I’m okay guys. I wasn’t evacuated. My home is still there.
This photo is of the smoke contrasting with the smog.
Makes your sinuses hurt just looking at it.
On October 25, 2007,
in General Announcements,
by Tina Dupuy
On October 15, 2007,
in Favorites, Hey Look, I'm a Writer,
by Tina Dupuy
I won first place in the BrooWaha writing contest! I’m honored – I’m humbled. I’m horrible at this kind of stuff. I’m fighting the urge to make Marrissa Tomei jokes in the comments section.
Anyway, here is a quote from one of the judges:
” Easy to relate to the writer. [S]he takes you into a situation that most people try to avoid — but because [s]he makes fun of it — you know [s]he isn’t crazy h[er]self…”- David Cohn, Editor at NewAssignment.Net
Because she makes fun of it – you know she isn’t crazy herself? HA! If ONLY it were that easy.
Thanks all!
This is cross posted at Huffington Post:
We’re doing well as a country when the Religious Right is unhappy. When James Dobson and Pat Robertson are upset, the canary is alive in the coal mine!
It’s like – look at us, we’re still a democratic nation! The Ten Commandments haven’t replaced the Bill of Rights. Evolution is still being mentioned in schools. Planned Parenthoods haven’t been completely outlawed. And it’s STILL against the law to stone homosexuals, pornographers and uppity women (pending a two-thirds majority vote in Congress).
I’m no pollster – but I am willing to bet that there is a big chunk of folks who think that the Puritans and the Founding Fathers were the same people. Yes, they argue, the group of people that branded a ‘H’ on the cheeks of accused heretics were the same people responsible for the phrase ‘freedom of speech’.
But that’s what the Religious Right wants us to believe. It gives them a sense of entitlement. They’d have us assume a bunch of pious, simple folks clad in wool and buckles made their way across the Atlantic – plagiarized the chapter in the Bible about forming a republic, called it The U.S. Constitution and then had July 4th fireworks.
The Puritan rule – early 1600’s, the Founding of the United States of America – late 1700’s. There is less time between the Lewis and Clark expedition and Sputnik.
John McCain now famously told Beliefnet that the United States is a Christian nation. Pundits and preachers alike parrot that this country was founded in religion. It’s a nifty little sound bite.
The politically ravenous use it as a ruse. The tale is that in the ‘olden days’ things were somehow better than they are now. More innocent. Free of New Ageism’s tolerance and dreaded hate crime bills. If we can just go back to that time – if we can just get back to the time when we were more devout – then we’ll all be better off. It’s elusive, but just around the corner.
It’s a fabrication that an exclusively religious – peaceful and ultimately blissful era ever existed. It can’t happen ‘again’, because it never happened in the first place. The Puritans came to this land to practice THEIR religion without being persecuted and (at least in the Boston colony) quickly persecuted those who didn’t practice their religion. Quakers were hanged and tortured for blasphemy. Native Americans were killed for being heathens. And sassers, gossipers and adulterers got their ears cropped or their noses split.
Looking back to colonial days for religious precedent is like looking back at the Black Plague for health care reform.
But for the politically ravenous, selling the idea that a Christian state is a birthright and a good idea – gets the untaxed revenue flowing. Revising history and bleaching out some of the objectionable stains makes a new sense of purpose by making, well – ‘new sense‘!
There is the idea that American Christian’s are right and entitled “because we were here first!”
Long SIGH.
So when Christian Conservative leaders threaten to support a third-party candidate because they don’t like Republican frontrunner Rudy Giuliani, it’s a relief.
It’s like when Rick Santorum failed to get re-elected; it proved that we can come back from the brink of theocracy. And yes, we are having an ‘ideological struggle’ in the Middle East and that kind of seems like a different way of saying ‘holy war’, but if James Dobson doesn’t see any of the GOP candidates as being his future lap dog – there’s hope.
On October 8, 2007,
in Hey Look, I'm a Writer, Topical Jokes Graveyard,
by Tina Dupuy
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox claims George W. Bush is afraid of horses. Bush’s Crawford, Texas, ranch is reportedly “equestrian-free.” It’s a little shocking. It’s kind of funny. But more than that it adds to my theory that Bush has contempt for anything smart and hardworking (see Valerie Plame and U.S. Armed Forces).
Really? He pretends to be a cowboy, and he doesn’t like horses? I am deathly afraid of monkeys. I am. They’re gross. But you don’t see me dressing up like Tarzan as part of my public persona.
But maybe that’s how you get to be the Decider. Like WWF wrestling, you have to choose a character for theatrics. “Sunday Night – the Decider meets his arch nemesis – The Inquisitor! In a smack down of biblical proportions!”
So in the contest to be the next Decider – the tights are pulled on, and we’re ready to rumble! The latest contender is Fred Dalton Thompson. His character? Multi-millionaire former lobbyist, Hollywood actor? Naw, he’s an unassuming Southern bumpkin lawyer. It’s Ben Matlock – played by Fred Thompson!
Now it’s going to get interesting! And when has hype ever been wrong?
Thompson played a committed, competent yet tough public servant on television‘s Law and Order. He can do this. He can read the script and be convincing. That’s all we need in the ring.
When Thompson announced his candidacy on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, it was like time stood still. Really. I think time actually stood still.
“It was about as riveting as a steel worker on strike,” as Matlock might say as he was driving a pick-up truck on his way to fetch some fried chicken and biscuits.
Ahem. Thompson’s real political record is as follows: He won a special election seat for the Senate in Tennessee in 1994 and was then reelected in 1996. He was the alleged ’down to earth’ candidate that drove a now infamous red pick up truck along the campaign trail.
The Washington Post reported that his red pick-up truck was leased.
He didn’t BUY it – but the voters did!
When Thompson doesn’t know something on the campaign trail, he uses, “I can’t pass judgment.” “They were good people.” “We can’t take anything off the table.” And then there are times when he just flat out states that he doesn’t know. Questions on anything specific are all curve balls to him. He said he couldn’t recall the details about the Terri Schiavo because it was ’going back in history.’
I thought only tweens considered 2005 ’back in history.’
While in Clarksville, Tennessee, The Jackson Sun quoted Thompson saying the US is “on a good course” in Iraq.
On a good course? Maybe that’s ‘going back in history’. Like to 1991.
But it‘s been working. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. So we don’t have to know either. And that has made him tied for second place with McCain in some polls. I think that’s the definition of ‘failing up.’
Fred Thompson is a skillful producer of white noise. It’s soothing once you get used to it. And it frightens me to think that’s enough of a qualification to be the next president of the United States.
Because with his All American story of coming from nothing and becoming a television star – he just plum picked himself up by his bootstraps and accidentally stumbled on power, money and fame – he’s like a Norman Rockwell painting.
If there was a Norman Rockwell painting of a simple farmer and his trophy wife.
There’s just something about that twang. “I’m just a simple Southern Lawyer.” It makes people want to trust him. Colonel Sanders won’t do nothing that’s bad for you. Foghorn Leghorn don’t mean no harm. Matlock has got it all figured out. Aw, shucks, that’s why you should vote for him.
Like politics, professional wrestling is fake. But like we have seen with Benoit, the wrestler who killed his family and then himself – real people can actually get hurt.
With a botched trillion dollar vanity project known as the Iraq War being dropped in the lap of whomever is the next president, it’s time to end the make-believe. We’re in real trouble.