Why Does Sarah Palin Hate the American Soldier?

The last time I noticed Moosepants Barbie holding forth in public, she was chastising The Media. Sing along; you know the words by now.

So how about in honor of the American soldier, ya quit makin' things up?

Because that is a job that, apparently, is Sarah Palin's and Sarah Palin's alone. Sarah Palin also wants you to leave her kids alone, and the new Alaska governor's kids alone, because no one trots out Sarah Palin's kids as cheap political props except Sarah Palin. Particularly when she's busy makin' things up that are so brazenly untrue and fear-mongering that even our jaded jaw dropped through the floor this morning upon reading her very thoughtful thoughts on healthcare reform:

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care," the former Republican vice presidential candidate wrote.

"Such a system is downright evil," Palin wrote on her page, which has nearly 700,000 supporters.

I am Sarah Palin! And my children are off-limits! By the way! Did you know Obama wants to kill my special-needs baby, Trig? Yeah, that one over there. No, on the right. That's Trig, and he is special-needs! And you media goons need to stop talking about him. Why is the media always talking about him? Trig, I mean, the special-needs one. Oh, and Obama's evil, and you guys in the media like make shit up all the time, and that's why I didn't quit being governor but just decided to not be governor any more in case there might have been a lame duck thing goin' on a couple years down the long long Arctic road with cold and geese and sourdoughs. And quit talkin' about my kids, one of which is special-needs, and is named Trig, that's him over there, and Obama wants to kill him! Socialism! Shut up and leave me alone already! Would you like to be my Facebook friend?

*pant pant* Yeah, anyway, uh, no. No "death panels" or "encouraged euthanasia" are in the offing, unless by "euthanasia" you mean "Medicare coverage for end-of-life counseling when the patient desires it."

The allegation appears to be based on a provision of the House bill that would require Medicare to pay for end-of-life counseling sessions, on a voluntary basis, for beneficiaries who want the service. Medicare already covers hospice care. And legislation passed by Congress in 1990 requires that patients be asked if they have a living will.

Obama addressed the controversy during a July 28 AARP-sponsored town hall.

"Nobody is going to be forcing you to make a set of decisions on end-of-life care based on some bureaucratic law in Washington," he said.

Palin's conflation of providing information to a patient with forcing procedures on them is, of course, a complete reflection of the anti-abortion mindset that would love to prevent doctors from giving pregnant women accurate information about abortion, or from giving teenagers information about contraception. And in this instance that mindset is taken to a maniacal extreme.

A government-funded healthcare plan providing coverage for an hour or two with a counselor going over a living will and explaining all the options falling on the continuum between extreme life-maintaining measures and a DNR order? Sarah Palin has transmogrified that into a horrific scene of old folks and developmentally disabled babies shuffling up to a star chamber tribunal to plead for their lives, probably getting cricks in their necks as a result of peering up at the imposing dais, and being summarily denied and executed on the spot.

And 700,000 people are lapping it up on Facebook and being stirred into a frothy frenzy they're ready to unleash on their representatives and anyone who has the misfortune to show up at the same town hall meeting they do. Stirred up by lies, shrieking about euthanasia, screaming NaziNaziNazi at the tops of their lungs, doing their best to derail a reform process that can only help them and the tens of millions of other people in the country who can't afford healthcare.

Because Sarah Palin won't quit makin' stuff up.

Also, These People Are Insane.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

As much as my right-wing brother rails against the goddamn hippie liberals in Boulder who can't--he says--string together three words of original thought explaining to him why they have the political beliefs they do, I have yet to hear a peep from him condemning these right-wing yahoos who flood town hall meetings with the slogans and chants supplied to them by insurance industry astroturf farmers. Or about the people who scream about "government healthcare" in between their Medicare-provided physician visits. Can I have five words of my own? These. People. Are. Fucking. Insane.

Because Predictability Is Comforting

Sonia Sotomayor sailed through the Senate confirmation, with neither help nor consequence from any but nine Republican senators (neither of which belonged to Arizona's stellar brace of senior representation), and the GOP of course immediately began crowing that this was, in fact, a victory. No, not for her--for them.

Although the 68 to 31 vote was a GOP defeat, Republicans contended that they had succeeded at framing the confirmation debate in a way that could influence Obama's future nominations throughout the federal judiciary, including to the Supreme Court if vacancies arise.

In particular, Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said that Sotomayor and Democratic senators had discarded a standard that Obama and left-leaning legal thinkers have held out: the idea that judges should be guided, in part, by empathy. If Obama nominates other people to courts who believe in that idea, Sessions said, "I don't think that would play well. . . . It could hurt this administration in other areas."

Okay, the administration is now officially On Notice that word choice will be a really important factor in future nominations, and hopefully will remember not to reference the value of a minority nom's life experience as, you know, a minority in America in crafting a court that moves just a smidgen closer to reflecting the demographics of, you know, America rather than the membership list of Augusta National circa 1972.

Anyway, perhaps as befits a double Oh Fuck No vote from our senators, the comments on the Daily Star Sotomayor story are predictably fragrant. I'll pick two from a really strong field:

I will not rest until we have a justice with Peyronie's disease on the Supreme Court, because until then, all men who suffer from painful misangulated erections will continue be victims of discrimination and hate.

Hey, it makes as much sense as saying we have to have a Latina Chick who self proclaims herself smarter than white men on the court.

~~~~~~~~~~

AMERICA's FIRST RACIST SUPREME COURT JUSTICE.

Roger B. Taney and Henry Billings Brown clearly don't count as racist justices, see, because they were white men. And, as Jeff Sessions and Jon Kyl and Chuck Grassley and John Cornyn definitively cleared up for us during their Judicial Committee questioning, white men have neither race nor gender, and so can't possibly have a biased bone in their bodies. Also, first guy? Leeeeeetle too much self-advertisement, there. Good luck with your Craigslist postings, and here's hoping you don't use "Onan T." as a handle over there too.

In Which Our Productivity Falters

The breaking news e-mail from CNN rolls in, dutifully announcing Sotomayor's confirmation. My officemate wonders if John McCain indeed voted no, and I spend about a minute Googling to no avail, hampered somewhat by a slow connection and more by the assumption that this is something we probably don't need the internet to confirm. It takes a while and I get no answers. Oh, I just wondered if you'd seen the roll call yet, she apologizes, I didn't mean to interrupt your work.

My work.

Heh.

I have been paralyzed for a long time now, days, at least, managing to drag a sentence here, a paragraph there out of my brain, distracted by something I can't quite catch a glimpse of except from the corner of my eye. It's an elusive ennui, sometimes taking the guise of anxiety over my son's looming adulthood and moving away, sometimes masquerading as an utter lack of confidence in my professional abilities, from time to time an aching shoulder, a sore knee, a dumpy visage in the mirror. It's all of these things and none of them. I am running uphill in sand, tethered by an elastic band that allows just enough progress to pique some hopeful interest before snapping the whole situation down to the bottom again.

I am supposed to be an expert of arcana. Vacation was supposed to rejevante me. I was supposed to be better than this. I hope my boss doesn't notice.

On, Wisconsin

A friend helpfully alerted me to goings-on in Wisconsin, a state I love for its fishing, camping, Butterburgers^TM, kringle, tongue-twisting place names, and all-consuming passion for Packers and cheese, but which passed a particularly nasty marriage amendment forbidding official recognition of any same-sex marriage or approximation thereof in 2006. In response to the amendment, the state legislature passed a domestic partnership law that went into effect this morning. The full details are available here, but the highlights include inheritance from a deceased partner, certain protections against creditors, immunity from testifying against a partner, transfer of boat titles without a fee (very important in Wisconsin!), and the all-important hospital visitation, admissions, record access, and consent rights.

Predictably, the Alliance Defense Fund has their cheese curds in a knot.

"You can’t dispute that the state is creating a legal status. The state is creating an institution which is similar in its design to marriage, and that is exactly what the people of Wisconsin voted on and intended to prevent by passing the Wisconsin Marriage Amendment,” [ADF senior legal counsel Brian] Raum said.

Because gay people should die alone and afraid, and then have their blood relatives split up all their stuff. Just like Jesus wants. Or something.

Opponents say that the new domestic partnership classification offers nothing that can’t be accomplished by some other legal means. If couples want to, for instance, make sure that their property is transferred, they can create a will, Raum said.

No word on the ADF's stance on requiring all partnered couples, including straight ones, to draw up their own contracts specifying rights and responsibilities rather than forcing the state to grant them under the blanket status "married." Their argument would seem to fairly apparently boil down to forcing all people to structure the specifics of their relationships by "some other legal means" when those legal means are available. Because if they're going to shrug and tell the gays to just go off and draw up contracts covering every possible contingency, it can't be that big a deal, can it?

Tell you what, Brian--go out and hire lawyers to write and file the paperwork simulating as many of the 200 state and 1,100 federal rights and responsibilities you got the second your marriage license was notarized, and get back to me with how much that costs in money and time. I'm betting that even with the Lawyer Club discount, it's pretty steep. Then try to tell me with a straight face that a DP classification doesn't make any difference at all. No, really, go ahead. I've got all day here.

The ADF's challenge to the registry law is bobbing along in the Wisconsin Supreme Court system, possibly bumping hulls with the challenge to the original marriage amendment that is somewhere in those same waters. No idea yet on what the schedule is looking like for either one.

Boltgrilling

It is still hotter than fuck in Tucson, but once the sun dips below the neighbor's hated salt cedars (wretched trees, but hey, they're shady), it's just barely tolerably not too hot to fire up the Char-Griller. The Char-Griller is one of the finest pieces of equipment ever invented and certainly the best thing to come out of Georgia since Jimmy Carter's post-presidential reinvention of self.












Smoke, fire, nom.

The conundrum this grill has posed for me in the 11 months I've owned it is how to efficiently exploit its, well, killer efficiency. Do up a couple steaks and a pile of chicken and a bushel of vegetables, close it up, and the damn thing is still registering at 250 a couple of hours later. Letting all those beautiful coals go to waste feels shameful. I've gotten over it in the past by wrapping up a roast in foil and setting it on the grate for a few hours, which works nicely, but tonight I found something more immediately satisfying, lack of leftovers be damned: fruit! Hot fruit! Hot grilled with just enough butter to keep it from sticking and just enough brown sugar to make it gooey fruit!

Forthwith, Boltgirl's Hot Hot Hot Fruit on Fire:

Make sure your coals are glowing at about 300-325 degrees. Locate some medium-ripe but reasonably firm bananas or peaches, preferably both. Slice in half, lengthwise for the bananas and however makes sense for the peaches. I used Saturn peaches, the little flat ones, and sliced them horizontally. Ditch the pits and banana peels, BTW. Lightly brush the cut sides with soft butter and sprinkle with brown sugar, and mush around to make a goo. Spray the grill grates with nonstick spray stuff and set the fruit on, butter-goo cut side up, and close the lid. After two minutes, flip the fruit to butter-goo side down, close the lid again, and grill two more minutes. Remove with a spatula, since the bananas will be soft, and chop and drop over vanilla ice cream.

The ice cream part is pure fantasy at this point, since I didn't have any on hand tonight, but it would have been nice. A touch of cinnamon or cardomom mixed with the sugar and butter would also be good, or maybe cayenne if you want to get all Southwesty on me.

Adventures in Adorkability, Part Next

The term "adorkability" comes from Dorothy Snarker. The rest is, well, right here.

I will point out two things. First, I too fish purely for the fun of casting and reeling, having learned long ago not to expect any actual fish to come out of the water at the end of my line. Although, despite that, she manages to reel in some pretty killer fish. And! Second! If we're going to be totally honest here, if Rachel Maddow did use sex toys for bait, well, ... *cough*

Musical Interlude Friday

Jill Sobule is pretty cool. Listen to this 1995 cut and then read her Katy Perry quote, below.

Yeah, '95. Now about that other, much more recent song about girl-kissin' for the benefit of the boys watching in the bar?

As a musician I have always refrained from criticizing another artist. I was, “well, good for her.” It did bug me a little bit, however, when she said she came up with the idea for the title in a dream. In truth, she wrote it with a team of professional writers and was signed by the very same guy that signed me in 1995. I have not mentioned that in interviews as I don’t want to sound bitter or petty… cause, that’s not me.

Okay, maybe, if I really think about it, there were a few jealous and pissed off moments. So here goes, for the first time in an interview: Fuck you Katy Perry, you fucking stupid, maybe “not good for the gays,” title thieving, haven’t heard much else, so not quite sure if you’re talented, fucking little slut.

God that felt good.

Love! More stuff, including free downloads, on her website.

Birthday

Seventeen years ago today, also on a Thursday, I woke up early in the morning with a very profound pain shooting through my back. And seventeen hours of back labor later, I had a hungry little guy squinting up at me. He's a little bigger today than he was back then, but still every bit as hungry.

He's also the best thing that ever happened to me, either before or since.

Happy birthday, beautiful boy.

Antsy.

The girlfriend gets home this afternoon after having been in DC for a week. It's nothing unusual; one or the other of us is typically someplace else at least once every couple of months, but I still get a little antsy in the last few hours of waiting for both of us to be home at the same time again.

When I was in high school, my stepdad took a second job driving charter buses on the weekends to bring in some extra cash. Being a typically self-centered teenager, I secretly rejoiced every Friday night in the knowledge that he would be gone early the next morning and not return until late on Sunday. He was a smoker and I wasn't crazy about him anyway and was glad to have him out of the house for two days at a time. I never thought about my mom facing weekend after weekend--the only time they really had to be together--without him, and how the runup to the Friday nights that signified liberation to me must have felt much differently to her.

And that's why I don't spend much time wondering about what our respective kids think about the periodic absences that swing one way or the other. My girlfriend's coming home this afternoon, and I'm watching the clock.

BOTL: Your Internet Home for "abby wambach girlfriend" Google Searches Since 2007

Nothing brings readers here like these three magic words typed into Teh Google search box: abby wambach girlfriend; enough, in fact, to make this blog the Number Two result for that particular query. I have no particular desire to make it to Number One. Be that as it may, finally, tonight, an answer:

I have no idea who Wambach's girlfriend is.

Somebody else does, though, and the lucky winner appears to be Washington Freedom midfielder Sarah Huffman, with "lucky" contingent on the Wombat having grown a bit since the whole l'affaire Solo.

You heard it here first. And now that that's out of the way, can you please explain the healthcare debate to me?

Palin Makes It Official, Appears Unclear on the 'Lame Duck' Concept

Sarah Palin put on a lovely resignation ceremony today, complete with a speech and a reiteration of the original reason she cited for stepping down: she does not want to quack.

Some still don't see why she's quitting, she said.

"It is because I love Alaska so much, sir, that I choose to avoid the typical last year, lame-duck session in office,'' said Palin, who had decided not to seek a second term when she announced on the eve of the Fourth of July that she would step down today.

Um. Did no one remind her that she's only in her first term, and so wouldn't need to worry about the lame duck thing for another four years? Wow, she sure showed us! By pre-emptively creating a very short, two-week lame duck period by announcing her intention to resign on the 3rd, and then circumventing it by plain up and quitting before anyone had time to build a decent blind. It's a deliberate straw-manning of her credibility. I'm sure this logic is impeccable somewhere north of the 48th parallel, hanging a left once you get past Vancouver, but it's a bit much for my addled brain to handle.

If I May...

If I may say a word about the Fox Soccer Channel's broadcast team for the WPS game of the week, can I get an exemption from the one-word limit since you flippin' numbnuts dipshits is four words? Mark Rogondino: please, please please stop saying "she calls her own number" every goddamn time a player carries the ball in and shoots rather than passing. She calls her own number? Instead of, like, handing off to the tailback? Calling your own number is not a soccer reference. It is an American football reference. To a quarterback sneak. So knock it the fuck off already. Jenn Hildreth: please, please please skim the Laws of the Game again and make a little note you can hang in front of your eyes and point out to your boothmate reminding you that there is no such thing as "offsides" in soccer. The term is offside. No plural.

These are little things. But the little things are often the difference between sounding like you know what you're talking about and sounding like a flippin' numbnuts dipshit who drew the soccer assignment because all the primo Fox NFL sideline reporting jobs were taken. Both of you played the game in college, so you should know better.

If I may say a word, the word is for fuck's sake. Hmmm. That still may require an exemption.

A Confession.

I am baffled by the healthcare thing. The debate fired up while I was on my mostly-disconnected-from-the-news road trip, and now I feel like I'm squarely in my recurring school nightmare, the one where I realize it's finals week and I've forgotten to go to class for the past twelve weeks. Single-payer? Public option? Jon Kyl? It's all a mystery to me beyond annually rising premiums and Cigna resolutely refusing to put the only migraine med that works into its $10 co-pay tier.

The Daily Star ran a five-way discussion on its Sunday backwards op-ed page this morning, featuring Kyl and John McCain along with our intrepid southern Arizona representatives, Gabrielle Giffords and Raul Grijalva. One cup of coffee was not enough to jolt my brain into reading comprehension mode, much less analytical mode, so I'll have to go back to those and possibly take notes since there is probably very little chance that Rachel might show up on my doorstep today to explain the whole deal in soothing tones while handing me Otter Pops and dabbing my forehead with a cool cloth.

One sphere where we can all be fairly confident is the singular level of incoherent insanity Michelle Bachmann (R-Crazypants, MN) will exhibit on any given day. In her latest eruption, Rep. Bachmann has been arguing against affordable healthcare for everyone because it will force people like her to wait in longer lines. You know, after they let all the riffraff into actual doctors' offices instead of shunting them off to George W. Bush's lauded great American populist healthcare option, the emergency room. Michelle Bachmann understands doctor's offices because she has five kids of her own and claims to have 23 foster children as well. No word on the inconvenience historically posed to the suckers who took an extra ten seconds getting out of the house and thus ended up in line behind the Bachmann brood every. damn. time.

I'm off to study now.

The Best Memories Are the Ones You Can Eat

Two weeks removed from eating a swath through the Pacific Northwest, we broke out the Pike Place Market Cookbook and tromped over to 17th Street to shop and cracked our knuckles and whipped up a batch of the crab cakes we swooned over at Pike Brewing way back on July 3.

Crab cakes with chili-coconut sauce and baby greens.

We arranged the cakes artfully over the sauce. We tucked a tuft of greens to one side. We cut, we held our breath, we bit...

FUCK YEAH. Nailed it.

Next time, cilantro instead of the prescribed flat-leaf parsley, and more coconut milk. Because that just might be even better than the originals, which are pretty damn good.

And the only thing better than the shared experience of the original chompfest at Pike is being able to recreate that shared experience after the fact and finding that it comes with a new bonus layer on top: it's no longer just wow, this is amazing, but wow, this is amazing, and we made it.

I had fretted early this morning that the Northwest trip would wind up lost in the shuffle of the kid's crazy packed summer, a vague footnote somewhere in the back of his brain jumbled with volleyball, Disneyland, and hanging with his buddies. Tonight I'm pretty sure it's going to stick. He can't wait to get back in the kitchen and see what else we can do.

Just a Question

If a featured MSNBC commenter called for a terrorist group to execute a captured American soldier during wartime because said commenter decided from the comfort of his stateside rumpus room that the soldier was a deserter, what would the FOX reaction be? Seriously, what manner of imprecatory hellfire and death threats would they rain down on the commenter, who they would certainly brand an un-American, troop-hating traitor? But Fox let Ralph Peters spew this crap unchallenged?

Hey, for all I know, he's absolutely right. But--and this is the kicker--I don't know. And neither does Ralph Peters. Until Bergdahl is returned and some semblance of truth that can withstand critical questioning is slapped together on this one, Peters and his ilk need to STFU and devote their considerable energy to praying to their god that an American kid in the stress of combat in Afghanistan comes home safely.

Because...

...because I couldn't write my way out of a wet paper bag right now even with a really sharp pencil, and because whatever word-whacking ability still left in my brain needs to be directed at work projects, and because I don't have any video-making talent to speak of, here's something delightful via Joe.My.God. to fill some time.

Monsoon

I am playing strip poker with the thermometer and losing, badly. It was something like 109 outside today and only marginally cooler than that inside, so by 4:30 I was reduced to playing Wii in my underwear. Can the neighbors see? I don't really care. Do my readers now have uncomfortable images in their brains? I don't really care. It is the hottest mid-July monsoon season I can recall, and clothing levels are going to stay just on the wrong side of acceptable.

What's for dinner? Dinner? The hell you say. Or, as my brother says, got any other stupid fucking questions? Fudgecicles are for dinner. They bring sweet, sweet relief for all of two minutes before we segue into discomfort and, no more than three minutes later, back to full-blown misery.

The clouds roll in, finally, blotting out the sadistic sun. Tonight's interpretation of Summer Storm features only a few lightning flashes and thunder cracks as prelude to rain showers in three acts. Dialogue is minimal and the characters aren't really fleshed out to my satisfaction before the curtain falls and the storm caravan rolls on to the west, where from this angle it appears to be trying a little harder.

So the day was given over to watching soccer while attempting minimal movement, that mainly between the chair and the floor in front of the fan, while suspending arms and legs away from contact with any heat-retaining surface, sweating, dozing, and sweating some more. Wambach got international goal #100 while Amy Rodriguez continued to flail. Tobin Heath staked a solid claim to more playing time and we wondered who the new holding midfielder will be, since there's no way Boxxy lasts until the World Cup. In WPS action, Tash Kai staked a solid claim to the number two place in line outside the team shrink's office, right after A-Rod, and the Red Stars watched their slim playoff hopes evaporate off Kerri Hanks' right foot in stoppage time. In related news, the Red Stars' back line spent the immediate 60 postgame seconds looking for holes to crawl into rather than going into the same locker room as keeper Caroline Jönsson.

Let me know when it's October, yeah?

Whatchoo Talkin'....

Yeah, yeah. No. I'm sorry, but just no. No no no.

It will always be Sears Tower. Suck it, Willis.

Sotomayor, the Final Word.

Well, it should be the final word, and she delivered it herself.

As you know, my speech was intending to inspire the students to understand the richness that their backgrounds could bring to the judicial process in the same way that everybody else's background does the same. I think that's what Justice Alito was referring to when he was asked questions by this committee. He said, you know, when I decide a case, I think about my Italian ancestors and their experiences coming to this country. I don't think anybody thought that he was saying that that commanded the result in the case. These were students and lawyers who I don't think would've been misled either by Justice O'Connor's statement or mine in thinking that we actually intended to say that we could really make wiser and fairer decisions.

Suck it, Sessions.

As Expected, Arizona Restricts Access to Abortion

Governor Jan Brewer signed a few highly annoying abortion restrictions into law yesterday, including a required 24-hour waiting period, a reiteration of the ban on intact dilation and extraction, a redundant requirement that women seeking an abortion be informed of its risks and alternatives, strengthened parental consent requirements for minors, and a self-righteousness conscience clause exempting healthcare workers from participating in an abortion or even dispensing emergency contraception.

Because nothing should give a fundamentalist pharmacist a bigger hard-on than denying Plan B to a woman who may then end up seeking an abortion as a result.

None of this is surprising, as all of these measures had wound up on former governor Janet Napolitano's desk at one time or another over the past few years, only to be vetoed. Despite Brewer's unexpected rational thinking about state taxes in the face of a monster deficit, her social conservaservaSERVAtism is as unchanged as ever.

Curiously, I find myself more frustrated by the emergency contraception clause than by the restricted access to actual abortion this time around. Maybe it's because the exemption betrays a continuing ignorance of how Plan B actually works, which, if you're a medical professional--and particularly if you're a pharmacist--is inexcusable. I've flogged this to death on this blog, in comments on other blogs, in letters to the newspaper, and to random people I meet in the grocery store, but it apparently bears repeating: Plan B is not an abortifacient. Plan B does not interfere with conception or implantation. Plan B functions only to inhibit ovulation for the length of time that sperm are viable after ejaculation. Plan B does not cause abortions. It has been hypothesized that in a very small number of cases, Plan B might prevent implantation, but this is both highly unlikely and untestable, as there is no test for conception prior to implantation. So demanding that scientists prove that Plan B does not interfere with implantation is on the same level as demanding they prove that eating Twinkies or staring at the sun or hopping on your right foot five times while chanting nobabynobabynobaby does not interfere with implantation. You can't prove a negative, but you can predict with pretty good certainty that a drug that acts to maintain the uterine lining will not make the uterine wall a hostile environment to a zygote.

So science is trumped by hysteria, and Arizona women woke up this morning to find that the barricades between them and a still-legal medical procedure have been piled even higher with razor wire and old tires, and some of the tires have started to be set on fire. How's that DHS job treating you, Janet?

Sotomayor Hearings: Here We Go

Clicked over to the live stream of the Sotomayor confirmation hearings just in time to hear Jon Kyl express his grave, grave concerns that she feels foreign law is worth looking at as a means of maintaining America's world standing, and that she might not be able to set her personal biases aside when hearing cases.

Because only white male corporate lawyers have neither ethnicity nor gender.

Thankfully, Schumer is now riding to the rescue, pointing out that she is much more even-handed than people like Sam "Record Number of Dissents" Alito, and has even appeared to be completely color-blind in several instances. Will it matter when it comes to Republican votes? Probably not. Thankfully, it shouldn't matter.

Interestingly to me as a current Arizonan, Senator Kyl framed his foreign-precedents concern in terms of "the will of the American people, as expressed by the Constitution." Hmm. Kyl seems to have forgotten that one of the primary functions of the Constitution is exactly the opposite of that--not to express the will of the people, but to protect the country from the will of the people when the people are largely made up of short-sighted, self-interested nutjobs. Come on, Jon. You can do just a little better than that, can't you?

Oh, wait wait wait--Lindsay Graham is most disturbed by her speeches! And takes the "wise Latina" comment out of context yet again. Oh, and he's convinced that she's going to decide cases differently than he would, so what should he do given that knowledge? He doesn't know what's in her heart, and since that's Obama's standard for voting on judges, he can't vote for her on that basis and that's going to RUIN THE JUDICIARY. He wants her to be able to speak her mind, and to believe in things, and doesn't want young lawyers to feel they can't do those things, but gosh darn it, those speeches are just disturbing, and Lindsay respects elections and Obama won but that means... Frankly, I'm not sure what he's trying to say here. He's not sure she deserves to be here, but she's had a distinguished career and has good character and should be here, but Obama's set a bad standard in motion by talking about hearts and shit like that, so nobody's ever going to be able to vote for a judge again because no one knows another's heart?

Maybe more later. They know she's a swing appointment. Graham's leopard-prints are in a knot because of the 5% of cases she's not going to decide the way he wants, as are Kyl's. And probably everyone else's. I wonder how long this will go on.

Back in the Desert

Know what? It's really fucking hot and miserable in Tucson in July.

I woke up in the middle of the night my first night home and took a full 60 seconds to figure out where I was. Tent? No. Hotel? No. Picnic ramada on the beach? Possibly.

Many many things transpired while I was gone. John Ensign. Steve McNair. Some guy named Michael Jackson may have died, not that anyone noticed. Actually, my personal favorite moment of the wall-to-wall coverage I was subjected to during a hotel breakfast was Anderson Cooper intoning, "There has been some question over whether it will be an open casket. Many people are hoping it will not." Possibly the best epilogue ever.

In other news, well, other news will follow once I'm finished with the sad task of packing away the camping stuff.

Roadblogging: Seattle, Again

I spent the last 20 minutes wrangling with a post of photos and captions that did not want to line up properly. And finally said fuck it and deleted the whole thing. Instead of photos, words.

This is probably the last epic road trip I will make with my son for a long time, and certainly the last one of this nature, when he's still a kid--an almost-17 kid, but kid nonetheless--and there are a few vestiges yet of him looking to me to show the way. After two weeks and the long drive home looming in just a few days, we have simultaneously been gone forever and only just left.

Planning this trip I thought it would be mostly camping and fishing, with college visits the official excuse for taking three weeks of vacation to traipse across the Pacific Northwest. It hasn't quite turned out that way, with far more hotels and sushi bars than tents and wriggling silver fins and scales on the end of a line, but that's okay. He's not the dirt-rolled camping critter he was when he was five, and my aching shoulder is probably better off for having spent more nights on a bed than on a Thermarest. We never had much luck catching fish anyway, and our tortillas got soaked, so...

So we drive from city to city, mostly me behind the wheel but sometimes him as I clutch the armrest and try to keep my voice modulated. We take scenic routes when we come across them, the slow meander through the redwoods and the waterfalls of the Columbia River Gorge making up for the scuttled plans of camping on the Oregon coast, his unmasked wonder at the giant trees and quiet, impossibly green moss-draped rocks and rushing streams bringing me a deep satisfaction and pride. I am glad he has seen these things and found them beautiful. I am glad it was with me. Even though the larger waterfalls themselves were crowded with other tourists, we somehow managed to be the only car on the roads between them, allowing a slow, solitary exploration unintruded by other people.

He plucks a long strand of grass from the rock and pokes it into my ear as we walk up the trail and says nature fight! and grins.

Magic moments are hard to come by. I'll take these.

Roadblogging: Seattle

Dear Seattle's University of Washington District,

Your road system sucks.

Blow me,
Boltgirl

Roadblogging: Washington

George, Washington. Really. And is his picture on the water tower? Of course it is.

Roadblogging: the Fishing Report

Smith Creek, Oregon. See all the fish? Yeah, we didn't either.

No fish here.


Sigh. Is there nothing this woman cannot do better than me?

I guess I can live with it.

Roadblogging: Portland

This is where the adventure really began for me the last time I was up this way, after 24 near-solid hours of driving, when I pulled off the historic Columbia River highway at La Tourelle Falls for oatmeal, tea, and tipple of bourbon on a cold gray late December morning. This time around promises to be very different, with a summertime view replacing the fat snowflakes that started in earnest by the time I hit Multnomah, and the company of my boy being far better than flying solo.

Damage report so far: one smashed shin (courtesy of a post in a campground on the Redwood Highway) and one squashed thumb (incurred next to the Umpqua River while splitting firewood off an old stump that retained much more spring than anticipated; still numb three days later).

About that Redwood Highway: damn. The Avenue of the Giants--actually an old stretch of 101 before it was realigned--is a 31-mile alternate route running along Highway 101 from Phillipsville to Pepperwood that cuts through virgin stands of Coast Redwoods. Ignore the clusters of kitsch that have sprung up in small communities around some of the groves (does anyone really need a ten-foot Bullwinkle chainsawed out of a giant tree trunk?) and spend an hour trundling along the road at the bases of the biggest trees on the planet. You've probably seen pictures of the big redwoods, but they cannot compare to seeing them with your own eyes, standing next to a trunk that's bigger than your kitchen. I felt like a hobbit. The deep, deep shade, the quiet, the realization that I did not know what the needles on the trees looked like because they were too far up for me to see them, and trying to comprehend the two thousand years of time some of them have spent slowly growing up, up, up into the sky while entire civilizations have risen and fallen and the trees haven't noticed at all... that's awe-inducing like little else.

Big tree. Small Boltgirl.

Driving through Oregon on I-5 is a lot like driving through parts of southern Illinois and Indiana, albeit with big hills on the horizon and a lot more conifers. Farms, barns, small towns with beat-up sloping curbs and grass growing out of the cracks and tractors holding up traffic. It is familiar and soothing. I wonder sometimes at my tendency to see new places through the lens of what I already know, evaluating them by their goodness-of-fit with the familiar. Wondering at the perpetual longing for home.

Portland itself is pretty okay. This is the city many people in Tucson point to as a model for what Tucson should strive to become, and really, who wouldn't want that kind of celebration of cultural diversity, historic preservation, green zones, a river walk, and arguably the best public transportation system in the country? I'm not sure how Tucson gets over the stumbling block of a river that doesn't actually have water in it, though, not counting summer monsoon runoff and effluent from the sewer plant. But! We are busily laying track for the new streetcar, which is modeled on Portland's but will unfortunately run on a limited and somewhat puzzling route (the hospital? really?). I hope our streetcar comes with cop car-style bumpers or, alternately, wonder how much it costs to fix streetcars that will inevitably be rear-ended, sideswiped, t-boned, or smashed from the front. They're going to be sharing the street with Tucson traffic, after all.

Today, the Confederations Cup final and Chinatown, possibly with a side trip to Powell's. And the blissful disconnection from the world will continue for another few days.

Roadblogging: San Francisco

Wow. Nice city they got here. This is my first time in San Francisco, and I love the little bite-sized central city with so much stuff packed into it. You can walk everywhere, even with all the goddamn hills in the middle of things, and it's all quite interesting. I'm sitting halfway up a hotel near Ghirardelli Square, looking out at the occasional seagull wheeling over a very foggy bay. The Golden Gate Bridge is hiding, mostly successfully, but I'm hoping it makes an appearance later.

We dutifully trekked up and down Lombard Street. I am fascinated by the rumble of the cables running underneath Hyde; the boy is intrigued by the number of very small dogs people walk up and down Van Ness. We both liked the sea lions at Fisherman's Wharf and wondered about a life spent flopping on a dock saying arf arf arf all day long. Maybe the occasional fish makes it worthwhile.

This afternoon it's back in the car and up the road to the Sonoma coast, and possibly very chilly, blustering camping on the beach. Could be invigorating, could suck. We'll see.

Tonight, on a Very Special Supreme Court: John Roberts Guest-Stars as Tevye

Tradition! It provides a sense of cultural continuity and a place for everyone to occupy, lending a comforting sense of order to everyday life--or an oppressive sense, depending on your tradition and your prescribed place within it--and gives us fun things like Fourth of July fireworks and Uncle George picking political fights with anyone at the Thanksgiving table who's within earshot.

Sometimes it has a nasty way of backfiring, though, as our man Tevye learned in Fiddler on the Roof when his daughter, like, totally ran away from home with her boyfriend instead of entering the nice arranged matchmaker-matchmaker-make-me-a-match marriage her father had arranged with Lazar Wolf. Or, continuing the nuptial theme, tradition can be used as a cudgel by people who don't want, say, two people to enter into a marriage that doesn't look like their own--an argument used most prominently, recently, and distressingly, of course, by the DOJ in their DOMA brief for the administration.

Tradition, in short, is a lousy argument for refusing to change a system. And while it's a rationality-free fallback argument when used by anti-marriage-equality people, it's at least as predictable and understandable as irrational arguments can be. When it's the basis for a Supreme Court ruling against convicted people's rights to potentially exonerating DNA evidence, though, it's downright alarming. And that's the tack John Roberts took yesterday when he wrote a majority opinion that punts the question of whether convicts have the right to tests that might prove them innocent.

The "challenges DNA technology poses to our criminal justice systems and our traditional notions of finality" are better left to elected officials than federal judges, Roberts wrote for the majority in a 5 to 4 decision.

Traditional notions of finality. As in, for fuck's sake, back in the day we got a conviction and the bastard swung from a rope and that was that. And now, rather than having trained jurists address the question of whether all defendants convicted within the judicial system have the right to access evidence provided by new technology that did not exist at the time of their trial, Roberts says, it will be so much better to have popularly elected former car dealers and real estate brokers making that decision.

And if a defendant had the misfortune to be convicted in a, you know, traditionally bloodthirsty state like Texas, where any hint of considering convicts' rights softness on crime means those popularly elected officials will be out of their cushy Capitol offices and back on the lots of Laredo? That's too damn bad. Because we have traditions in this country, dammit, and that's what matters.

On Second Thought, Schadenfreude Pretty Well Sucks Too

Seriously?

We all now know that President Obama this evening will give some federal agencies the right to give some federal employees some benefits at some time in the future. The problem, as one reader writes, is that federal agencies already have that right, and in fact, are already providing the benefits.

Yeah. That presidential memorandum that fiercely extends some (taxable as income) benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, so bravely signed with such fanfare at 5:45 pm last night? It turns out we had those benefits already.

I would really like a good reason to not make this my fucking masthead. Next: Obama signs memorandum guaranteeing gays the right to breathe a heady nitrogen-oxygen mix. But only for the duration of his adminstration. Also, the right to celebrate Christmas or Chanukah and maybe Eid if we mind ourselves.

Because Schadenfreude is Better than no Freude at All.

Huh. Hot on the heels of this comes the news that President Obama tomorrow will sign an executive order a memorandum that gives all same-sex partners of federal employees the same suite of benefits as straight spouses moving costs as long as he's in office. Moving costs, people! It's the lesbian dream second-date U-Haul reservation fantasy come true!

"Our analysis has been that it will take an act of Congress for the full suite of benefits such as health benefits and retirement benefits to be provided for same-sex couples and families," said Leonard Hirsch, president of Federal Globe: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Employees of the Federal Government. Hirsch said the executive branch has the authority to extend certain other benefits through departments and agencies, such as providing relocation costs for partners of federal employees.

Hirsch welcomed the announcement and said his organization would gladly help with implementing the new policy. "We look forward to working closely with the administration to put this in place as quickly as possible," he said.

Well, get a good night's sleep, Leonard. Lord knows you have lots of boxes to pack there.

The only good part of this whole deal is watching Aravosis melt down ripping Obama after he spent the entire campaign ripping Hillary Clinton up, down, and sideways, and banning people from his blog who were overly critical of Obama.

Mental Health Breaks from the _______ Treatment Plan Continue

Good news: I no longer have a deadline of the end of the day Friday! Bad news! It's been moved up to tomorrow morning!

So here's a quick Maddow on the DOMA brief:

I may need a mental health break from my mental health breaks at this rate. In other news, the Times noticed that the brief was full of asshattery as well, so it's not just me. Yes, I understand that the DOJ does this sort of thing as a matter of course, and that the brief goes through several markups before it's released and that the final version may or may not even vaguely resemble the first draft, but goddammit, religious righty talking points and code language really have no place here. And Obama's silence on it following his silence after each advance in the Northeast speaks volumes I really don't want to have to think about.

Maybe the #14 FIFA Ranking Is a Tad on the Generous Side

The highlight of yesterday's US-Italy Confederations Cup match was that Gennaro Gattuso kept his pants on for a change.





















What we didn't have to see yesterday.

Unfortunately, we did have to see Tim Howard sprawling helplessly three times as an Italy shot found the back of the net, after a WPSesque red card to Ricardo Clark left the US a man down for the last 60 minutes. Perhaps Bradley should have gone to his bench earlier, say round about the 60th minute, to replace guys like Feilhaber who had been clearly suffering for a long time. I do not like Donovan very much, but props to him for probably the best conditioning on the US side and sending three beautiful balls to open teammates in front of the net who failed to put them away.

Brazil should be interesting, in a bloodbathian sort of way.

All Quickies, All the Time

The combination of looming deadlines and individual days insisting on being no more than 24 hours apiece leaves precious little time for blogging, so the Boltiverse is going to take the form of brief mental health breaks for the next month or so.

Today's topic is What the Fuck Is Going on with WPS Referees?

Maybe a better question is to ask what's going on with league directives to the referees, since recent weeks have made it look like the WPS is trying its hardest to emulate women's NCAA hockey without going the full route of explicitly saying no hitting! Someone might get hurt! You're females, for Chrissakes! This Sunday we watched the Breakers-Athletica game, and somewhere amidst Hope Solo sauntering a full three yards out of the box with the ball in her hands and the ten or twenty references to players who've been suspended, Boston's Jennie Nobis came in on a challenge for a ball in the air and sent the St. Louis defender sprawling. The foul was called, appropriately, but the yellow card was immediately pulled out, and we looked at each other and said, huh? There were no elbows involved. Nobis was tracking the ball all the way. She simply caught more of the defender than she should have. Definite foul, but a caution? Definitely not. We wait with bated breath to see how much of a suspension Nobis will draw from the punishment-happy commissioner.

Sunday Soccer, Saucing, and (Re)Search

In other words, slogging through site reports with half-assed yet increasingly nervous attention to a Friday deadline for the background research I need to compile for an upcoming proposal. My effectiveness is being hampered somewhat by attempting to pull this off despite being booted out of my office network roughly every two minutes, while simultaneously watching the Confederations Cup and pondering the best recipe for peanut sauce. I am leaving in a week for a three-week adventure up the left coast into the Pacific Northwest with my son, and lord knows we will not survive the wilds of Oregon without sufficient satay supplies.

Prediction: New Zealand will be slaughtered by Spain, quite possibly by five or more, and the peanut sauce will be the stuff of weeping angels and approving nods by Padma Lakshmi.

In other news, my lawyer friend marginally talked me down from my window ledge over the DOJ brief seeking to dismiss the California DOMA lawsuit for lack of standing, but just barely. Since I am not a lawyer, I get to say I still think the whole thing's extremely aggravating anyway.

Back to South Africa-Iraq, thanking the DVR gods for the ability to watch the match after breakfast rather than before. 0-0 and not real inspiring, and I still haven't decided who I want to win. Spain-New Zealand after that, and then the WPS match this afternoon.

Oh, and Archaic period culture history. Really.

Boggle.

The Obama administration has released a brief regarding a suit filed by a married male California couple against the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Neat! Unfortunately, the brief, in a variety of ways, tells us to STFU and marry a straight person if we want our slice of the government's precious, limited pie.

I don't often link to Aravosis, but the man is a lawyer, and he parses the brief at length and better than I could. I will just add my two log-cabin-backed pennies to the discussion, regarding this:

Loving v. Virginia is not to the contrary. There the Supreme Court rejected a contention that the assertedly "equal application" of a statute prohibiting interracial marriage immunized the statute from strict scrutiny. 388 U.S. 1, 8, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1967). The Court had little difficulty concluding that the statute, which applied only to "interracial marriages involving white persons," was "designed to maintain White Supremacy" and therefore unconstitutional. Id. at 11. No comparable purpose is present here, however, for DOMA does not seek in any way to advance the "supremacy" of men over women, or of women over men. Thus DOMA cannot be "traced to a . . . purpose" to discriminate against either men or women.

Miss the point, much? No, the purpose of DOMA is clearly not to discriminate against either men or women. That's because the purpose of DOMA, and even more so the purpose of the defense offered by the administration, is to discriminate against both men and women who happen to be gay. And when Obama's lawyers start trotting out the legalese equivalent of "you have the same right as everyone else to marry someone of the opposite sex," well, I start putting my fist through the nearest wall.

Patience, my ass. Putting off action is one thing. Actively working against a cause you pledge your support to whilst campaigning for dollars and votes is entirely another.

Maybe one of my lawyer friends can talk me down. You guys enjoy a challenge, no?

Top Chef Masters Tonight!

Woo hoo! I got over Carla's sad exit just in time, since my Top Chef jones gets marinated and grilled to a turn tonight with the premiere of Top Chef Masters. Hang on, let me see who my out-of-the-gate favorites are.

I think Tim Love, because he sounds nice and does a lot of charity work, and also has a classic burger joint. Also Elizabeth Falkner, because she's both out and a killer pastry chef who likes cupcakes (and she baked Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon's wedding cake!). Wylie Dufresne because he loves breakfast, and I spent the entire morning mournfully wishing for a plate of bacon and eggs. And he loved sweet Carla's green eggs and ham Quickfire dish during the last Top Chef.

Cooking shows involving challenges requiring the chefs to immediately spring into action, think on their feet, and still turn out creative, quality dishes are the best. Iron Chef America would be so much better if the chefs were actually blindsided by the secret ingredient rather than being given a list of possibilities ahead of time so they can prepare possible menus.

Potato chips, I must have potato chips when I watch Top Chef. A wretched habit I fell into during the last go-round, but so delicious. Yay!

US Domestic Terrorism Month Continues

We're still in mid-reel from George Tiller's assassination and subsequent closing of his clinic, and just now comes the unfolding story from DC that a geriatric white supremacist shuffled into the Holocaust Museum and unloaded a shotgun on a security guard. Other guards plugged the elderly terrorist, and both he and the wounded guard are in critical condition at the GW medical center. The fact that news crews reported EMTs frantically performing CPR on the guard as his guerney was rolled into the trauma unit is less than optimistic. A bomb-sniffing dog has also apparently shown an untoward amount of interest in a car parked outside the museum, but no word yet on what that means.

Are the two shootings related? Probably not, beyond the creeping suspicion that extremists of more than one rightish stripe might be feeling more emboldened these days, as one white guy after another bravely stands up to call the president a monkey and a Muslim, and his first Supreme Court appointee a racist, after a campaign in which the white male candidate spat out his revulsion over abortion for the sake of the woman's "health" in bitter, angry scare quotes. And of course it doesn't do jack to explain the asshole who murdered the Army recruiter last week in the name of Islam. But that doesn't make our little teeny-tiny watered-down tastes of Baghdad in the past couple weeks any more palatable and less unsettling.

@boltgirl: OMG grassleys on teh twitter

Seriously, Chuck?

Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to call on Congress to enact legislation to reform the health-care system.

Grassley responded by texting, "Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us 'time to deliver' on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND."

A short time later, Grassley sent, "Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said 'time to delivr on healthcare' When you are a 'hammer' u think evrything is NAIL I'm no NAIL."

Mr. President, Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of the great state of Iowa, wishes to inform you of his displeasure at your directive that he speed up the legislative process whilst you look at the Louvre with your lovely wife and daughters, for this order is forcing him to desist from his own salubrious rest and refreshment, instead resulting in him workinWKEND, so WTF, bitchez?

In other news, Sen. Grassley's response to the pending Chrysler-Fiat merger was HELLA NOES, and he also notified Sen. Specter that he now PWNS ur ass and no UR MOMZ a NAIL LOLOLOLOLOL.

Morning

I was up a little early today, when the still-sleepy sky was just perking up from gray to bluish gray and the verdins and cardinals had not quite decided to start singing in the morning. Last night we got a blast of wind that came out of nowhere, spitting rain and whipping the trees for about half an hour before dissipating and leaving the yard somewhat rumpled. This morning's air carried a freshness that hinted at far more moisture than actually fell from the sky last night, a cool soft puff of remnant rain and the scent of trees that felt more like Flagstaff than Tucson.

Not much later, as I walked down the breezeway at work, the sun was fully up and hitting my back, the brief respite of woodsy air chased by an early warmth promising an inevitable hot, sharply bright day.

And life in the desert goes on.

The Routine

Blow nose. Spray saline. Choke. Drip. Apply warm compress to face. Calculate time since last Tylenol. Come up with number less than four. Say fuck it and take more anyway. Crack open site report to read for summary of Archaic period background report the boss has strongly suggested be turned in prior to leaving for vacation in two weeks. Read same paragraph three times before realizing it's been three times. Start typing summary before realizing I have no idea what I just read, three times or no. Blow nose. Cough. Look at clock. Sob.

A Story in Pictures.

The size of Boltgirl's rather expansive fantasy life...














...and the chances of any of it remotely coming true.


















Silly, silly Boltgirl.

My Real WTF Moment

Olbermann's getting on my nerves more often than not. Tonight's WTF Moment was busting on Bush for reading too many books during his administration. Granted, the man was apparently ripping through them at a rate prodigious enough to suggest that other duties might have been neglected, but maybe that early bedtime was set up to accommodate his history book jones, and after spending eight years bashing Bush's apparent lack of intellectual curiosity, it's disingenuous to criticize him for reading too much history, for crissakes. That none of it seemed to sink in is another matter entirely.

Anyway.

My WTF moment came this evening, which is Day Five of a fucking sinus infection that has completely put me on my ass, which came on the heels of a groin pull, which came on the heels of sore knees, if knees have heels, which came on the heels of a perpetually spasming deltoid and triceps, which came on the heels of an inflamed rotator cuff, which came on the heels of another goddamn migraine, and my stress levels are through the roof. It goes something like this: I officially lost twenty pounds, have been eating healthy home-cooked meals rather than going out, have been working out like a maniac, have largely eschewed alcohol other than the occasional glass or two of red wine, and have even been dutifully drinking more water, and after all that have officially felt like shit for about three months solid now. WTF?

I mean, seriously, WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK? The outcome was supposed to be the exact opposite of what it's turned out to be, and I'm pissed. Gimme a taco and a beer. All this health is fucking killing me.


Please, Jesus.

Sick Day Slacking

Discovery #1: insightful blogging is difficult when a sinus infection has displaced the blogger's brain to some space slightly outside and behind her left ear.

Discovery #2: and also when said displacement renders typing skills to somewhere below the first-grade level. My backspace key may melt at this rate.

Discovery #3: to say nothing of what happens to basic cognitive functions. Should I have applauded Darth's marginal marriage statement yesterday? I have no idea. Since in the same speech he let on that maybe he'd been knowingly lying through his ventilator about a Saddam-9/11 link for eight years solid.

Anyway. I can't think and can barely type, so let's try embedding some videos. Do we go with poignant first, or coffee-spewing? I think coffee-spewing. Forthwith, in honor of New Hampshire giving it another go this morning, mawwiage (nicked from Joe.My.God.):

Next, in the more poignant category, is this one from the Media That Matters Film Festival, promoted over at the Blend:

As I commented there, I would have done this one slightly differently, with the young man being rejected half the time and totaling up the yes and no responses until he comes to the very last house in the country, taking a deep breath, ringing the doorbell, and asking his question... and then the screen fades to "How would you feel..." before we learn which way 50% +1 comes down in his case. Be that as it may, it was still a nicely done piece that will probably preach to no one outside the choir unless people post it in comment threads at redstate.

My head, my head.

When I Walk Down the Aisle, Baby, Play Me that Imperial March

The cognitive dissonance, it burns.















Should we just adopt this as the new pride symbol? It has
enough radii for G and L and B and T and Q and I, after all.

Darth Cheney popped the mask off for a moment yesterday and said something that sounded almost human.

If you don't want to listen to the voice, which I fully understand, this is what he said:

""I think that freedom means freedom for everyone," Cheney replied. "As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay, and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family.

"I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish -- any kind of arrangement they wish,'' Cheney said. "The question of whether or not there ought to be a federal statute to protect this, I don't support. I do believe that, historically, the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level. It has always been a state issue, and I think that is the way it ought to be handled, on a state-by-state basis...

"But I don't have any problem with that,'' he said of the same-sex marriages that most of the states in New England, Iowa and the District of Columbia have authorized. "People ought to get a shot at that."

Huh. I can't wait to hear Jabba's Limbaugh's reaction. Will he dare try yanking Cheney back into line? As much as I loathe Dick Cheney, I tip my well-worn cap in his direction for being a father first when it comes to this issue, and am gratified for this very visible proof that knowing and loving a gay person goes a long way toward believing that we all might deserve equal rights.

Oh, Mercy

I might suddenly be interested in tennis again.























Maybe.

Troubling Things, Troublesome Things

Drake Okusaka died on Friday, killed on his bike after being run over by a kid in a Nissan who was weaving in and out of traffic to the extent that he ended up in the bike lane. On top of Drake. I didn't know him very well, but we used to coach for the same soccer club here in Tucson, so for a while there we ran into each other pretty regularly at meetings and on the field. He loved kids, loved soccer, loved teaching the game to the tinies he coached. He always struck me as being very gentle and honorable, and seemed to make his top priority teaching the little girls and boys about fair play and good conduct. And now because an idiot teenager thought the mad driving skillz he picked up from Mario Karts were transferrable to the real world, Drake's gone. And that sucks.

Meanwhile, back at Chez Bolt, the neighbor lady reported an intruder in her back yard at 4:30 yesterday morning. Regrettably, her Perpetual Chihuahua was actually inside for the night, so the intruder escaped with ankles un-gnawed. The responding cop told us that our neighborhood and a few adjacent ones have seen a run on patio furniture, yard decor, and nice plants, because contractors have taken to appropriating landscaping and model home furnishings from people's yards rather than, oh, buying them themselves in these wretched economic times. I am fairly certain he was serious. He suggested chaining porch furniture to the posts or a bolt set in cement, and warned that high-value plants aren't safe even if they're in the ground rather than in a pot. If your expensive native vegetation can be lopped off at the ground and re-started in a bucket of water out in Rita Ranch, it will be. The cop even had a night-blooming cereus stolen from his own yard a few months ago. What the fuck, people?

Sniffle.

No more pie on Mt. Lemmon. I weep.

Oh, Distress

I keep reminding myself that Obama cannot be all things to all of his supporters, but over the past few weeks it's been difficult. On the one hand, Sonia Sotomayor. On the other, Guantanamo staying open. On the one hand, a promise by the press secretary that Obama has a strategic intent in play of planning to eventually someday probably ask Congress to think about repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell if they get a chance, on the other, yesterday's reduction of the whole shebang to a lame-ass punchline at a fundraiser. Oh, wait. Maybe those are actually both fingers on that other hand, and maybe they're both being jabbed in our direction a la a newly crabby Susan Boyle.

A gaggle of sign-waving protestors milled around outside The Beverly Hilton, the sprawling hotel on Wilshire Boulevard. They must have caught the president’s eye when he arrived at the hotel from an earlier stop in Las Vegas because he relayed one of their messages to the crowd.

“One of them said, “Obama keep your promise,’ ” the president said. “I thought that’s fair. I don’t know which promise he was talking about.”

The people in the audience – who paid $30,400 per couple to attend – laughed as they ate a dinner of roasted tenderloin, grilled organic chicken and sun choke rosemary mashed potatoes.

The gaggle of protestors were pretty clearly displaying their dismay at the failure of the campaign-promised repeal of DADT to materialize, but maybe Cadillac One was zipping past them too quickly for Hopey to read the signs, or maybe the forcefield distorted them. Maybe it's all a carefully calculated setup for the complete package of homo-friendly initiatives rumored to be launched on Stonewall day, because gosh, doesn't elation feel extra good after several weeks of blind rage?

Meanwhile, the defenders of marriage are driving me to distraction. On my Facebook news feed? Really? Get bent. Luckily, Rob Tisinai's wonderfully modulated voice and measured delivery gave me a bresh of fresh, rational air. From Joe.My.God.:

Unfortunately, Yes. Yes, We Do.

Nail, meet hammer; watch your head.

More Coherent Response to Come; For Now...

"Today's ruling by the California Supreme Court that some 18,000 homosexual "marriages" are valid, despite the vote of the people to prohibit such legal recognition, has frustrated and disappointed pro-family citizens who voted for true protection of marriage licenses for a man and a woman.

"While it was good that the majority of the justices ruled only man-woman marriages could be performed after Prop. 8 passed, it's wrong and unconstitutional for the judges to permit counterfeit marriages in clear violation of Prop. 8," said Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com, a statewide pro-family organization that has been fighting for natural marriage in California for more than a decade. "An arm and a leg have been cut off the natural institution of marriage in California."

Today's decision means every homosexual couple that wanted a "same-sex marriage" last year, got one. The decision also means some 18,000 counterfeit marriages will be held out as role models to impressionable children. "By allowing these numerous false marriages to stand, the Supreme Court is holding out to impressionable boys and girls the unnatural role model of homosexual 'marriages'" said Thomasson. "This is not what the people of California voted for. They voted to ensure that the only marriage in California is a marriage between a man and a woman."

Fuck. You.

Sigh.

Words

As I sit simultaneously waiting for the California Supreme Court to announce its ruling on the Proposition 8 challenge and mulling the Sotomayor nomination, I keep coming back to two sets of words President Obama has let slip, only to have conservatives pounce on them and fling them back at us with monkey-poo abandon.

God is in the mix.

Carrie Prejean likes that one. So does everyone who opposes marriage equality on religious grounds. They are only too happy to remind us that our President, the one we threw our support to, is nominally on their side in this one.

Empathy.

The alleged Democratic majority should make Sotomayor's confirmation a done deal, at least on paper, at least until the Blue Dogs decide it's more important to roll over for Republicans than to advance any actual Democratic interests, and meanwhile John Boehner has already been bleating for a week that he will filibuster any nominee who intends to decide cases based on emotions and gut reactions and empathy rather than the law. Because of course that's how all the people Obama considered for the spot built their careers, on touchy-feelyness rather than legal knowledge. But none of the real legal-world qualifications matter any more, because now the opposition has the E-word to pour into the troughs for the base to snarf up and spit back over and over and over.

In a world where the sound bite has replaced reasoned discourse, and regurgitation critical thought, words are extremely precious and delicate commodities. Either the other side needs to give up their indiscriminate plucking and recoding, or our side needs to exercise a little more caution. Both propositions speak to the suck factor of our situation.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, on Obama's "intent" to "repeal" DADT:

The president has made his strategic intent very clear. That it's his intent at some point in time to ask Congress to change this law.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. "Strategic" is spot-on, however, as the strategy appears to be sloughing off responsibility until it gets down to the White House dog shit picker-upper just in time for him to be let go during the change of administration. Yeah, at some point I'll get around asking Congress to, uh, think about doing something. Jesus, you queens are so demanding.

To the people who say this isn't the time to be worrying about this, I reply that the midst of two fucking wars that are stretching the military perilously thin is exactly the right time to be worrying about otherwise competent, qualified personnel being jettisoned for reasons not related to their job performance. Let's go, Hopey.

Memorial Day

Rangers lead the way.

Ehhhhrrrmmmm Huh?

Sam Schulman lays out the "best" case yet against marriage equality. Isaac Chotiner dissects it for you at The New Republic. Boltgirl retreats to the cabinet for a single-barrel bourbon.

Oh, I See What You Just Did There

I totally see something else every damn time I see this ad.

Ana Marie Cox FTW!

"So when can we expect a durable policy on racial desegregation in the military, since that's never gone through Congress?"

Serious. Heart.

Suck It, John D'Arcy

When even the Holocaust-denier-appeasing Prada pope tacitly smacks you down, you know you've taken things a wee tad too far.

The Vatican said Monday that President Barack Obama was clearly looking for some common ground with his speech at the University of Notre Dame about abortion.

Granted, Ratzi didn't directly say anything about the caterwauling US bishops who have been gnashing their teeth and rending their garments at the horror that is Someone Not Completely In Line With Catholic Social Teaching As Long As The Not Completely Part Refers To Abortion That Is speaking at a Catholic university, but neither did he hop onto their bloody doll-strewn bandwagon. The silence, if you will, is deafening and delicious. No word on whether His Holiness followed up with "Go Irish."

What We Have

So much good fodder out there this week for blogging, what with Cheney running his mouth about how awesome torture has been for the US at the same time as an actual interrogator testifies before the Congressional torture committee--from behind an elegant screen, no less!--that torture doesn't actually work and made a previously compliant Abu Zabaydah clam up tighter than Cheney's puckered titanium asshole, and Obama wanting to release more abuse 'n' mayhem photos before deciding that maybe that wouldn't be such a hot idea after all, and evidence that Nancy Pelosi actually did know about the torture program until Cheney flapped jowls about that as well and indicated that the briefing in question maybe wasn't all that informative after all, and Dan Choi--who leads an infantry platoon and speaks Arabic and very much likes serving in Iraq--getting Don't Ask Don't Telled out of the National Guard in the same week that a guy on his third tour who very much does not like being in the Army kills five other soldiers in a counseling center in Baghdad.

So much to say, and every commenter out there has already said it, so I better by God jump on board and chime in, but...

A vignette: Many years ago, left to my own devices, I turned to gardening and fancied the idea of tomatoes. I dutifully started seeds in an egg carton on the windowsill, delighted in the tiny sprouts, and--certain that prime gardening time was zooming by and leaving me in the dust--planted them in a backyard plot way too early. They were dead within three days. I spent the next several weeks muttering and raking around the aloes, occasionally spraying the hose in the general direction of the fence, and then one day I walked out and happened to glance at an abandoned and semi-forgotten clay pot that had been shoved up against the wood. A vagrant seed had taken up residence sometime when I wasn't paying attention, when I was distracted by the umpteen doomed little seedlings I was hell-bent on making work. And now it had turned into a very perky, foot-tall tomato plant that was doing just fine on its own. Hiya, it said. What's a girl gotta do to get a drink around here?

Anyway. Forced writing is about as pleasant to read as forced gardening is to eat, that is, pretty dry and gritty and unpleasantly crispy. As soon as something bubbles up on its own, you'll see it here first.

Because It's My Day

I mulled a report on the dog of a match turned in by the Red Stars against Sky Blue this afternoon--seriously, Stars? Bring it down the flank and fling it to the middle where Sky Blue have five, six, seven players packed into the box, time after time after time, and still let Sky Blue run counterattacks with the two players up top going against and usually beating your three in the back line? And how many times were you offside in the first half? Ten? And not offside on a hair's breadth decision occasioned by a well-timed trap, but wings and strikers just wandering around and standing three or four steps behind the Sky Blue defense and then flinging their arms up in frustration at the AR? Jesus, Sky Blue put on a clinic when it came to perfectly timed five-yard through balls deftly touched through the line to players making clever runs behind the defense. Just stellar.

But! I am not going on and on and on about that because it was the only eh spot on an otherwise lovely day with my kid, who washed my car and went to the gym to lift with me and baked brownies and cooked up an enormous pot of jambalaya for dinner and shot hoops with me after. Now the iPod is charging and the swamp cooler has finally caught up after 100+ degrees in the afternoon and the dogs are asleep and life is good. I will fix the Red Stars later.