. 'Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it.'
13. 'We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.'
14. 'It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.'
15. 'I stand by all the misstatements that I've made.'...George W. Bush to Sam Donaldson

PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY!

Sincerely,
Jack Abramoff, Co-Chair
G.W. Bush Library Board of Directors


[Cross-posted at Group News Blog. H/t to Adrienne.]

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GINNY BATES: THE GOLDEN HORDE ANTHEM

Here's another installment of my Great American Lesbian Novel (in progress), Ginny Bates. If you are new to reading GB, go to the section in the right-hand column labeled Ginny Bates to read background and find out how to catch up.

Autumn 2018

The next morning, Jane came over to pick up the children. She looked more-than-usual short on sleep, and Lucia was cranking. Myra was in the middle of settling a dispute between David and Leah, who were accusing each other of stealing jam. Ginny was holding Charlie, and when Jane came to kiss his forehead, Ginny said quietly “We just want to you know, we think what he did was wrong.”

Jane's face perked up a little bit. “I hoped you would. Will you be telling him that?”

“First chance we get. How'd it go last night?”

Myra said “Shut up” to David, who subsided into a shocked silence. Jane said “He's never done this with me, you know. I know he's overextended, but it's hard not to see it as a slide down the dark side, somehow.”

Now all the children were listening, even Lucia, it seemed.



“Overextension is an explanation but not an excuse. And the fact is, me and Ginny have some culpability in – creating the personality, shall we say” said Myra. “As you'll find out five times over eventually. Anyhow, what's the plan?”

“Uh...Talking to support folks.” Jane was now coding her words, too. “Letting the incisions heal. Carly's coming over for a talk after dinner. He's – not happy about the – subterfuge.”

“What's that mean?” said Mimi.

“Well of course he's not” said Ginny. “That's why Margie was chosen, the only one of us who'd miss the big picture. Nothing to do with how much she cares for you, Jane, just a predictable blind spot she has.”

“I thought so” said Jane with a righteous ring of indignation.

“What's supperfeud?” repeated Mimi.

“Being sneaky” said Myra. “A dishonorable way of behaving. Are you done with those eggs? If so, quit picking at them with your fingers.”

Jane's focus shifted to her children. “Did you all thank Gramma and Bubbe for the unexpected overnight?”

A chorus of thank you's began. Ginny said “Nobody wet the bed, and a full night of sleep was had by all. Except us, of course.”

“I never wet the bed” began Leah. Charlie turned a wounded expression her way.

“We need to scoot, to get Mimi and David to preschool” said Jane. “Listen, I have to meet with their teacher afterward today, so we won't be here until 3:00 at the earliest.”

“Why don't you let me and Charlie come over early, before we go to get them at school?” suggested Leah.

“You already had a lot extra this week, don't be a greedy guts” said Jane “Come on. Charlie, where's your other shoe?”

“I see it” said Myra, bending under the table.

Once the racket was out the door, Ginny looked at Myra and said “You did most of the cooking this morning, I'll clean up. You heading back to bed?”

“You know it” said Myra.

The following day, Myra and Ginny were still in bed at 9:00. Ginny had been up but returned to sip tea and read the paper. Myra was slowly waking to the sound of rustling paper when their bedroom door swung open and Leah burst in. They heard Jane yelling “I told you to knock.”

Charlie hurtled in and clambered into Ginny's lap seconds after she managed to get her teacup safely on the bedside table. Myra sat up with a jolt of energy and said “What's wrong?”

Jane came in the door carrying Lucia and promptly began turning red at Myra and Ginny's exposed torsos. “It's Beebo, he's been vomiting for an hour, I need to get him in to the vet and, well, could you take them?”

“Of course” said Myra, standing to reach for Lucia. The two older children immediately fell silent, ogling her. Ginny's naked half the time, but my occasional bare skin is like a peep show for them she thought irritably.

“She's nursed already” said Jane.

“What's that smell?” said Charlie, sniffing the air. Jane's blush went deeper. Leah said “Toast!”

“Yes, I made some toast earlier” said Ginny. “Jane, go. Let us know how he is when you can.”

As Jane hurried out the door, Ginny said “I have to get a shower before I dress, I'll keep it to two minutes, okay?”

“Fine” said Myra, noticing Lucia needed a diaper change. As she headed for the dresser where they kept diapers and wipes, she said “Uh, Charlie and Leah? Let me give you a riddle.” She thought fast. They loved their grammas walk-in closet, stuffed with decades of accumulation. “Okay, go into our closet and count how many shoes are in there. Whoever comes up with the right number gets cinnamon toast. And don't race, take your time so you get it right.”

Charlie's counting ability was sketchy, but Leah would no doubt yell her answer first and he would be canny enough to copy her. Besides, Myra had no idea what the right answer was and didn't care. She was worried about Beebo, and trying to move fast so Lucia didn't start crying during the diaper change.

Ginny was true to her word. She had pulled on clothes, run fingers through her damp hair, and was reaching to take Lucia from Myra when Leah broke out of the closet shouting “41! The answer is 41!”

“I thought the answer to everything is 42” Ginny joked to Myra. Myra laughed, and Lucia, watching her intently, gave one of her rare smiles, which made Myra go a little goofy.

Charlie emerged, breathless and holding a gimme-cap which said “I'm a Cunning Linguist”. It had blaze orange flames along its purple sides. He said “Can I have this? Please?”

“You can wear it as much as you want while you're here” said Myra, “but that was a gift to me from someone else and I can't give it away permanently. Sure looks good on you, though. Come here, I'll adjust the back band for you.”

As she did so, she said “Did you come up with an answer to the riddle? Leah's guess was 41. Which means one pair of shoes has undergone a painful separation, I gather.”

“Dat's right, 41” he said, bobbing his head vigorously. Ginny said “You need to get a photo of him in that.”

“You do it. I'm going to shower, not as expeditiously as you, and meet you downstairs. I promised them cinnamon toast for solving the riddle. Which both of you got right, yes, you both win.”

Leah looked around doubtfully at Myra. “You're not making our cimmanon toast?”

“Ginny, they want it with brown sugar, not honey or applesauce” said Myra.

“I know how to make it” said Ginny, taking Charlie's hand and starting to carry Lucia to the bedroom door. Leah shot ahead of them, shouting “I get to push the button!” After a second lag, Charlie raced behind her, shouting “I get to push inside!”

Whenever unsteady walkers or non-walkers had to be conveyed up and downstairs, Myra and Ginny had gotten into the habit of herding all the children in the elevator. The fun of riding with Ginny was limited to being the one who pushed the button. Riding the elevator with Myra, however, was a crapshoot.

As soon as the doors bumped shut, the next several seconds of the slow, bumpy ride could contain almost any kind of transformation. Myra's most common trick was to assume the voice of a haughty announcer proclaiming the goods to found on various floors of an imaginary, not-quite-right department store. When she intoned “Flo-ah Seven – Men's haberdashery, window sashes, sausage casings, and salamanders” the children would laugh with glee and burst from the sliding doors going “eww!” about sausage made with salamanders and asking questions about what part of a man was his haberdashery.

Just as often as she did “the announcer”, however, Myra would lapse into some other character, some of them quite alarming. One day, before Lucia was born, as soon as the doors shut Myra had grabbed Mimi by her collar and shoved her against the wall, growling at her in a pirate's voice “Now tell me where ye've hidden the gold, or ye'll walk the plank, ye scurvy dog!”

The other children had frozen in disbelief. After a couple of seconds, Mimi's eyes glinted and she snarled, not quite logically, “I'll come to thee by moonlight though hell should bar the way!” Myra had slid into raucous laughter, and they emerged from the elevator as buccaneer and highwayman, weaving an adventure in which the others had to snatch roles for themselves when they could.

Myra's favorite was the day when, as soon as the doors shut, she'd cried “Jonesy! We forgot Jonesy! We can't leave him on the Nostromo!” Her forearms changed position to carry a weapon, and the children boldly assumed pistols in their own hands. When they reached the ground floor, Myra began looking around corners in a frenzy of fearful anticipation, occasionally firing bursts from her flamethrower into shadowy regions, all the while calling “Jonesy? Come here, Jonesy.”

Ginny was vacuuming that day, and she became the Alien. When Myra looked around the doorway into the living room and spotted her, she recoiled in horror and hissed to the others “It's in there.” They sprinted across the opening with bursts of fire at Ginny's back and clustered near the bottom of the stairs. Myra called urgently upstairs for Jonesy, adding “kitty, kitty, kitty”, and Keller of course responded, coming to stand at the head of the stairs, wary of both the hated vacuum and Myra's odd voice. But with pleading she came slowly down the stairs. Myra grabbed her, kissing her frantically and shielding her as they blasted their way back to the elevator, which was now the escape pod.

Once the door shut that time, Myra put Jonesy down and wiped her sweaty face in relief, saying “We still have two minutes to get into protective gear and launch this pod into space.” As each child began miming their own interpretation of what that meant, with hilarious effect if anyone had been watching, Myra stood by the door trying to come up a good substitute for animated suspension chambers.

She later realized Ginny must have simply sprinted up the back stairs as soon as the elevator doors shut. When they opened on the second floor, Ginny leaped in at them with a horrible roar, her hand snapping at Myra's face like shiny steel jaws. Myra fell backward, hitting the rear wall hard but thankfully landing on no child or cat. The high little screams in that escape pod were not pretty, my friend. Keller bolted for safety. Ginny sat down on the floor next to Myra and they laughed until tears leaked from their eyes.

This day, Myra rode down alone, entering the kitchen to the smell of cinnamon and the two older children sitting happily at stools, gobbling down the real thing. Ginny said “I made some for you, too. How about a fruit smoothie with it?”

“Aggh. Clash of sugars. But I'll eat it. Put lots of carrot juice in it, okay? And – I'll cut a slice of that Maasdammer we got.”

“Cut me one, too. There's leftover steamed squash, you know.”

“How about if I saute that real quick with onions and garlic?”

“Sounds great.”

They worked together fluidly. Leah came around the corner, carrying her plate and asking “Can I have another slice?”

“Nope” said Myra. “But if you want smoothie or cheese or squash, it'll be ready in a jiff. Look, your shoe's untied. Here.” She lifted Leah onto part of the counter with an unused cutting board and began repeating the bunny diving into the hole shoe-tying story as she tied her sneaker. Charlie called out “Is it Dink or Usagi?”

“Uh, another bunny, an Irish one whose last name is O'Steel” said Myra. At that moment she heard a long rasp on the wood of the cutting board beneath Leah's corduroy pants. Myra stared at her and said “Did you just fart on my cutting board?”

“Sorree” said Leah unconvincingly. Ginny was laughing hard, and Charlie joined her. Myra put Leah back on the floor, said “Take your plate to your stool, we'll serve you there, Vice-Admiral Flatulence.” She carried the cutting board to the sink and looked in the cabinet beneath for bleach.

Jane returned shortly before 11:00. She said Beebo was all right but on an IV, and blood tests for his kidneys and liver weren't back yet. “They think he got hold of something toxic” she said. “You know, I kept thinking about how the restaurant got fumigated on Monday – Carly and Eric complained about the smell when they got home. I'm wondering of some dying bug or mouse got through our fence and Beebo ate it.”

“Poor little guy, the only kind of hunting he could ever manage” said Myra. “Did they pump his stomach?”

“Gave him charcoal and are flushing him out. The vet thinks he probably puked enough of it out to save his kidneys. I'll call you when I hear more. I'll have to search the yard, and there's still a few upchuck puddles in the house.” Myra looked away, fighting her own instant nausea. Jane went on, saying “Hello, darling, are you ready for a snack?” to Lucia as she unbuttoned her shirt. She stole one quick kiss from Lucia's forehead, then settled in to nursing. She said, almost to herself, “The last baby I'll have, and she's not a cuddler.” Her sadness was wrenching to Myra.

As it apparently was to Ginny, who said “I know exactly how you feel, about the last baby part, I mean.” Myra looked accusingly at Ginny and was about to bring up all the times Ginny had been way too public about Myra being the one who wanted to drag out their childbearing years, but Charlie said loudly “Tell Mommy what Leah did to your board” and the moment was lost.

After Jane and children left, Ginny remarked to Myra, “You this, this morning, she acted like we'd been interrupted from having sex, I know that's what she thought.”

Myra was trying to think of an answer when Ginny said, trying for humor, “Right bedroom, wrong year, huh?” Myra remained silent, and Ginny finally faced her directly to say “Have you talked to Allie or Chris about this yet? About how we're -- not making love? You told Nancy you would.”

“Not yet. Haven't had the chance. How about you, have you told your friends?” Myra felt defensive.

“I've talked it over with Cathy. And a little with Margie.” Myra was utterly thrown by that piece of news, and didn't think she liked it. Ginny went on “I was waiting for you to have your turn with Allie before I went to Edwina or Allie myself, but I'm not going to wait any more, I don't think.”

“What's the push here, Ginny?”

“Well, Allie was – not a stone butch, that's not an accurate description, but she was one-way with lovemaking for all those years. I'm hoping she has insight about how you're feeling it but not able to act on it.” Ginny's jaw was squared off.

“It's not ability, it's a choice” said Myra. “And it's not anything like the reasons she had, because those would be the same as Bonnie had, and certainly you have your share of learning material there. Not all sexual issues are the fault of fucked-up incest experiences, Ginny. Seems to me like you're forgetting there was an actual rupture of trust that occurred.”

There was a long silence when they stared each other down. Ginny said softly “I haven't forgotten it. I won't ever forget it.”

“You've been a force for good in my life, Ginny Bates, and usually your pushing at me is useful to me. But only when I think you might more than I do. I'm...not sure here. I just don't know what all I'm dealing with yet. Inside me, in particular.” Myra didn't want to be as fair as her words sounded to her. When she saw the reception on Ginny's face, however, she breathed in and let it stand.

“Okay. I won't bring it up again. You'll tell me when something changes. Or I'll know it from our time with Nancy.” Ginny hugged her, and Myra let herself relax in those familiar arms. Perversely, she suddenly remembered how glorious it was to kiss Ginny full on the mouth, and she lay her head to the side, away from Ginny's face, to resist the temptation.

Beebo was able to come home the following day, thinner and clingy but declared by the vet to be as good as could be expected for his age. Myra invited him over for the evening, playing with him in her study until he needed a nap.

On Friday, when Gillam and Jane came to pick up the kids before shabbos dinner, Jane said sternly “I was cleaning the upstairs bathroom this afternoon, and I have a question for one of you children: Who has been wiping their buggers on the wall beside the potty?”

The three oldest children began giggling, looking sideways at each other, ready to pounce when accusation was made. Charlie stood out because he froze and would not meet anyone's eyes. Poor little dummy thought Myra with a heartwrench. But then, it wasn't her scrubbing away hardened old snot.

Jane squatted down and took his hands. “Charlie, why did you do that?”

His body writhed in conflicting emotion. “I don't know” he said, and it sounded like the truth.

“Well, what should you do if you feel congestion in your nose?” said Jane. Charlie finally let his big brown eyes face hers, confusion on his face. Myra thought he wanted to say “pick it out and eat it?”, but some whisper of caution kept him silent.

“You blow your nose, son” said Gillam, helping out. “Into a tissue or handkerchief.”

Charlie nodded, sensing a clearing path away from his public exposure. “Will you do that in the future?” asked Jane, squeezing his hands. He nodded more emphatically. She pulled him into a hug before delivering the coup de grace. “Okay, let's go home. I saved part of the scrubbing for you, you can clean off the last bit.”

He looked over her shoulder at Myra with desperation, but Myra thought he'd met justice. At one-and-a-half, learning how to wipe down a surface that she was sure Jane had sprayed with precleaner was a skill he could pick up.

That Sunday at singing potluck, when they gathered in the family room after dinner, Myra stood with a grin and said “I've written a song. A kind of theme song, I guess you'd call it. The tune is not quite right, but – well, maybe Jane there at the piano can figure it out for me. Here goes.”

Myra winked at Leah as she began:

We fart upon your cutting board
We wipe our buggers on your wall
We call ourselves the Golden Horde
We got no manners at all

We got no manners at all
We live like monkeys in the trees
We fling our poop and eat our fleas
We got no manners at all

It was an instantaneous smash. She had to sing it again because shrieks of laughter had drowned out sections the first time through, and then Carly leaped up to stand beside her for a third rendition. By that time Jane was not only pounding along on the keyboard, she was making it sound better and better, adjusting the melody in ways Myra would never have considered.

On the fourth singing, all the adults knew the words and were a wild chorus, with the children coming in half a word behind but screaming at delicious turns like poop and buggers. Lucia was wide-eyed and not a whit upset at the volume around her.

On the fifth repetition, Ginny and Margie stood up to create an accompanying dance, which consisted mostly of miming the various actions mentioned. The children swarmed to join them, and reaching around to one's backside to scoop up invisible poop to hurl at someone nearby broke out everywhere in the room. Myra sat down again, letting the mayhem go on without her leadership. She'd done her work.

It became, indeed, the children's anthem. It was not only the most requested song at singing potluck, it was a chorus which often appeared in their play sessions. After picking up Mimi and David at preschool later that week, Jane enlisted Myra and Ginny's help to reinforce rules about Where The Golden Horde Song Could Be Sung, and where it was best kept for family alone. “I meant to warn them not to teach it to the other kids, I just forgot” whispered Jane.

“I can only imagine how popular they were for a while there” responded Ginny, laughing. “I just hope it doesn't make Charlie backslide on the bugger front. He's taking great pride at having a line all about him.”


© 2009 Maggie Jochild.

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WHAT HAPPENED TO HIGH MPG RATINGS?

Okay, here's a question for ya'll that may betray some ignorance on my part.

I've been more or less bedbound for a few days and have watched way more "regular" TV than usual. Like, I'm now up to date on Lost, g*d help me. As a result, I noticed a Honda commercial I've never seen before, where a bunch of giant insect gas guzzlers (like a cross between Starship Troopers and a Chevy Tahoe) are thwarted from attacking a Honda Fit by a big bug zapper which is equated to gas mileage of 33 mpg. It's very futuristic and the announcer's voice is robotic.

I sat up and said "Whoa" when I saw this commercial. The outright confrontation in it is something I've not seen so directly portrayed since the last gas crisis of the '70s. I thought it must be brand new, but when I went looking for it online, I discovered it was on the air at least as early as September 2008. Have you all noticed this commercial -- is it on the air where you live? Did it strike you as radically different in tone?

And to the bigger question: That mileage of 33 mpg hardly seems revolutionary to me. In 1976 I bought a Honda CVCC which got a reliable 40 mpg highway, 35 in the city, for the next almost 200,000 miles. It's why I kept buying Hondas, despite accusations of being unpatriotic from my American-car-obsessed mechanic brother. But even then, there were cars getting over 50 mpg. What happened to them? Why aren't those kinds of fuel-saving engines available (or being marketed, as the case may be) any more? Seems to me like they'd be an affordable intermediary between the current crop of hybrids and all the projected imaginary cars of the future.

Geeks, come forth to enlighten. And other pertinent commentary as well, of course.


[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]

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A LITTLE BIT BETTER

I've been dealing with two days of fever and joint lockdown, but I wanted to express my happiness at the good news flowing out of the Oval Office. A year ago, I made a list of my top ten issues I wanted to see addressed by a new government. At the very top was "Restore the Constitution". This had several subcategories, including limiting so-called executive privilege, restoring transparency, enforcing accountability, returning checks and balances -- you know the rest.

I believed (still do) that if these Cheney-spored rots were scrubbed out, all else would follow much more easily. Which is why when Obama caved on FISA, he went down on my list of Presidential picks.

But damn, the Constitutional scholar in him is coming forth, ain't it? So far, I'm happy as a gator in a chickenranch.

I wanted to alert you all to an interesting website run by the St. Petersburg Times called "The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises". As of this morning, out of about 500 campaign promises, here's the scoreboard so far:

Promise Kept -- 7
Compromise -- 0
Promise Broken -- 0
Stalled -- 1
In The Works -- 14
No Action -- 488

Go to the site for more details. And bookmark it for future reference. Remember, happiness depends on noticing what's going right as much as it does expressing your expectations for improvement.

Or, to quote Jennifer Warnes in the working-class anthem for Norma Rae:

Bless the child of a working man
She knows too soon where she's from
And bless the hands of a working man
He knows his soul is his own

So it goes like it goes
Like a river flows
And time, it rolls right on
And maybe what's good gets a little bit better
And maybe what's bad gets gone
Maybe what's bad gets gone


[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]

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URBAN TRIVIA QUIZ

In a well-known city, there are 21 streets running east and west whose names (with a couple of exceptions) begin with consecutive letters of the alphabet. Two other city landmarks also fill within this alphabetical scheme. The first four streets, from north to south, are Anza, Balboa, Cabrillo, and Fulton.

For 10 points, name the city.
For 10 points, name what corresponds to G.
For 10 points, name what corresponds to Z.
For 2 points each, name as many of the other 17 streets as you can.

Answers after the fold.



The city is San Francisco.
G corresponds to Golden Gate Park.
Z is the city zoo.

The streets in order are:
Anza
Balboa
Cabrillo
Fulton
Golden Gate Park
Lincoln
Irving
Judah
Kirkham
Lawton
Moraga
Noriega
Ortega
Pacheco
Quintara
Rivera
Santiago
Taraval
Ulloa
Vicente
Wawona
Yorba
Zoo

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TALKING 'BOUT 'NAUGURATION

(From SomeEcards)

On my sixth birthday in 1961, my family was living in Pecos, Texas, in a trailer park which would be massively damaged by multiple tornadoes a year later. My mother had finally given up on my father ever changing to a job which would bring him home at nights. She agreed to selling our ranch-style three-bedroom in Lafayette, Louisiana and buying a trailer, a 10x50 New Moon with three bedrooms if you count the closet-sized room assigned to me as a bedroom (it was so narrow I had to pull my feet onto on my twin bed to open the dresser drawers). We began moving every few months as my father's crappy job demanded. But Mama thought this meant we'd be together for dinner at night, on weekends, holidays, birthdays.

She still didn't know my father, really.

However, all that slow decline in despair was ahead of us. On my birthday in 1961, I was given a "Have Gun -- Will Travel" toy rifle with a Paladin style black hat and, most thrilling of all, a small set of calling cards embossed with his logo. To keep my little brother Bill, who was two, from feeling left out, he was given a similar set from "Wanted: Dead or Alive" with a plastic sawed-off shotgun.


The first time I took my rifle to the playground in the middle of the trailer park, a little boy named Corky stole it, saying it was not something a girl should have. I went home crying and told Mama. She steamed over to his trailer, where his mother flatly denied he'd come home with anything that didn't belong to him. My mother got into a screaming fight with her, wherein Mama unleashed her legendary ability at profanity and called the woman "white trash". The woman slammed her trailer door in Mama's face. Mama walked around in a rage the rest of the day and unloaded on my father when he came home two hours past dinner time.

It's a milestone memory for me, an initial slam into class and gender walls.

The day before that birthday, Barack Obama had been born in Honolulu, Hawaii.



(Barack Obama as a young boy)

I work nights, sleep days, usually being sound asleep by 8 a.m. But not yesterday. I was too excited to drop off, and wound up flipping from channel to channel for eight hours. I cried a lot. Here are some non-chronological impressions.

There was no smirk on McChimpy Flightsuit's face, not once that I could see. What a fucking relief to see him looking like something might be penetrating that beady-eyed, alcohol-damaged frontal lobe, especially if it might in any way be noticing he is Mr. Epic Fail. How long will it take Laura to divorce him, I wonder? Here's a contest we should start: Which will occur first, McCain admitting he has recurrence of melanoma, Laura divorcing Dubya, or Palin being arrested on corruption charges?

I knew immediately when I saw Cheney in a wheelchair that smart-mouthed teenboy progressives were not going to be able to resist making cheap swipes about it. And I was right. They've jumped on the bandwagon, comparing him to every movie villain they can name. Have you dickheads never stopped to consider why it is that movie-makers (especially the Bond series) feel so free to make the bad guys disabled or having an obvious physical difference? Because it's okay to play on that hatred. Can't pick on blacks or women any more, but wheelchairs, man, that's the kind of difference that's fair game. (Almost as good as swish jokes. And talking about fat chicks.) I mean, I hate the man enough to give me serious pause, but him being in a wheelchair has nothing to do with the issue, pro or con. No wonder FDR hid his braces, with the likes of you losers itching to make comment.

I loved the music quartet, the joy on their faces as they played, the music itself. As a prior attender of Quaker functions, I've heard "Tis a Gift To Be Simple" more times than I can count, but this was an original take on it. (Although, I have to confess, I always think of a parody a friend of mine wrote: "Tis a gift to be pimple / Tis a gift to be wart / Tis a gift to be a blemish of any sort...") I do wish they'd been in a better line of sight. Maybe they should have been to the left of Biden and Obama, and move Darth and Dubya up to the nosebleed zone. I also wish they'd once done a close-up of the pianist (the only woman) performing. But the guys always get most of the camera action -- unless the woman is partially nude and playing a sex kitten, of course.

And Aretha -- the first album I bought on my own was by Aretha. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Yowza. Perfect choice.

I am always glad to support poetry read in public and included in ceremony. However, it was a poem that needed editing, and the poet reader was far too stiff. I kept wishing for Sonia Sanchez or Sharon Bridgforth to be reading up there, now THAT would have been something to see.

I ADORED seeing Obama led in by two powerful women, setting aside my differences with those women at various times. I also adored how many non-white faces were filling the lenses. It's like my chest got full of air for the first time in ages, you know? It got all tight again when I looked at the wide shot of the Congressional luncheon later -- almost all white men over 40, how can this be considered representative leadership? You have to ignore so much about the planet, about human history, to accept that logic.

And speaking of which: My lizard brain is hoping for retribution against John Cornyn. He kept Hillary from being confirmed on Inauguration Day just because -- like the dog licking its genitals -- he could. One more CDS prick-slap. Or do you really buy his argument about transparency?

I found Obama's speech to be EXCELLENT. He was direct, was clearly speaking to the rest of the world as well as America, and he spoke truth to power (take THAT, Bushies). I particularly liked his reminder we don't have to give up civil liberties to be "safe".

I was also glad to hear a few direct references to race, more than his usual allegory. (Excepting the single "race speech", whose title right there tells you how often Obama raises the issue concretely.) He's elected now, he no longer has to play to the majority of white supporters who want proactive redemption for a guilt they deny feeling, who want him to speak in terms of "we" and "it's gonna be better" instead of pointing to the elephant in the room. White people prefer not to move on the issue of race unless it seems like it was their idea in the first place -- or the National Guard is involved. He did it deftly enough that commentators like Charlie Gibson and Bob Schieffer felt a sanctified glow in repeating his remarks, sure the troubles he referred to are all in the icky past.

So, now we have one out of 44 Presidents who is Not White. I have mixed feelings -- incredulous relief at it occurring in my lifetime, followed immediately by noticing the pathos of needing to feel such relief. If the next four Presidents are African American, the next five after ten or eleven after that Latino, then at least one Asian and Native American, we'll reach actual racial diversity in Presidential representation. Of course, every one of those plus another 27 Presidents (until 2184) will need to be women for us to reach gender equality.

(From SomeEcards)

Now, as for the prayers. Let me begin by saying I'm so fucking ready to take g*d out of all these oaths and falderol. If you don't believe they'll tell the truth without bringing g*d into it, then they're not who we should have as leaders, right? And either g*d loves us all and supports us in everything we do (even Dubya) or g*d is not much of a supreme being, more like a Britney kinda parent.

I multitasked during PRick Warren's ridiculous display. I did sit up straight and sing "America the Beautiful", thinking about the end of the second stanza (America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw / Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law!) and the author's 25-year relationship/residence with her beloved Katherine Coman. But I also read the captioning on my TV screen and when I'd finished singing, I listened critically to the style of PRick's prayer as well as trying to hear if there was any resistance coming from the audience. Flipping between channels, I noticed at first the camera showed quite a few people who were obviously not "praying along", looking bored or disgusted. Eventually the networks all found folks with closed eyes and clasped hands, and stayed with this stereotype until he was done.

I grew up listening to fundies preach, and the thing is, he simply wasn't very good. Aside from the obvious offenses in his content (I'll get to that), it didn't hang together very well, it was overly exhortational or groveling, alternating between the two, without any good hooks to suck in the emotion of the listener. And the expression on his face looked to me like that of a man who was busy sucking off the sweat behind a largish pair of balls.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

As for offense: You don't introduce Jesus as g*d in a prayer designed for people of all faiths. You'll notice Lowery didn't do it, nor did the Chaplain who prayed at the beginning of the Congressional luncheon, both of them devout Christians, I'm sure. It's as offensive as if he had insisted on using the term Allah instead of the agreed-upon generic g*d. But -- this is a man who earns his living by refusing to see the full humanity of others. No big surprise there.

He also appropriated the Sh'ma and altered it (perhaps botched it). Again, fundies think they have a right to claim Judaism, and too many right-wing Jews in the last few decades have allowed them to get away with it. In lesbian-feminist circles, you'll be met with torches and pitchforks if you refer to "Judeo-Christian" anything or allow gentiles to lead Jewish prayer without obtaining prior consent.

It was, in short, a pitiful effort, definitely not worthy of the cost to Obama to include this vermin on that platform. Plenty of that example on the other side of balcony.

Reverend Joseph Lowery would definitely have looked better by comparison, in any event, but he did everything right. He spoke the language of actual inclusion, he caught us up, and he ended with humor. It's the kind of prayer an atheist can listen to and find enough relatable to accept as speaking for all of us, not just "believers" (as if nonbelievers have no beliefs). Below is a YouTube copy of his benediction.



I kept watching after the ceremony was over, mainly in hopes of seeing President Obama sign some key executive orders right away (didn't happen) and wondering if the networks would also block out the lesbian/gay portions of the parade, as HBO did to Gene Robinson this weekend (didn't see all of the parade, so I can't say for sure). During the parade, all three main stations made some comment about how the Obamas were expected to make D.C. their actual community, to go out in it and do community organizing, eat at local restaurants, and make friends there, in contrast to the Bushes who had no locally made friends after eight years. They also put up a photograph from the podium looking down the length of the National Mall to show the vast crowds attending, juxtaposed with the same shot from Bush's inauguration which drew perhaps one-fourth the number of attendees. (So much for a fucking mandate.) Why wasn't this sort of analysis ever done by the mainstream networks while Bush was in office?

I also have to say, I think people who don't wear a warm, buttoned-up coat when they have to be out for hours in that kind of weather look stupid. It's painful to see that much insecurity on display (i.e., my looks are more important than my well-being.) When will my sisters be "free at last" from that imprisonment? And don't try to tell me it was a choice. You know damned well that all anybody would be talking about is if the First Lady had dressed appropriately instead of an object on display. But reverse it: Imagine if Barack had been in shorts and a light dress jacket. At least they put their daughters in coats.

I'm reminded of a story about Sam Houston, the first President of the Republic of Texas. (He was a slaveowner but was opposed to the extension of slavery into new American territory, and was forced to resign his later governorship of Texas because he refused to sign an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy. He proclaimed "A house divided against itself cannot stand" eight years before Lincoln did.) When the Republic was new, a group of visitors from the East came, bigwigs in fancy clothes whose report on Texas would be instrumental in gaining future assistance and favor. Houston was showing them around the grounds of a new building, and in the back near the kitchen, a pot of cornmeal mush was hung over a fire, simmering. Houston picked up a spoon and took a mouthful, not knowing it was near boiling. He promptly spit it out onto the earth near the feet of his horrified visitors. Houston remarked "There's many a damned fool who would've swallowed that!"

As for all the "designer" obsession, let me just report that my cat Dinah chose to wear full-length tortoiseshell to her Top Of The Bookshelf Inaugural Ball.

When I finally gave up on there being anything covered except fluff, I came back to my computer where I had an e-mail waiting from a friend living in the Boston area, but formerly from Texas, saying "Happy New President! I'm so sorry you have to take the old one back now." Ah, you and me both, Amanda. You'll notice he went to Midland first, where there's still enough of the deluded to gin up a crowd for him. (I say that having lived in Midland as a child.) You'll also notice he's chosen Dallas, not Austin, as his future residence. Dallas can have him. I only wish we could give all of Dallas from Central Expressway to Irving away to Oklahoma and not have it affect Texas elections any more.

I opened my blog's layout and removed the Backwards Bush Clock, which for six months has been counting down the days until he was gone. It's amazing this day has come. I'm glad I watched, totally worth it to lose an entire cycle of sleep over. Then I made dinner and, in the words of Jeb Bartlet, said to myself "Next?"

(Image by Alvin Blair.)

[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]

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LOLCATS WEEKLY ROUND-UP, INAUGURATION 2009!

Here's the weekly best of what I've gleaned from I Can Has Cheezburger efforts. There are some really creative folks out there. As usual, those from little gator lead the pack.

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