Mitt ‘n Grits

It has been with a high state of hilarity that I’ve watched video of Mittens Romney campaigning in Mississippi over the past few days. You really can’t make this shit up.

Mister I’m Worth $200 Meeeellion Dollars is working hard to convince average working folks that he’s just like them, and he seems to be trying especially hard to do this in the South by learning their lingo and having “strange things happen to him.”

It was bad enough when he was campaigning in Michigan and uttered that perplexing thing about liking the trees in Michigan because they’re the right height. What? But this week in Mississippi, he cranked up the Awkwardometer and started saying things like “Mornin’ y’all!” and “I like grits!” (Grits One and Grits Two)

You know, I don’t hate the guy. I completely disagree with him on most of his policies, I think supply-side economics has been proven to not work, I think he’s spineless and kisses Rush Limbaugh’s fat ass, I think his criticisms of President Obama’s foreign policy is disingenuous at best and a deliberate, pandering lie at worst, and I think his religion’s practice of baptizing people into the Mormon faith—even Holocaust victims, who are, you know, JEWISH—after their death is obscene. But he seems like a decent kind of guy for the most part.

But I have never seen anyone so completely unable to connect with people. I often feel socially awkward, but this guy makes me feel great about my social skills. It’s almost painful to watch at times, and sometimes I almost feel sorry for him. Then I remember that it’s all deliberate, he has people telling him what to do, how to act, what to say...and instead of coming across as a regular guy, he keeps hammering home the fact that he’s richer than the vast majority of us will ever be. (And he also wants to lower taxes on himself and those on his level...don’t forget that part!) It’s really just embarrassing now. He’s not a regular guy, and he never has been.

As we begin to see the return of Candidate Obama, the contrast between the two is astounding. Obviously, much of what President Obama does is calculated; I’m not naive. But I also think he has a genuine understanding of and a concern for most Americans. Mittens may feel that way (but I doubt it), but is simply unable to get past that rarefied air of privilege. Obama is also a fantastic speaker, with great oratory skills.

It’s fairly obvious that Mittens will be the eventual nominee. I look forward to the debates between him and President Obama. Mittens is no slouch as a debater, but there have been many awkward moments, especially the combative ones with the moderators (“You get to ask the questions you want, I get to give the answers I want. Okay?”), and he gets very defensive about his taxes and wealth. But Obama comes across as authentic and genuine, and Mittens comes across as exactly what he is: a really, really rich guy.

It will be fun to see the personae that Mittens adopts in the coming primaries. Perhaps we’ll get to see some Native American stuff in the southwest (certainly no LATINO stuff...get real!). Maybe he’ll don a 10-gallon hat in Texas and shoot a varmint. Illinois might give us a glimpse of ‘20s Gangster Mittens, and I can hardly wait to hear him talk about his love of ‘sport’ in Indiana, especially that ‘hoop’ game (“Boy, you Hoosiers really love your basketball, don’t you? I saw that movie, you know. Wasn’t that a great movie?”) and the upcoming Indy 500 (“Boy, you folks sure drive fast around here. I think I took a wrong turn when I was trying to get here, and I just kept going around in circles, and then they gave me some milk to drink. Ha! Ha! Ha!”)

Jeez, the guy is the Borscht Belt comedian of the political world. Ba-dum-tsss!

I think I’ll just crawl in a hole

Good grief, what a week.

It seems like it’s been one thing after another...some things aren’t huge in the big picture, but some have been.

I cried when I heard that Davy Jones died. I loved the Monkees as a kid, and I still loved them as an adult. I had just been discussing with Cousin Shane that they were underrated as a band. They recorded some really wonderful pop tunes, and Davy was, by all accounts, a truly decent human being who loved his family, his life, and loved performing. He died way too young, and I was very sorry to say goodbye to him.

Andrew Breitbart also died young. Since he had a wife and children, I think that’s all I’ll say about that.

This past weekend was a tragic one in southern Indiana, northeastern Kentucky, and a few other areas as very strong tornadoes came through. The last I saw, the death toll was 39, and that including a little girl found in a field...she was found alive, but was in critical condition. Her entire immediate family was killed, and she later died in the hospital. My heart just broke for everyone affected, and the devastation was mind-boggling. A couple of towns were essentially destroyed.

Pat Robertson had to weigh on it, and said that if people had prayed harder, they would have prayed the tornado away. He went on to say that people shouldn’t live where natural disasters occur. Tornadoes happen across the entire Midwest, and into southern states...I wonder where he’d have us all live? All the people along fault lines in California and the Midwest, all the people on the southeastern coast who are at risk of hurricanes (and those hurricanes can cause damage pretty far inland, too, so might as well just move everyone out of Florida), everyone along the Mississippi and other rivers that periodically flood...where does he want us all to go? And when will someone tell that senile old bastard to shut the fuck up?

Today Peyton Manning was cut from the Colts. I understand the reasoning behind it, but I’m so bummed that he won’t get to finish out his playing days in Indianapolis. He has always been a class act, and he will be very missed. Apparently, no other Colts player will ever wear #18. I will treasure my #18 jersey forever, and I wish Peyton nothing but the best. He is truly one of the good guys, an incredibly competitive player who works hard but maintains a sense of decency and goodness that you don’t often see these days. Safe travels, Peyton, wherever you end up. You’ll always have a place in my heart.

There were really high winds in the area today, and while I was sitting here reading, with Sheeba on my lap, a large tree fell out front. Scared the bejeebus out of both of us, but the lights stayed on. I looked out front, and the tree was on the power line to the house, dragging it almost all the way to the ground. I called the power company immediately, and they put in the work order. Then things started popping...literally. A big *POP* from something in our electronics, and a puff of smoke...two of the ceiling fan bulbs winked out, followed by the other two, in rapid succession. At this point, I was starting to freak out a little bit, wondering if I’d have to grab the fire extinguisher (yes, we have one handy, in the kitchen). The smoke alarm started going off (the fumes from the CFC bulbs...they didn’t explode, but they definitely give off an odor when they go), and I called the power company back and said something like “Yeah, I’ve got a call in, but things are starting to blow out here!” He said to shut off the main power, so I did that pronto (that was my instinct, too, but I was a little discombobulated). Happily, the power company got here soon, and was able to fix the line pretty quickly. The neutral line, I guess it was, had snapped, so there were power surges coming into the house. Yikes!

No major harm done, although the conduit which contains the line coming into the house was bent, and we’ll have to have that repaired; the roof might be damaged in that area; and some of the electronics seem to be zapped. We’ll have to see if there are fuses we can replace, but in all likelihood, we’ll have to get a new receiver, CD player, and DVD player. I think they’re fried. I don’t know if it will be enough to file an insurance claim, or that it will be more than our deductible. We’ll find out.

I do keep things in perspective, and I realize that our troubles are minor compared to those in our state and other states who have lost everything. I really can’t even imagine, and I’m glad we have a federal government to assist Americans in a time of crisis.

So I’ve been feeling more than a little insular lately. I’ve just been hunkering down and doing a lot of reading, doing my workouts, and trying to let this storm pass (so to speak). Sometimes it seems like a lot of bad things, or things that affect us in a profound way, happen all at once, but I do my best to not let that get me down. All in all, we are very fortunate, and I know that.

Oh, and I didn’t even mention the brouhaha with that gasbag Limbaugh and the circus that is the Republican primary. Seriously, Republicans? Not looking good for you this fall....

But as always, I shall forge ahead, keep calm, and like a good citizen, carry on.

Beth’s Music Moment: “Very Busy People” by The Limousines

Check it out! Two Music Moment entries in one week, and another one about a specific song! I usually try to mix it up more than this, but I only recently discovered this band and listened to this song today while I was working out.

To try to explain my convoluted path to this, let me give you a little background. Ken and I recently got smartphones, so I’ve been playing around with mine lately. Cousin Shane and Matt often use an app called SoundHound to find out the title and artist of a particular song they hear while out and about, so I made sure to get that. When I work out, I take out my little MP3 player and hook it into the CD player, and I take my phone out to check news feeds while I’m on the bike. I sometimes use SoundHound to find the current song (if I like it a lot) and post it to Facebook. I can’t recall what song I was listening to and posted the video, but I was exploring SoundHound a little bit, and found the “find similar artists” features.

Are you still with me?

So I found several similar artists to whatever group I liked enough to post their video, and got some music online. One of those was The Limousines. I’m having fun finding new music lately, and I’ve been listening to it during my workout. Today, I listened to The Libertines (a little on the mellow side for me), and then The Limousines. One of the songs was “Very Busy People,” and from what I was catching on the lyrics, I was laughing out loud. I used SoundHound again to read the full lyrics, and I knew I had to post about it.

This is one of the cleverest songs I’ve heard in a while, and it is so true when it comes to being plugged in. I have had to make a conscious effort to be online less and read more. I don’t spend hours chatting (actually, I spend NO time chatting anymore), I don’t aimlessly surf, and I don’t spend an inordinate amount of time on videos; however, I get much of my political news online, so I spend quite a bit of time reading those stories. I watch short videos from The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Bill Maher’s show; I read the stories posted by like-minded friends; I have multiple news feeds that I go through every day. I’m on the verge of having too many, and I have been skipping a lot of them lately, merely because I have resolved to devote more time to reading.

So the irony of finding this hilarious song via an app that allowed me to find it while I was reading my news feeds on my smartphone as I worked out is not lost on me. The sheer deluge of information available at our fingertips at all times is mind-boggling. I had no desire for a smartphone for quite a while, but now that I have one, I’m not sure I could ever give it up. The ability to look things up while out and about, or to get directions, or figure out just what that song is—it’s on the tip of my tongue!—or to check game scores is nothing less than amazing.

I’ve been involved in the information age from fairly early on. I had a web page before there were such things as blogs, and although I’m not an expert, by any means, I have embraced the ability to find information with a simple search. However, I’m still trying to find a good balance of the real and the unreal, the corporeal and the virtual. I still spend more time than I want to spend as I do my daily online reading, but the proper mix is within reach (I think). Anyway, enjoy the lyrics—I hope you find them as amusing and pertinent as I did—followed by the video. I like this band, and look forward to listening to more of their stuff.

Very Busy People

We'll end up numb from playing video games
and we'll get sick of having sex
And we'll get fat from eating candy
as we drink ourselves to death
We'll stay up late making mix tapes
photoshopping pictures of ourselves
While we masturbate to these pixelated videos
of strangers fucking themselves

We are very busy people
We are very busy people

There's crusty socks
and stacks of pizza boxes
making trails straight to the bed
And when we're done sleeping
we'll stay busy dreaming of the things
we don't have yet
Well there's a long, long list of chores
and shit to do before we play
oh let's just piss away the day (piss away the day)
Crank call the cops down at the station
just for friendly conversation
requesting songs they never play
Let's hear the one that goes like:

We are very busy people,
We are very busy people
But we've always got time for new friends

So come on over and knock on our door,
it's open, what you waitin' for?
We might be sprawled out on the floor,
but we still make lovely company
Pull up a chair, I'll pour some tea,
We'll shoot the shit, 'bout everything
till you get sick of politics
and flip on the TV screen
We stare at the TV screen

That Donnie Darko DVD has been repeating for a week
and we know every single word (every single word)
I've got an iPod like a pirate ship
I'll sail the seas
with fifty thousand songs I've never heard
And all the best of them go
Fa la la la la la...
Fa la la la la la...

We are very busy people
We are very busy people
But we've always got time for new friends
Yeah
Fa la la la la la...
Fa la la la la la... 

A spellyng matter

I came across something a couple of times recently that struck me as wrong, and I made sure to look it up and reassure myself that I wasn’t off-base in thinking that it was wrong. I saw this error in someone’s post, but the worst thing was that I saw it on a nationally published blog.

I’m really not one to correct people on their grammar online. That’s really kind of a dick move. (Although if someone is being a real dick, I’m not above pointing out that they’re a grammatically incorrect dick.) But that doesn’t mean I can’t write about it here!

The word in question is simpatico, and in both cases I mentioned above, it was spelled ‘sympatico.’ That’s an easy mistake to make, because people naturally associate it with the word ‘sympathy.’ Both words come from the Latin sympathia, which means...well, sympathy. But our current use of the word comes from the Italian simpatico and the Spanish simpático, both obviously based on the Latin root.

It’s a great word, and I love the feeling of being on the same wavelength as a person. When that happens, I really do use the word. I consider it a great compliment when I tell someone that we are simpatico. I hope they realize that I don’t toss that word around lightly, and I reserve it for those moments when I feel like someone really gets me, or what I am trying to say.

As for spelling it correctly, I’m not sure if there is an easy solution to remembering that there is no Y in simpatico. Two ‘eyes,’ no Y’s? Sympathy: two Y’s, no ‘eyes’? I’m not sure. Maybe we all just need to keep a six-pack of that beer pictured in the fridge for reference purposes. Or maybe it’s just a matter of forcing yourself to remember that it’s not spelled the way you’d think it would be spelled, and if you type ‘sympatico,’ it will set off an alarm bell in your head.

If anyone has a good suggestion about how to remember the correct spelling, please leave it in comments. Then we can be simpatico.

Beth’s Music Moment: “These Days” by Foo Fighters

I think this might be a first for my Music Moment: writing about one particular song. But I mentioned this song in my previous entry, and it’s been on heavy rotation both in the CD player and in my head.

This song gets to me on multiple levels. Technically, I love the way it’s structured (you can scroll down to read the lyrics and watch the video if you’d like, before you continue to read my commentary). It starts off with some quiet guitar, and Dave Grohl sings the opening lines rather sweetly. It seems like it’s going to be a ballad about love and loss, life and death, and Dave tells us everything’s gonna be all right. Then *BAM*—it kicks in, as does Dave’s powerful voice. The anguish and rage as he almost screams the lyrics makes me think of a person so frustrated and hurt by something that they get angry at someone who is trying to comfort them. And who hasn’t been there? A friend is hurting, they pour out their heart to you, and you tell them, “It’s gonna be all right, I know it.” You mean well, and you’re just trying to encourage them, but they’re just so focused on their own pain that they lash out at you: “Yeah, that’s easy for YOU to say! You’ve never been through this, you don’t know how much pain I’m in, you don’t know how I feel!” Or maybe you’ve been the one in pain, and you haven’t wanted to hear such platitudes...you just want your friend to take some of your pain away, and it makes you even angrier to know that they can’t do that, and this is something you’ll have to work through in your own heart and mind. This song just expresses that perfectly for me.

Maybe it’s because I’m approaching 50, or because I’ve had to deal with deaths of loved ones recently, but this song makes me ponder mortality. Both my own and in general. It’s an inevitability. One of these days, my heart will stop and play its final beat. The thought of that doesn’t scare me. Logically and rationally, I know it will happen, and I don’t worry about what awaits me when it does. But I find myself thinking a lot lately about just how much there still is to do and experience, and especially how many good books I want to read! I do worry about whether I’ll get everything in that I want to get in. We only get one shot at this, and we’d better make the most of it, you know?

I’m to the point where I can’t hear this song without getting choked up. Even just thinking of it in my head, like I’m doing right now, makes me a little weepy. I’ve made no secret of my love for Dave Grohl, and he’s written a lot of great, rockin’ songs in his lifetime (and I hope he has a ways to go before his heart plays its final beat). He really knocked it out of the park for me with this one, though. I’m sure I’ll never have the chance to tell him how much this song means to me, but it’s got to be a great and humbling feeling to know that something you created can touch someone so profoundly. For that, I thank you, Mr. Grohl. Long may you rock.

"These Days"

One of these days the ground will drop out from beneath your feet
One of these days your heart will stop and play its final beat
One of these days the clocks will stop and time won't mean a thing
One of these days their bombs will drop and silence everything

But it's all right
Yeah it's all right
I said it's all right

Easy for you to say
Your heart has never been broken
Your pride has never been stolen
Not yet not yet

One of these days
I bet your heart'll be broken
I bet your pride'll be stolen
I bet I bet I bet I bet
One of these days
One of these days

One of these days your eyes will close and pain will disappear
One of these days you will forget to hope and learn to fear

But it's all right
Yeah it's all right
I said it's all right

Easy for you to say
Your heart has never been broken
Your pride has never been stolen
Not yet not yet

One of these days
I bet your heart'll be broken
I bet your pride'll be stolen
I bet I bet I bet I bet
One of these days
One of these days

But it's all right
Yeah it's all right
I said it's all right
Yes it's all right

Don't say it's all right
Don't say it's all right
Don't say it's all right

One of these days your heart will stop and play its final beat
But it's all right

Easy for you to say
Your heart has never been broken
Your pride has never been stolen
Not yet not yet

One of these days
I bet your heart will be broken
I bet your pride will be stolen
I bet I bet I bet I bet

One of these days
One of these days
One of these days

Playing catch-up

Whoops, that week sure went by fast! It was kind of a blur, too, because part of it included a health scare for a couple of family members, and that can really get your stress levels soaring. I’m happy to report that everything worked out okay!

We also had tickets to our last Notre Dame basketball game of the season, and got to see them beat West Virginia by 27 points. We’re watching them play St. John’s at the moment (the game just ended, and ND lost, darn it), and this evening we have tickets to our last hockey game of the season, against Michigan State. We’ve really enjoyed our games this year...now let’s hope we can get tickets for all the home football games this year! I love all three sports, but the football experience is my favorite. Tailgating, baby!

I’ve been dealing with an issue or two, and as is often the case in such situations, I retreat into books and/or music. I’ve been concentrating mostly on books this time around (but I could also write a separate entry about the song “These Days” by Foo Fighters, and I just might). The next book on my book club list (the Modern Library Top 100 novels, if you recall) is The Alexandria Quartet by an English writer, Lawrence Durell. (The picture I’ve posted here is Pompey’s Pillar, a remnant of the Roman presence in Alexandria.) It actually consists of four books, and the first is Justine. I don’t mean for this to sound pretentious, but I am really captivated by this book. It’s some of the most beautiful writing I’ve ever encountered. The way he describes Alexandria (the one in Egypt, not the one in central Indiana!) makes me almost capable of seeing it, hearing it, and smelling it, both the good and the bad.

When he writes of the characters and situations, I can see them in my mind, see the way they look and the expression in their eyes. I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book that was able to so completely create the images in my mind. I’m actually in awe here! Check out a few of the lines I loved so much that I highlighted them in my Kindle and wrote them in my notebook:

“He is a rare figure among the diplomats in that he appears to possess a vertebral column.”

“His heart has withered in him and he has been left with the five senses, like pieces of a broken wineglass.”

“...for those of us who feel deeply and who are at all conscious of the inextricable tangle of human thought there is only one response to be made—ironic tenderness and silence.”

That last one especially spoke to me. It reminded me of a quote from Jodi Picoult that Cousin Shane posted the other day: “Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.” I am very much a loner and a quiet person (I have my moments when I can talk a mile a minute, but they’re few and far between, and fairly exhausting.). Shane and I agreed that we both enjoy our solitude as well, but there is a reason I’m rather withdrawn, and there is a reason I often don’t say much. Sometimes there’s no point in saying it, sometimes my thoughts are too complicated to explain easily, and sometimes I realize that it’s probably best to not reveal my hand.

I’m very fortunate that Ken is pretty similar in that regard.

Anyway, I’m not very far into this book—all four volumes of the Quartet are probably about 1,000 pages, so I’ll be working on this one for a bit—but this is some truly lovely writing. I think I’m really going to enjoy this one, and this is why I’m so happy to be getting back into the list. When an author’s writing style is literally awe-inspiring, it makes me happy. When I most needed a book to “take me away,” I found one to take me all the way to WWII-era Egypt. Not too shabby!

In a white womb with black curtains

Suddenly, it’s the ‘80s all over again. And not in a big hair, New Wave, Duran Duran, fun kind of way.

When the teabaggers started making noise, I remember telling friends that it was like revisiting the ‘80s culture wars. Reagan was in power, and that’s when groups like the Moral Majority (Linda Richman: Why the Moral Majority is neither moral nor the majority. Discuss.) and Ralph Reed’s Christian Coalition started pushing their social agenda. I think most of us thought that we’d put much of that behind us, and were able to reach a point of live-and-let-live (although with much work yet to be done, including equal rights for all citizens).

We were wrong. When I started seeing so many of the teabaggers exhibiting racist and homophobic behavior (not all...I said ‘many’), I was immediately reminded of the bad things we had to deal with in the ‘80s. Not only are they back, they’ve expanded their war to include the reproductive rights of women, even beyond the issue of abortion.

I won’t provide excessive details here. I think most of you have read about it. Long story short: President Obama’s Affordable Care Act included a provision that employers would provide contraception at no charge and with no copay; a bunch of Catholics and Catholic organizations objected; a bunch of politicians jumped on board and said it was a ‘war on religion’; President Obama offered a compromise in which Catholic or other religious organizations would not have to provide contraceptives as part of their health care plan, but the insurance companies that are their providers would provide it directly to employees and be responsible for the cost. Most people seemed to think that was a fair compromise, including some Catholic health care advocacy groups, but the Catholic bishops were not mollified, and the politicians were off and running.

War on religion? No. War on women? YES. The Virginia legislature recently passed a ‘personhood’ law as well as a law requiring women who are seeking an abortion to submit to a transvaginal ultrasound, an invasive procedure that is medically unnecessary in most cases, and certainly not part of a routine exam. One of Rick Santorum’s biggest financial backers made a tired old joke about aspirin being good and inexpensive birth control, because the woman holds it between her knees. Get it? So the slut doesn’t open her legs to tempt all those fine young men. Hardee har har. Rush Limbaugh characterized women who want contraceptives as those “who do nothing but have sex mindlessly day in and day out and to whom birth control is only a means of eliminating consequences.”

A congressional hearing designed to discuss whether the contraceptives provision was legal and constitutional was chaired by Darrel Issa. The witnesses at the table included men affiliated with Catholic groups that opposed the compromise. The key word there would be MEN. Not one woman was there. In fact, the woman scheduled to speak about how she has to take birth control pills because she has an ovarian cyst was denied by Issa, because he said she did not qualify as an “expert.” Of course, all those priests are experts on female reproductive health!

I’ve heard some male politicians say that if women want birth control, they can pay for it themselves. When you’re struggling to put food on the table, birth control is not exactly inexpensive. You need to have a doctor’s visit to get a prescription, you need follow-up care, and it’s not all that easy to get whether you have insurance or not. Many Republicans want to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood, which provides preventive health care to millions of women who don’t have insurance. To couch it in simple economic terms, for every government dollar spent on contraception, almost four dollars is saved in Medicaid costs because of unplanned pregnancies.

Looking at it from a health perspective, family planning makes for healthier women and babies, in ways both medically and financially. There are times in a woman’s or a couple’s life when an unplanned pregnancy just isn’t feasible. A planned pregnancy means a healthier economic atmosphere, one in which the child is provided for adequately. An unplanned pregnancy for a young woman in college could keep her, as well as the father, from obtaining a degree. Why the hell am I trying to convince anyone? Women have the right to contraceptives for numerous reasons. If you dispute that, you’re just dumb, and you should go away. Seriously. (Here is a good article about why contraceptive coverage is important. Go read that.)

I’ve also heard some people—who am I kidding? It was men—say that if people don’t want to have a baby, they should just not engage in sex. Here’s a quarter, folks. Buy a ticket to the 21st century, okay? It’s got to be kind of boring back where you’re living. Get real.

If the Republicans want to continue down this idiotic road, I have a proposal. If you allow employers to not provide contraceptives to women based on moral or religious objections, I think you should also bar insurance companies from paying for vasectomies (a cheaper and less invasive procedure than a tubal ligation) AND from paying for erectile dysfunction medications. Last time I checked, it wasn’t all that easy to get pregnant without a boner being present, and I’m guessing that the majority of men asking for Viagra or Cialis aren’t doing so because they’ve got procreation on their minds. They might not be entirely happy about having their boner pills taken away.

Here’s something else to keep in mind. In the 2008 election, women made up 54% of the voters. We are paying attention. And if you continue to wage this war on our hard-fought reproductive rights, we will make our voices heard this November. You can bet the sperm bank on it.