6, 8, 10

6 years, 8 months and 10 days.

In that short time, my country has become unrecognizable. It doesn't take long for a despot with unlimited wealth, evil intent, amoral comrades, subprime intelligence and unitary executive powers to bring a country to ruin.

Fed lies, fast food, religious zealotry, constant (televised and print) programming, approved hatred, half-witted self-congratulatory humor and meaningless hush money, the populace is lulled into a false security. Wave a flag, put a yellow ribbon on your car, wear a lapel pin, praise Jesus and George, and you're a patriotic American. It's easy. It feels safe. Best of all, you don't have to think, just beLIEve.

Go shop- that's what George told us to do! Wal-Mart's full of shit you can afford! Never mind that the humans who made whatever that is in your hand are living on 32 cents an hour, that children made it, that by buying that you're sponsoring a corrupt system and putting the American working class into the Welfare system. You want it, it's cheap, buy it! You can bitch about the lazy folks on Welfare later- an extra bonus round! Why- if they'd just worked harder, been smarter, stayed married, hadn't let themselves get sick- if they'd gone to church and prayed! They've made their beds, it ain't your fault! Those unions were a bunch of mafia crooks! It's their own damn fault if they can't make it in God's country. They just didn't try! What did those college degrees get them anyway? What'd they think, they could get a cushy teaching union job so we'd have to pay for them all their lives!? They just didn't have the guts to go out and work for a living! To Hell with them- let them live under bridges! There aren't any Vets there; we take care of our boys! That's as much a crock as the so-called AlGoreithm of Global Warming and Climate Change! It's all the fault of those Muslim Jihad crazy bastards and the bleeding heart Liberal Commies anyway! They're destroying our way of life with that Gay marriage shit and rap music. This country's just like Sodom and Gommorrah, read your Bible! Jesus said he came with a sword!

Any of that sound familiar? Thought so. It's all you've heard for, oh, about 26 years. But the full agenda has been beaten into your TV'd brain nonstop for 6 years, 8 months and 10 days. Is there any part of you that remembers how it was before this? Do you remember when you had a sense of fairness and compassion? When it mattered to you how your neighbor was doing? Remember those days? When you wouldn't buy imported crap because you knew it couldn't be fixed if it broke, and there was somebody who could repair things, but not crap? Remember getting new soles on your shoes, and they were better than when you first bought them? Remember how much something meant to you because you saved for it and looked forward to buying without endless mail asking for more money? Remember how people resisted buying foreign cars, because you were putting Americans out of work if you did? Remember when what you believed for religion was your own business and considered rude to ask of others, much less judge them for it? Remember learning and reminding yourself that you can't judge a book by its cover? That fancy clothes were more often the attire of the untrustworthy? That super-skinny people were that way because they were poor, and it was your obligation to give them food? Remember when the National Enquirer and the Star came out and were laughed at as rags not worth your money? Remember when the NY Times was a bastion of fact and straight story, and therefore respectable? When Chet and David and Walter gave the news, mostly dry truth of what was happening, without slant and opinion?

It's all gone. Go shop for your Chinese-made, lead painted affordable plastic shoes. There's nothing left to see here.

The Indecent, Rovian, Disgusting Obama Smear

Today I received an email from my cousin in Florida's wife. Titled "something of interest", I opened it thru endless attachments with hundreds of email addys. It begins with a snapshot of a a smiling black woman pointing to an Obama 08 sticker, claiming this woman is his grandmother. It then goes on thru many snapshots of "Obama's family in Kenya" with paragraphs under each. In these paragraphs, it is claimed that Obama was illegitimate, that his late father was a drunk and drug addict, that his African relatives are all ne'er-do-wells, that his uncle named his son after Fidel Castro, that his family are radical militant Muslims, that Obama disrespected his maternal grandparents by calling them "white folk" and that he changed his name to Barack Hussein Obama. I lit into my cousin's wife over it. But judging by the volume of email addys, this must be everywhere. How entirely shameful.

I deleted it in disgust. I've asked her to send it to me again for autopsy.

The Vindication of Marge

Marge was my mother. All of our lives, my brothers and I heard that we were part American Indian. She was orphaned during the Depression, and for all these years we had no traces of her family to either prove or disprove her story.

Then along comes my nephew's wife, a rabid genealogist. For the past few years she's doggedly pursued the threads of the Hendrickson line. She really is a very determined woman. I'd given up, my brothers had lost interest. But out of nowhere, Lisa managed to find some member of the family who had extensive info, and voila! Marge wasn't full of shit!

Marge's father's father's mother was a Mohawk. Her Christian name was Mary Catherine. She died by slipping off a bridge and drowning. As scant as that info is, it's more than we've ever had. It explains a lot. But most of all, it proves that our mother wasn't lying. That's really priceless. Though Marge isn't here to enjoy our discovery, she's probably somewhere waiting to say, "See? I told you so," to each of us who pooh-poohed her. So Happy Mother's Day, Ma. I know you're enjoying this one. You've got Lisa to thank, after you gloat over the rest of us.