Youu don't have to share my politics to be my friend.

The man I'm engaged to marry is a tightwad Republican fiscal consrvatiive (and a social liberal-- though I have more qualms about abortion than he does. Since neither of us has ovaries nor wants children besides our pets, that's a non-issue in our relationship.

President Thin-Skin wants to be all things to all people: Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)

Stop demeaning me! Is that Meghan McCain shouting at some uptight twittering twits about her infamous twitties pic on her Daily Beast blog? No! It's the President of the United States whining about substantive disagreements on  policy that he has with John Conyers. such as all the compromises he makes to Republicans for no/none/zip/zero votes. Wants to keep that "moderate" image no one thinks he has. The right wing sees him as a socialist, moderates see him as a liberal, liberals see him as milquetoast, and left wingers think he's a traitor.

Steny Hoyer, the House Majority Leader on how to win in 2010

Steny Hoyer Speech I read this with a certain amount of glee. I think it's brilliant. Showing the Republicans for the obstructionists they are is the only way to win and increase the House Democratic Majority.

Favorite Fiction Reads This Year

I just wanted to mention a few books I've read and liked this year. I am mostly obsessed with getting through the American Presidents Series, nut here is what else I've liked:

Five Good Reads from Jay:

The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd
Review of THE CASEBOOK OF VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN by The Independent (London)

The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt
NYT Review of The Indian Clerk

Do Not Deny Me: Stories by Mary Gaitskill
The Feminist Review: DO NOT DENY ME

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
The Chicago Sun-Times review of LACUNA

Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
Kansas City Star Reviews TOO MUCH HAPPINESS

Morning of December 8th: Random Musings

I really regret not mentioning Pearl Harbor Day, yesterday. I'm sure a lot of the Patriotic Blogs are out there doing a better job than I would on this anyway. In thinking about the 40s, such a tragedy-filled life for my family in Central Europe, I still don't think there is a greater President than Franklin Delano Roosevelt (except Abraham Lincoln). My mother disagrees: she thinks it was Truman, who recognized Israel, and she notes that Rooosevelt sent a ship filled with 10,000 Jewish refugees back to Hamburg during the eight of The Final Solution. So maybe there's a special place in Purgatory for Roosevelt. Of course, not being a Catholic, I don't believe in Purgatory, but every President has left a conflicted history, whether it has been with Afro-Americans, Amerindians, the poor, Jews, the Irish, gays, Iraqis or whatever. As I mentioned in a previous post, I think all people in power, particularly those who are called to serve God, in whatever form that may be, have an obligation to speak up and in Spike Lee's words, Do The Right Thing.

December 7th is a day that will live in infamy, in the words of FDR. Of course, so was September 11th, 2001. I remember George Bush's promise that "we are gonna find the people who took down these buildings." Obama is still fighting Bush's war, and now we have a surge there. God bless those people. GW Bush = BH Obama. No difference. None at all.

I'm rockin' out right now to the 80s tune "Keep Your Hands to Yourself," by the one-hit wonder, The Georgia Satellites. Brings back memories, some that would be inappropriate to share on a general/non-adult content blog. It involves a Maserati, romance and some questionable substances that may or may not have been ingested at the time. I can say with absolute certainty that I did not inhale ANYTHING.  It is a memory of a good time in youth., before I had the Capuchin monk spot on my head and when My height and weight were in correct proportion. The Georgia Coast at Brunswick, 1983. It is a good memory. And remember, it all depends on what the meaning of is "is."

And I'm still wondering why the US Press is not pursuing the Uganda story with vigor and energy. But then I've read Nicholas Kristof (an Oregonian) in the New York Times scream loudly about Darfur as we and the European Union looked (and continue to look) the other way. Genocide is happening there, worse than the murder of the Bosnians of Srebrenica in the 1990s. Oh but remember, one of the reasons we went into Iraq was that Saddam had "gassed" his own people.

Why does Obama stand so still, give the empty soaring rhetoric to us, and then do noting. He is as impotent, inexperienced and disastrous as Jimmy Carter. The people around Reagan were the parents of the people who advised GWB. But Reagan, for all his jingoistic talk, was never that way in person with world leaders he negotiated with. He formed a relationship with Gorbachev, and building on all the measured bellicosity America had shown the Soviet Union, he brougt the Berlin Wall down. To see an argument against my beliefs on this topic please see Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future by Will Bunch. It is very informative, and if you are a liberal, you will love it, if you are a conservative, you will boil over. If yoo're a centrist like me, you will recognize that the author makes some good points.

I also think that a book that will go down in history as great prose and well-reasoned exposé is Al Gore's The Assault Upon Reason (2007).

Have a good day.

Meghan McCain's take on "Brothers"

I want very much to see this film. Let's face it Meghan, you're my idol, but, I mean what do you want, "Patton"? I thought with the first of the Vietnam movies from the 1980s we could get more complex than merely celebrating the heroic. Sure, I'll watch the documentary you mention, but don't slam movies just because they portray soldiers or cops in a bad light. There are bad soldiers and good, bad cops and good, bad teachers and good... we don't want Hollywood to become a propaganda machine for anything but large breasts and big guns.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-07/why-does-hollywood-hate-our-troops/

We have 2nd gay Episcopal Bishop; Uganda has anti-gay laws.``

Well, most Christian leaders in this country except Pastor Rick Warren, have said they oppose what Uganda is about to do between gays and lesbians. Rick Warren says it isn't his place to "take sides." Is that what we should be telling ourselves if we have a Purpose-Driven Life?
Uganda's anti gay laws rile US