South Carolina snow!

Is purty! (From my Flickr page.)

I read the news today oh boy...

We've been comfortably snowed in, but today I actually have to go to work in this mess! Ahhh, she said wistfully, our surprise southern snow vacation is over. No more Law and Order marathons for me! (It was almost as great as a real holiday!) I'll try to post some purty snow photos later.

I have been so upset over the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, that I have not been able to adequately verbalize my feelings, except to repeat some variation of I TOLD YOU SO. As I've said here numerous times, it's getting bad out there. I am at Ground Zero of Reload Territory, and I've worried something like this would happen. The Tea Party proudly and routinely traffics in incendiary, artillery-oriented language, and don't let them tell you any different, now that they have this on their heads. Suddenly, those little symbols on Sarah Palin's website are not cross-hairs, oh no, they are SURVEYOR SYMBOLS. (Do you believe that shit? Talk about memory holes, George Orwell, call your office.)

This is what transpires when extremists like Palin and Beck continually fan the flames of Tea Party discontent, using dangerous rhetoric... AND (incidentally) we have a clutch of disaffected, angry young men with semi-automatic weapons running loose throughout the land. Presto.

I'll be back after a trudge through the arctic. For more reading:

The "Politicized Mind" Of Gabrielle Giffords (Andrew Sullivan)

Assassination Attempt In Arizona (Paul Krugman)

Missing from Arizona shooting debate: Guns (Politico)

Second Amendment Remedies (Dave Dubya's Freedom Rants)

Earlier Thoughts on Gun Nuttery and Right Wing Demagoguery (Cogitamus)

"On Extreme Right And Left" (Andrew Sullivan)

Lighthouse encased in ice on Lake Erie

CLEVELAND, Ohio (CNN/WKYC) - Check out this amazing sight.

You're not looking at a snow sculpture. It's actually a lighthouse encased in snow and ice.

It happened after the chilly winds moving through Cleveland blew water and snow all over the Cleveland Harbor West Pier lighthouse.

Parts of Ohio have seen more than a foot of snow in the last few days thanks to a late fall snowstorm.

I understand just how the poor lighthouse feels! And I am very glad I am not in my home state of Ohio right now--as cold as it presently is, South Carolina clearly has its advantages.

I promise I will eventually write a real post. I have so much crap piled up on my "to do" list, I haven't even had time to pay my damn car insurance. The only recreational time I've had recently, I spent watching reruns of Fight Club with Mr Daisy and eating vegetarian quesadillas from Moe's.

And what have you been doing this week? Be especially nice to your local overworked Christmas retail employee!

Snowing in Carolina!

I took these photos earlier today!

Puttin on the Ritz

We survived the ice storm this week; now awaiting the next arctic blast... ugh.

Meanwhile, staying mellow with Fred Astaire.

Watching BLUE SKIES (1946) on Turner Classic Movies, and just beheld this gem:

Puttin on the Ritz - Fred Astaire

Odds and Sods - Snowed-in edition

We've got snow in South Carolina! It happens about once a year, and everybody goes crazy. Sitting here watching THE VIEW and wasting some time. They are talking about Michelle Obama's official portrait, which is stunningly lovely!

Tell me again, how did we get stuck with Elisabeth Hasselbeck? Oh yeah, she was on Survivor. Why does that make her qualified to talk about politics (or anything else)? Does anyone know? Anybody? Bueller? Bueller?

I remember she campaigned for Sarah Palin, which gave me unsettling Stepford Wives flashbacks when I saw them onstage together.

BTW, has anyone seen The Stepford Husbands? (Highly recommended for rank hilarity, if you should feature a "bad movie night" at one of your parties!)

Recommended random reading:

Marion talks about her sweet doggies developing cabin fever and related canine oddities up there in the Great White North. I had no idea dogs could be as neurotic as cats--another animal stereotype destroyed. The vast majority of dogs I have known (with the exception of my mother's neurotic inbred schnauzer, mentioned on the linked post) have been far healthier mentally than their owners! In addition, I've always heard that "big dogs" were free of neurosis.

Definitely a post for the dog people!

Meowser (from dogs to cats!) writes a bang-on post about one of my big worries... mammograms, false positives, false negatives, and all of that hairy-assed shit. If you have boobs, go over there and READ, right now!

Check out the lovely photo of Renegade Evolution being just so reasonable, as befits her reputation in some stubborn feminist circles.

The caption is "How do we boost morale?" and the photograph offers one helpful solution!

Me and the good Comrade PhysioProf and his atheist friends, discuss why atheists have to be so insulting, calling religious people wackaloons, and suchlike. BONUS: Barefoot Bum, ex-Kerista denizen who once worshiped a goddess so he could have multiple wives, informs me "Atheists don’t hate religious believers, at least not most of them, we have contempt and disdain for their stupidity and credulity." (Well, that IS a comfort.)

BACKGROUND: Barefoot Bum was a KERISTAN, and once belonged to what was possibly the flakiest (certainly, the most well-known) group-marriage cult on the West Coast, outside of the Manson Family. They had a highly-developed pagan theology, with multiple rituals to go with it. I guess believing in weird shit was acceptable back then, as long as he was given a different woman to sleep with every night, as reward. EVERY ATHEIST HAS THEIR PRICE, right, Barefoot Bum? You've all heard of "no atheists in the foxholes"--apparently, there are no atheists in group-marriage cults, either, baby. ;)

The argument is still in progress, so feel free to jump in!

Should Dubya be indicted for war crimes? Check out Peace Arena's Ramsey Clark: Why Indictment is a Must

And in case you needed still another reason to love Aunt B! A post about abortion, titled, Why I'm Flip:

I’m flip about abortion because most anti-abortion folks in this state aren’t themselves serious about ending abortion. They always make it like if pro-choice people were just sorrier, if we just threw ourselves on the ground crying about what a great tragedy abortion is and how it’s always wrong, wrong, wrong, but sometimes we need it, pretty please, they could be moved to maybe let us have abortions when our own lives are at risk (with them getting to determine what “at risk” is) or when we’ve been raped (with them getting to decide if we’ve been “raped” enough). But that’s not true. There isn’t sorry enough.

And if there isn’t sorry enough, I refuse to be sorry at all.

Amen, amen! (Isn't she just so great?)

And finally, my DEAD FROM THE CUTE link for this session, comes from Fruit Femme... will you just look at those little angels!?!?!

(((gurgly grandma noises, in extremis)))

And now, I go try to start my car, which is in minor shock from snow.

Lookin out my back door...

I see more snow in Carolina! And pigs might fly!

How will this hurt/help the GOP candidates? I have no idea. Stay tuned!

My precinct had a long line. As predicted, they looked surprised to see me there. ;)

~*~

And here's the song, too!

Lookin Out My Back Door - Creedence Clearwater Revival

[via FoxyTunes / Creedence Clearwater Revival]

Snow in Carolina... Ron Paul redux... Alice Cooper for president!

Left: One of the foot-bridges over the Reedy River, downtown Greenville, South Carolina. Photo from the Greenville News.

It's always a shock when we get snow here, which doesn't happen often. Panic reigns. Milk and bread disappear from local shelves, and everyone collectively freaks out.

Two years ago, we had a power-outage of FOUR DAYS, meaning no heat, no hot water, no lights, no--(this will strike terror into the hearts of BLOG READERS!!!)--no computers!!! We were living on peanut butter and bottled drinks. It was horrendous, and I wondered how people managed that a hundred years ago. Then I realized, you know, they had lanterns and stuff and WERE PREPARED.

The power-outages happen because the snow and ice usually starts to melt very quickly during the heat of the day, drip-drip-drip, making enormous puddles and streams. THEN the temperature drops at night and re-freezes the whole mess. At that point, the power lines fall under the weight of the ice. And if you happen to live close to that, you are fucked. That is also the genesis of the term Black Ice, which looks like any other large, dark puddle. You don't even realize you're on ice until your car does a 180 (or a 360, as mine memorably did some years ago).

And so, I stomped out into the already-slushy snow to buy groceries; gotta stock up on peanut butter and cat food in case it all happens again tonight. Pray the temp don't get too low!!

~*~

Left: The GrannyWarriors tour bus, which follows Ron Paul on the road. They have a pet monkey, too!

I've been soundly taken to task in private over my last Ron Paul post, so in fairness and in the interests of TRUTH and EQUAL TIME, I offer the following links:

Anthony Kennerson: Why Ron Paul is Political Kryptonite for the Left (Or, Would You Vote for David Duke if He Opposed the War?)

Latestpolitics.com: Ron Paul's race problem

Feministe: Another safe assumption: Ron Paul knows how to rally the base and How exactly are we defining "racist" these days?

DailyKos: Ron Paul in his own words

If anyone has any more articles, feel free to post them in the comments.

Although I have to say, Anthony asks a good question. We all know that David Duke could never win a mainstream party nomination . Is it moral to vote for him if it takes votes away from, say, Mitt Romney? And we know he would never actually win? People used to ask these same questions back in the day, about voting for George Wallace (to take votes away from Nixon), so I don't find it too shocking to discuss. As Tip O'Neill liked to remind us, politics ain't beanbag.

Also, a deeper question: Which kind of racism is most damaging, the kind with power to implement actual programs, or the flaky, fringe kind? (Does one form of racism in fact feed the other?) When we organized against the kkk in the 70s, we argued endlessly over these sorts of ideological twists-and-turns. Obviously, nothing really got resolved, since we are still discussing them.

The people with the power (Dubya) are far too savvy to make comments considered overtly racist, but that doesn't necessarily mean they haven't done far more actual damage to people of color than fringe white supremacists living out on some separatist acreage in Idaho or somewhere.

I've always found this discussion interesting, so fire away!

~*~

Do any of you kids remember when Alice Cooper ran for president? It was great fun! Enjoy!

Alice Cooper - Elected

[via FoxyTunes / Alice Cooper]