Rejectionists!

I got it! The new buzzword - you heard it here in Hooterville first, folks! Yes, 'rejectionists'! That means anyone who objects to having American authority shoved down their throat at gunpoint.

Remember - you heard it here first!

Dare To Discipline! (apologies for reposting)

With all of the noise about liberals 'hating our country' because we dare to criticize, not America, but the thugs who have hijacked it - I thought it worthwhile to repost something I wrote last summer about the parallels between being a parent and being a patriot.

As I've mentioned, I'm a mom, raising four kids. I know a lot of you out there are parents or pet owners (yes, it applies there too!). Now, which is the better parent - the one who says, "My little darling is just perfect! He can do whatever he wants!" as Little Darling pulls the wings off flies, bullies other kids on the playground, steals their toys, lies, and disrespects others, or the one who corrects Little Darling's behavior?

Most people would not dream of allowing their children to grow up cruel and selfish. Children are born selfish by nature as a survival instinct, but it's a parent's job to teach the child to get along with others, to share, to wait their turn, to put themselves in other people's shoes, to respect others. That makes for a happy, well-adjusted child who has friends, who does well in school, and later on does well in life. To not give a child limits is to neglect and abuse them. We even treat our animals with more kindness by training them.

If a kid eats too much candy he gets sick. If he isn't given nutritious food, he becomes weak and sickly. If he isn't given chores and responsibilities, he doesn't understand how to take care of himself. If he's given every toy or thing he demands, he will not understand the meaning of money. He'll be spoiled, greedy and what's more, unhappy and dissatisfied without knowing why.

I see our relationship with our country that way. To say "America's perfect and if you criticize it you're unpatriotic" does our great country a huge disservice. Nobody wants America to be a spoiled bully, but if we do not discipline her, that's what happens. I love my country too much to do that.

The Master of Disaster

"Believe me, you don't want Karl Rove inside your head..."

FYI

Anyone interested in some history about the Bush family might want to check out Webster G. Tarpley's exhaustively-researched book about Poppy and the Bush family, going back to Samuel Bush, Prescott's dad. Very interesting reading. I bought the book, but you can also read it online at that site.

Shameless Band Gratitude

We had a very good night last night at Cozy's. Thanks, everyone, who clicked through to our site - we got a nice little spike!

Happy Thanksgiving

I slept in this morning, so I'm going to rely on my friends for my T-Day post humor. The Fat Lady Sings has a link to a very cute Thanksgiving song, so I will direct you there. Click on the 'click here'.

Also, Old White Lady has a cool cartoon up for T-Day!

Wishing everyone a great Thanksgiving. I'm taking a 24-hour reprieve from Food Prison (a.k.a. my diet) and enjoying absolutely everything. I'm grateful for so much in my life, and even in the face of the tragedies ongoing in this country and the world, it seems right to take a moment for gratitude. My little daughter is sitting by me, drawing a Thanksgiving picture and singing "The More We Get Together, The Happier We'll Be".

Sounds about right to me.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

Shameless Band Self-Promotion, Part II

Good news! We've been held over at Cozy's! We will be there every Wednesday night through December. Hopefully we'll be able to make it a long-term thing, as it's a great place to bring people to listen to us. Kenny Wayne Shepherd's manager was in last week, as was James Brown's bass player, an old friend who sat in with us (there are a few select gentlemen who are permitted onstage with us ;-)...

Once again we'd like to extend the invitation to any local bloggers reading this to come out and see us tonight, or any Wednesday between now and New Year's. We play for the door, but if 5 bucks is an issue (sometimes it is with me!), e-mail me and I'll put you on the list.

And if you can't make it but want to show love, please go to our website and click on the "Cozy's" link - it makes us look very good to the club owner! Pass it on if you're so inclined.

God, I am such a pathetic beggar...

Anyhow, the band is tons of fun and babe-a-licious - ladies, we're the perfect band for a 'Girl's Night Out' - and we guarantee a good time for all.

Update: New music on the site! Go to 'Hear Us' and click on the nifty little Wimpy player, made by yours truly. (That's me singing on Bad Dream)

We now return to our regularly-scheduled bitch-fest.

P.S. - I just realized I didn't put a link up to the site (duh!) although the music player goes there...

Some Like It Hot

More Cool Blogs!

Take a peek at three of my new favorite blogs - The Heretik, the Republic of T., and Inflatable Dartboard...fine-looking, strong and unique.

More Anniversaries and Props

I would be sadly remiss if I did not give mad props to Mr. M over at Comments From Left Field, who I consider to be my 'blogfather' (for whatever that's worth). His earlier blog "Left of Center" was the first political blog I read and commented on, and it inspired me to start my own. He has also subsequently invited me to cartoon on both the late lamented 'Unpaid Punditry Corps' and Goose3five's 'Comments From Left Field', and always been very encouraging to me. If you look back at my archives, you'll see that after my first month blogging, I wrote nothing until the following March. Mr. M's gently constructive criticism gave me the impetus to try to be a more consistent writer and cartoonist, and I have found that, just as with music, art, or anything else, practice makes, maybe not perfect, but lots better!

As I look at your profile, M, it says you started on Blogger in November of 2004 also - does this make it your anniversary, too?

And speaking of blog-i-versaries, cheers go out to my former UPC stablemate Cernig at NewsHog (isn't that just a great name?). You're always right on the money, C.

Many Happy Returns, guys!

Haiku

This is a haiku inspired by a comment from David at Yoga Korunta.

Shed my family's blood
so Iraqis can vote? No.
Bring our soldiers home.

If anyone else feels inspired to create a haiku, send it to me and I will post it in a special Haiku section.

This Is The Cost

A new visitor to Hooterville, Klem from Wiltshire, passed along this link to an interactive photo essay by a photojournalist named Paul Fusco. It shows military families at the funerals of our soldiers killed in Iraq, which receive no media coverage. If we are not aware of the cost in not only dollars and cents, but blood and tears, it's easier to perpertrate this atrocity. He speaks about the families "cringing when they are given the American flag - there's no glory in it. They know that. They've been given a rag for their husband's life - for lies." Our soldiers are honorable. The chickenhawks who sent them to their deaths for their own enrichment and power are not.

When you click the link, go to the essay titled "Bitter Fruit". This needs to be seen and talked about. He also has a webpage for the essay.

Speak Up!

It's Hooterville's Blog-i-versary!

One year ago today I started blogging here at Hooterville. I was in the depths of despair over the hijacked election and the frustration of feeling helpless and voiceless. My mom suggested therapy. I decided to blog.

A year later, I feel better. I've met some wonderful online friends, found some kind of writing voice, started cartooning, and watched the country slowly starting to wake up. I feel a little more hopeful for our future.

So I'm celebrating, and you're invited! Blog party here. Stop by and get your Party Favor! (Right-click and save, or just drag off the page).Thank you for keeping me sane.

Here's to success in 2006!

Tagging The Meme

Left of Centrist
withinsight
Just Ain't Right
Yoga Korunta
Words On A Page

Apologies if you've already been tagged...

Shame On You, L.A.Times

My local paper, the Los Angeles Times, just fired Robert Scheer, left-wing columnist, and Michael Ramirez, right-wing editorial cartoonist. I have always looked forward to Robert Scheer's take on the state of the union, and read him faithfully for many years. While I'm completely opposed to Michael Ramirez' point of view, I am in awe of his talent as a cartoonist (having some interest in the field myself), and there are so few really good right-wing cartoonists (yes, I'm talking to you, Mallard Fillmore) that to get rid of arguably the best one in the country is crazy. I'm just as angry at Ramirez being let go as I am at Scheer's dismissal. I don't have any links to post about it yet, but there may be some later - I just heard it from my local progressive talk radio host Johnny Wendell. You may be sure I will be cancelling my subscription, effective immediately, and calling the paper to tell them why.

Well, I suppose it's par for the course. The traditional media are going to hell in a handbasket. Toothless and drooling, they are serving up bland, tasteless pabulum, completely devoid of any substance or nutrition whatsoever. Trying to save money by firing talent is killing the goose that lays the golden egg to save on the cost of goose food.

Even though I now get most of my news from the Internet, I still enjoy(ed) reading the newspaper. I am a reader by nature. I like print, paper, something to hold in my hand while I drink my coffee. But so many of my favorite columnists have died or retired; newspapers are not what they were. And I just have to face the sad fact that newspapers are on their way out. Circulation is down all over the country, and the media as an entity are either owned and controlled by a conglomerate which dictates editorial policy or terrified of stepping over the line and offending someone.

What a tragedy.

Interesting Meme

JurassicPork from Yep, another Goddamned blog has tagged me with an interesting meme. The meme is as follows:

Find your 23rd blog post ever. Find the fifth sentence of that 23rd post and tell us what it is just to see how relevant it's remained.

Well, here's mine -

'Fixing facts' so we can attack a country who has not and cannot attack us?

That seems relevant, I'd say.

(check the archives if you think I'm making it up!)

I'll tag the next 5 bloggers tomorrow - I'm following the election results tonight.

Are You Proud Of Me?

When They Say 'Privatization', Run For Your Life!

In recent years, much has been made of the 'waste and fraud' of government programs, and how much better off we'd all be if we privatized them instead. "Run the government like a business", they say. Or, better yet, substitute government programs with private-sector companies. That way, the current 'wisdom' goes, attention will have to be paid to the bottom line, healthy competition will occur, and the 'waste and fraud' will magically disappear.

Right.

And I'm a card-carrying member of the Concerned Women of America.

When I hear the word 'privatization' these days, I start eyeing the exits with my suitcase in my hand. I know that robbery is not far off. And, of course, our Fearful Leader, undaunted by the stinking pit of his approval ratings and the ugly black cloud of indictments and corruption hanging over his Residency, is acting like he has since he was selected - like he's riding the crest of his overwhelming popularity. In his mind, he's the Most Popular and Bestest President Ever, beloved by the masses, with an unlimited mandate to do as he pleases. So far reality has not made the slightest scratch on the plexiglass bubble of optimism that he lives in.

And so he's ready - again - to start pimping his disastrous Social Security destruction scheme, as if Americans have been clamoring for it and he's ready to give the people what they've been begging for. It's easy to understand Bush-speak - whenever he uses the word 'reform', simply substitute the word 'destroy' and you will get the picture.

Are you fricking kidding me? I live in California, and experienced first-hand the benefits of the privatization of the energy companies. Thank you Enron. Because of that, the state of California was ripped off, our governor Gray Davis (who wasn't the greatest but surely no worse than Pete "Kill the Kiddies" Wilson) was yanked out of office and replaced by a Governator who ran on the promise of fiscal prudence and standing up to 'special interests', which sounded good until we realized that what he meant by 'special interests' were teachers, nurses and firefighters. If this is 'business' behavior, you can stick it where the sun don't shine.

The problem with 'running the government like a business' is that business' only purpose is to make a profit. And government's purpose is, not to 'take care of us' as in the so-called 'nanny state' (a misnomer if ever there was one) but to facilitate us taking care of ourselves! These are our tax dollars that we give to the government, and the government is us. Oil companies who make these obscene profits on oil seem to forget that the oil itself is a resource that belongs to the country that it is drilled from. And that means each and every American, each and every Saudi, each and every Iraqi. It is a national resource upon which our very lives depend, since no one has seen fit to make a serious effort to find other, more sustainable power resources. And yet these oil companies act like they fricking invented it.They do not have the right to hold us hostage with our own rope.

When you use business as a model, you forget one very important thing - that salaries are a business liablilty! A business is not in business to take care of anything but the bottom line. That's not a moral judgment, it's a fact. Why should it? A business is not a person; does not need to eat, sleep, care for a family. Its priorities are different than a person's. That's okay. But since the government is supposed to represent the people of the United States, who do, indeed, have these needs, this is a very poor model to use. People's needs are a liability to a business.

As a corollary to that, the demonization of unions has enjoyed a resurgence lately. But if business is to be let alone to protect its own interest, so should the worker. The obvious fact is, the less a company has to pay its workers, the better its bottom line. You can't argue with that. So it is in the company's own best interest to pay as little as it can get away with. Watch a company's stock rise when it lays off workers. And then the workers who are not laid off have to work twice as hard to do the work of the people who have been laid off.

Companies are always defending their huge tax breaks by saying, "We create jobs!" But if the jobs don't pay enough to lead a decent life, what good are they? I often use the example of the 2 employers - one pays one guy $25 an hour, the other pays 5 guys $5 an hour. So does the 2nd employer create more jobs than the 1st? Why not hire 25 guys at $1 an hour! That's 25 jobs right there!

The employee making $25 an hour, though, can at least afford a place to live, to eat, maybe even some discretionary spending, thereby adding to the tax base. The people making $5 an hour will be on welfare. The only chance that a regular worker has is to group together to negotiate a decent salary. Otherwise, it will be against a company's interest to pay it. In a business, some expenses are negotiable, others are not. If you can get a lower price on your inventory from one dealer than another, as a good business person you are obligated to buy from the cheaper wholesaler. An employer is obligated to pay the least in salary that he can get away with. So why is it so bad when people get together in a union to protect their own interests? If the problem is corruption - fine; get rid of it, deal with it. But don't disband the unions themselves. The corporations have massive resources at their disposal to take care of themselves; why not workers?

The demonization of the unions is a deliberate attempt by the corporations and businesses to cut a better deal for themselves. And who can blame them? But don't be fooled. "Right to work" means "Right to take whatever we feel like giving you". You can't count on a corporation to voluntarily give employees what they need. Workers need to be allowed the same rights to protect themselves. This vast inequality between the employers and employees has resulted in the sad living situation we see all around us - massive layoffs, those who still have jobs worked half to death and living in fear of their own layoff, people being forced to train their Bangalore replacement (sort of like being made to dig your own grave before you're executed).

And while we're at it, why not talk about universal health care? That would take one burden off of business' back. I don't think that with the job turnover rate as high as it is, that it makes sense for businesses to pay for health care.

So to have this as a model for our government is insane. When you bring in the profit factor, which is the main goal of a business, you're taking away money from yourself. Government is us taking care of us, not somebody else taking care of us. We need to deal with whatever waste and inefficiency there is within the system, not throw away the system. And, speaking of waste and inefficiency, not to mention outright thievery, what government agency could possibly compete with Halliburton and its subsidiaries on that front? The most wasteful government program pales in comparison.

So don't give me that nonsense about privatization. Let's have more transparent government, more oversight and accountability, a better system of implementation, but keep your greedy, grubby, grabby paws off my tax dollars.

Comics I Wish I Had Done...

Courtesy of the esteemed Princess Sparkle Pony...these are rich!

My Blog Beginnings B.H. (Before Hooterville)

Reading OldWhiteLady's first blog entry, it reminded me of when I first started blogging with a WordPress blog in June of 2004. I had no idea what to write. Then, after I got the hang of it, you couldn't shut me up! Comment spam sort of derailed me from WordPress, and then I found out about Blogger and gave it a try. By that time the Residential Selection had occurred, and I could see it was going to be a political blog, or my head would explode.

So, if you want to check out my early blog ramblings, here they are...

First Hooterville Post - Nov. 16, 2004

Since we've been talking about blog-a-versaries, and OWL put up a link to her first post, how about let's post our first blog entry?

Anyway, here's mine...

'Welcome To Hooterville'!

Like a lot of people I know, I'm a little dazed and disoriented. I didn't expect to be hit quite so hard by the outcome of the election, although I knew I was invested in 2004 like never before. Never before did it seem to me so imperative to change the direction of the country. Never before was it so clear to me that we had not only an incompetent President, but a cruel one, propped up by a vicious and greedy Administration. In the months leading up to the election, I made phone calls, wrote letters, talked to anyone who would listen, supported my candidate. I was heartened to find that there were many others that felt the way I did. Surely, after the Travesty of 2000, things would be different this time around.

Alas, it was not to be.

On the morning of Nov. 4, I woke up in Hooterville.

Hooterville, for those of you who don't remember the '60s TV sitcom "Green Acres", was a small rural town filled with crazy people. Let me take this opportunity to fervently stress that it is not the 'ruralness' (for lack of a better word) that I am referring to here. These same types of characters can be found in virtually any sitcom setting - big city, suburbs, rich, poor - so don't go thinking I'm bashing the 'Heartland' like some over-educated, no-values-having, Cosmopolitan-swilling liberal elitist. It just happened to be the setting for this show. For those still unclear on the concept, think "The Simple Life" meets Franz Kafka. Anyhow, the story is about a New York City lawyer who longs to lead a simpler, more uncomplicated life - to buy a real farm and really farm it; to get 'back to the land'. His ditsy-but-sexy Hungarian wife loves the big city and has no interest in leaving New York. The husband puts his foot down, however, and off they go.

Once they get to bucolic Hooterville, though, nothing is as it seems. Bets are taken by the locals as to how long the greenhorns will last. Right away poor Oliver Douglas has to start dealing with the resident Con-Man-In-Chief, Mr. Haney, who, having begun the show with a swindle, makes it his mission in life to fleece Mr. Douglas at every opportunity while ladling on the country charm.

Everyone on that show, including his wife, was just nuttier than a fruitcake, and yet Mr. Douglas was the one who was unable to prevail. A reasonably sensible man, he stood no chance of success, because he was trying to deal with his neighbors in a rational, logical way. In return, he was constantly lied to, important information that everyone else knew was routinely kept from him, he was tricked into paying for things that already belonged to him. And, of course, always served up with a heapin' helping of hot, steaming corn-pone.

I didn't watch the show all that much growing up because it made me vaguely uncomfortable. It seemed wrong, somehow, that this basically decent guy couldn't get a break, ever. He didn't try to come in to the town and change things; he just wanted to learn how to fit in. He tried to play by the rules, but they kept changing the rules on him. His only fault was not being as crazy as the rest of them.

This is how I've been feeling lately - as if I have somehow wandered onto the set of "Green Acres". The inmates are in charge of the asylum. I've put up this blog in order to try and sort out what the hell happened, what the hell's going on now, and what the hell to do next!

I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can!

Who Else Has a November Blog-i-versary?

I know that OldWhiteLady - uh, I mean America-Hating Traitor - Blue Gal and I have one-year blog anniversaries coming up this month. I also realized that there must be many people who started their blogs for the same reason I did - in a reaction to the 2004 Residential Selection.

So if you have one in November, let me know and we'll have a Blog Party! My date is the 16th.