Super Tuesday

tomorrow is Super Tuesday in nearly half the U.S. That all I'm going to say about that...

Metamorphasis and "20 Things you have to believe to be a Republican"

“If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.” – Winston Churchill

I firmly believe that Suits and Republicans a like are not born, they are made by the cruelty of life. That being said, I don’t know where I went wrong, but I’m switching sides. I’m becoming a game-playing suit.

Since the promotion, I’ve learned a few things about corporate side, and after the election, I learned more about life and how it goes.

My father had many a quote growing up but one I had to learn the hard way was “No one is going to come knock on our door and give you a break because you’re a nice guy.” God was he right. Ironic that not listening to that very advice was his undoing but digression is boring, albeit necessary.

When I came into this position, I was the good catholic boy who respected his elders and attempted to be civilized and diplomatic in all my relations. I found out that those who take the most breaks get promoted.

I don’t have feelings for people any more. I spend 12 hour days at work, and I make it my personal mission to get companies memberships who blew me off at first.

Yesterday I found a way to get more money from a Senior Citizens Home under the guise of “helping both of us.” I’m not saying it won’t, but it will assuredly benefit me.

In the last 6 months I burned just about every bridge I had with friends that I could, and not for any reason either, I just…I don’t know I gave up.

With regard to friends, I was always a moving target. The friends I keep are the ones who understand that I vanish for 6 months for no real reason and I’ll probably come back. No excuses, I’m just weird and I can’t bring myself to change. Its too visible that I’d rather be elsewhere and I guess I regard that as more disrespectful than disappearing.

And sometimes its just that I can’t deal with getting the cuffs of my jeans wet again. Also, I forget all my plans, so I bought a desk calendar but I don’t have one for my social life.

I’m remorseless too. I haven’t told myself I don’t care. Its just not there. I don’t know its gone. I like people, and I have no animosity, nothing happened, but its like, I don’t know, I just don’t have that component.

Once in psych class I read about a woman who had anger issues so they removed that part of her brain. She had no ability to get aggressive any longer. I find that nothing short of horrifying but I think its happened to me.

I think I’ve become a shill, and thankfully my company works for a societal good, but otherwise, I’m no better than oil magnates, I’m just less wealthy with more ambition. Congress won’t give me tax relief so I can drill. I make my own breaks. And if this is what it must take, I guess subconsciously so be it.

All my theories sound like excuses so I’ll save them for next time. Take heart that I’m still not a republican... because to become one would mean I believe that:

1. Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you’re a conservative radio host. Then it’s an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.

2. The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

3. Government should relax regulation of Big Business and Big Money but crack down on individuals who use marijuana to relieve the pain of illness.

4. “Standing Tall for America” means firing your workers and moving their jobs to India.

5. A woman can’t be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multinational corporations can make decisions affecting all humankind without regulation.

6. Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

7. The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans’ benefits and combat pay.

8. Group sex and drug use are degenerate sins unless you someday run for governor of California as a Republican.

9. If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won’t have sex.

10. A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our longtime allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

11. HMOs and insurance companies have the interest of the public at heart.

12. Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.

13. Global warming and tobacco’s link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

14. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush’s daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a “we can’t find Bin Laden” diversion.

15. A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is a solid defense policy.

16. Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

17. The public has a right to know about Hillary’s cattle trades, but George Bush’s driving record is none of our business.

18. You support states’ rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they have a right to adopt.

19. What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the 1980s is irrelevant.

20. Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist; but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

Halfassed and Hurried

I would find it irrevocable fact that my foolish days where behind me had it not been for a nagging pester, and an all too coincidental stumbling upon assorted pictures and artifacts, leading me to second guess my assertions.

Maybe nicole was right, maybe I do fall in and out of love to fast. Or maybe I am a selfish scumbag. both?

Regardless, I feel like one. Are relationships the Disney event their made out to be?

Sometimes I like to pretend i'm hunter s. thompson in a less druggy phase of my life. The irrational decision making, the wild sense of adventure. The booze.

Do you think writers can ever marry? We're a flighty non-linear mess and would infidelity make it more romantic, for every relationship? Maybe the only Disney I'm seeing is the torrid separation and the carnal return.

I can't write to save my life today, besides I'm anxious. The cable guy is coming and I won't have to steal the internet anymore. Vladimir Putin was TIME's man of the year. Nicholas Sarkozy is getting married again. The world is turning bitter and the orange in the tropical sky lines might be the only young burning passion left in the developed world.

You all should come check out this new apartment. I have gin...

Home?

Chris Matthews will know my wrath.

As posted in, and I can't beleive I'm writing this, The Boston Herald:

How was Hillary Clinton able pull off the biggest upset in New England since Bill Belichick and the Patriots [team stats] lost to, well, anybody? Theories abound.

Some give credit to Clinton’s superior ground game, grinding out votes through house-to-house campaigning. Others suggest Clinton’s “cry me a river” routine reached the Dr. Phil demographic and rallied the sisters to her side.

And then there’s superpundit Chris Matthews’ theory that, in New Hampshire, it was Barack Obama vs. Bull Connor.

Matthews told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough that white New Hampshire Democrats lied to pollsters about supporting Obama because they are bigots who never had any intention of voting for a black man.

“You remember the Lone Ranger and Tonto?” Matthews asked. “I think paleface speak with forked tongue.”

So much for that ethnic sensitivity training.

“I thought this was over. I thought it ended with ‘macaca,’ ” Matthews screeched, referring to an alleged racial slur made by former Virginia Sen. George Allen.

“I thought white voters stopped being what they didn’t want to be. You know what it tells me? White people aren’t proud of who they are.”

When Scarborough questioned whether his complaints might be more appropriate to the South than New England, an exasperated Matthews replied “Boston? BOSTON?” - implying that Beantown’s bigotry is so well established that local stores sell bed sheets with the eyeholes already cut.

“There’s a different kind of prejudice in the North than in the South. It may not be ‘I think I’m better than you,’ but it might be ‘I don’t want to live next door to you.’ ”

Got that, you New Hampshire bigots? You didn’t vote for Obama because you feared he’d start dating your sister.

Matthews isn’t alone. Since the Clinton comeback, pundits have been talking endlessly about the so-called “Bradley Effect,” named after black Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley who, running for governor in 1982, had a slight lead in pre-election polls over his white Republican foe but ended up losing a close race.

This theory is particularly popular among pollsters who just earned hundreds of thousands of dollars getting the New Hampshire results completely wrong and now have to explain it to their clients.

“Yeah, it wasn’t our lousy model. It was the KKK!”

ABC’s head pollster Gary Langer rejects the Bradley Effect, noting that recent polling involving black candidates has been solid. So what happened in New Hampshire?

“The polls may have been inaccurate because of bad modeling, compromised sampling or simply an overabundance of enthusiasm for Obama on the heels of his Iowa victory that led his would-be supporters to overstate their propensity to turn out,” says Langer.

In other words, there is no reason to believe that racism is the problem. And yet the first assumption of arrogant media morons like Matthews is to declare that New Hampshire voters are just bad people.

This is the underlying attitude of the media elites toward the rest of us. Vote against Hillary and you obviously have issues with women. Don’t like John “Hug an Illegal” McCain? You’re a xenophobic nut.

Vote against Obama? Well, you know how they are up in New England.

Please. Isn’t it possible for a voter - even an evil, white male one - to come to the rational conclusion that Barack Obama’s first executive position shouldn’t be one that involves the ability to launch nuclear weapons?

No. You, the Democrats of New Hampshire - correction, make that “overwhelmingly white New Hampshire” - are instant suspects. Polls can’t be wrong. Pundits can’t be wrong. And of course Chris Matthews can never be wrong.

So there must be something wrong with you.

But Wait, theres more. Boston has long been labeled a racist city, and I'm never really sure why. Prior to my existance, we had a bussing issue. I'm going to google it after this but the 70's weren't yesterday, the changing price line has gentrified the city to no end leaving anything that might have still carried that 1970's sentiment scattered and sparse in the suburbs at best. Grahm who I go back and forth on, called into his Collegues show (Jay Severin) to explain further that the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts elected a black governor (of which there have been, what 2?). We sent a black man tot he senate in the 60's, our junior senator endorsed Obama over his former running mate and we're still racist. We're the only state that has marrige equality, and one of our cities (a city I happen to be from), Taunton, MA was the first in the country to be settled by a woman.

Somehow Massachusetts is one giant pack of prejudicial hatemongers.

And if its not out of line, will someone explain to me how the way New Hampshire votes is in anyway reflective of the citizenry of Massachusetts?

Tell Chris Matthews to go fuck himself. I just finished up writing about how we get bashed more than anyone else, and now I'm starting to think bashing should be read as persecuted.

Massachusetts is one of the highest grossing states in the union, and for those who grasp that tax code, it means we support a number of states who show up in the red when budget time comes around. Yes, thats what federal txes are for, no its not from welfare.

We were driving the the Blue Ridge Mountains this Labor Day weekend and Amanda asked me "do you think the rest of the country is resentful of our license plate?"

"what? why?"

"Well 'the spirit of america' you know I mean, do you think the heartland thinks they are, the farmers and whatnot?"

"The farmers? hey man, all I know is without our revolution that we started by caffinating our own harbor, there wouldn't be any goddamned farmers out in the midwest. Without the liberal elites Manifest Destiny they'd be trying to figure out what berries weren't posionous in the ticket of what would otherwise be known as Louisiana. Nothing against the farmers, but we didn't drive off the british with our corn fields and tractors"

The rest of the country is getting a little fresh, and teething or not west coast, theres no reason to bite the hand that feeds. This region needs to strap on its boots and give the loud mouth moral-elities a salty taste of its fucking backhand.

Anyways...and now for something completly different:

"If I had my druthers"

Meaning

If I had my preference.

Origin

This is an American phrase and not used widely elsewhere. People elsewhere in the world might want to know what druthers are, as the phrase conveys otherwise. Druthers is a shortening of 'would rathers'. The phrase originated in the late 19th century and is first cited in the January 1870 edition of Overland monthly and Out West magazine, in a story called Centrepole Bill, by George F. Emery:

"If I was a youngster, I 'drather set up in any perfession but a circus-driver, but a man can't always have his 'drathers."

Druthers, as opposed to its earlier variant drathers, is traced back to 1876 in Dialect Notes:

"Bein's I caint have my druthers an' set still, I cal'late I'd better pearten up an' go 'long."

Long Way Gone? No. Real Gone? Yes.

A woman pulled out in front of me today, in a blue bug, with a "we vote pro-life" sticker, and behind it there was an american flag waving upward and epically. She did 20 mph until I changed lanes.

I thought "you know sometimes pro-life people are the best pro-choice argument."

Then the word "choice" hit me and I thought "man those paleoliberals" were brilliant folks, but the hippies were all for vague generalities and went for the "you know people should just not be dicks man, and like just get along and love each other and stuff." And I think when that was said you could hear 10,000 would be democrats vote for Richard Nixon.

I'd have voted for Richard Nixon by the way and I still would. To me, he's behind Teddy Roosevelt for the best President of this century....or that century.

Think about this though, for all that democrats say that republicans are a contradicting lot (and the neo-cons are) they rarely use that logic against them.

For every vote against the war, and funding that earns them a "why do you hate the troops?"

Why don't we, for every pro-lifer, give them a "why are you such a big government, UN-lover?"

Same with the patriot act.

I think too many democrats think their above the righteous fury of the other side. Be civil at your own peril I say.

And Speaking of which, I was listening to "on point" with Tom Ashbrook the other day and a "humorist" which god knows how you get that title, named Roy Blunt Junior was on speaking about the divide in the country of the north and south. How when he read the New Yorker as a young man it was a revelation. There was no civil war or lynching’s he said.

but the length of the interview that i heard had him say that, in only subtle fashions, the south was the more desireable place, even if its bogged down with its own problems.

I'm bias, I love New England. And I do not accept that New Englanders are square-glass wearing, Jazz aficionados that are walking around with Doolitte playing on their iPod. They don't scoff at conservative opinions, they don't all read Dostoevsky and drink at tealuxe. We're not godless heathens that are stuffy and no fun.

I'm still at a loss as to why the country doesn't know this, i'm still at a loss as to why we're the most prejudiced region in the country. I don't know why the country laughs and agree's when George Bush says "what do you expect from a Senator from Massachusetts."

Its a bit unsettling to see something known and beloved trashed by an ignorant, oppressive and moralistic group of over prideful southerners.

Long Way Gone? No. Real Gone? Yes.

A woman pulled out in front of me today, in a blue bug, with a "we vote pro-life" sticker, and behind it there was an american flag waving upward and epiclly. She did 20 mph until I changed lanes.

I thought "you know sometimes pro-life people are the best pro-choice argument."

Then the word "choice" hit me and I thought "man those paleoliberals" were brilliant folks, but the hippies were all for vauge generalities and went for the "you know people should just not be dicks man, and like just get along and love each other and stuff." And I think when that was said you could hear 10,000 would be democrats vote for richard nixon.

I'd have voted for richard nixon by the way and I still would. To me, he's behind Teddy Rosevelt for the best President of this century....or that century.

Think about this though, for all that democrats say that republicans are a contradicting lot (and the neo-cons are) they rarely use that logic against them.

For every vote against the war, and funding that earns them a "why do you hate the troops?"

Why don't we, for every pro-lifer, give them a "why are you such a big government, UN-lover?"

Same with the patriot act.

I think too many democrats think their above the righteous fury of the other side. Be civil at your own peril I say.

And Speaking of which, I was listening to "on point" with Tom Ashbrook the other day and a "humorist" which god knows how you get that title, named Roy Blunt Junior was on speaking about the divide in the country of the north and south. How when he read the New Yorker as a young man it was a revelation. There was no civil war or lynchings he said.

but the length of the interview that i heard had him say that, in only subtle fashions, the south was the more desireable place, even if its bogged down with its own problems.

I'm bias, I love New England. And I do not accept that New Englanders are square-glass wearing, Jazz officinados that are walking around with Doolitte playing on their iPod. They don't scoff at conservative opinions, they don't all read Dostoevskyand drink at tealuxe. We're not godless heathens that are stuffy and no fun.

I'm still at a loss as to why the country doesn't know this, i'm still at a loss as to why we're the most prejudiced regeoin in the country. I don't know why the country laughs and agree's when Goerge Bush says "what do you expect from a Senator from Massachusetts."

Its a bit unsettleing to see something known and beloved trashed by an ignorant, oppressive and moralistic group of over prideful southerners.