(as i compose some new ditties for your enjoyment today, i decided to produce a few oldies that never managed to make it past the “draft” mode until today. okay, there’ll maybe be two of them that survive. the others were just empty placeholders that never even got partially fleshed out. this one was orginally slated for May 29th, 2008. new additions to the text are included in italics.)

okay, so the issue of “baiting” is especially prevalent for me today after last night’s “A-League” adult coed game which i was assigned to referee, and which i abandoned at the 76th minute, because the “adults” were acting, on average, far less mature than my hormone-infested 13-year-old. (i mean, FAR less mature. having played semi-professional soccer myself during the last two years of the NASL, the attitudes of these young already-has-beens who are somewhere between ten and twenty years my juniors, who practically float over the soccer fields by virtue of their fart-inflated egos truly and sincerely make my sides hurt—sometimes with honestly amused laughter, but more often with that particular form of laughter that is directly derived from pity).

at any rate, the following video, which i first discovered at Sorghum Crow’s General Store, pretty much summed up my opinion of the democratic campaign in the proverbial nutshell. the fact, yes fact, that i have consumed, over the course of three hours today on what is, work-wise, an “off” day, a complete bottle of australian chardonnay, has nothing to do with it.

except for the fact that i currently feel no compunction whatsoever, as i have on recent days, for reeling in my basic disdain for the premise that an individual should be considered the presumptive nominee solely based upon her post-menopausal genitalia.

(this was my favorite video of the primary season, dragged up from the detritus at the bottom of the primary ocean today and posted as presumably relevant to whatever else happens in our presidential future exclusively because i felt like it. nyah.)

just fuckin’ sayin’, and if you don’t agree with that, then bend over and kiss your freedoms goodbye, because, by the way, if you think she’s really that far removed from the ideologies of the McCain campaign, you’ve apparently decided that due diligence and personal consistency mean absolutely jack squat, and you are part of what’s responsible for the deflowering of the willful innocence in which American ideals such as “FREEDOM” are expounded.

again, just sayin’. if you already ignore me, feel free to continue to do so. if, on the other hand, you’re someone who frequents this site and still thinks Hillary Rodham Clinton is worth a damn, you’re welcome to un-blogroll me right now.

(personally, i am still concerned about her role in politics, especially in any close relationship to the Obama campaign. call me overly cynical, but during the primary season, she repeatedly sounded so Lieberman-esque it was truly disconcerting. Centrism doesn’t actually win elections…well, it can win elections, but then you just wind up with more pissed-off voters who eventually wise up to the fact that their newly-elected official can’t really deliver on all those conflicting promises. here’s hoping that the Obama campaign keeps an amiable distance from the Clintons, and specifically, that someone else is named as Obama’s running mate.)

i entirely forget why i originally named this post “cancer-baiting”. it must have been the chardonnay. except that, since political centrism is inherently duplicitous, it can be viewed as cancerous, and thus should be avoided at all costs.

….since John McCain is “Change We Cunt Believe In”, let’s not vote for him, hmmmmm?

…to my fellow bloggers who continually, obsessively post about the state of misogyny in both American politics and political journalism.

spend one week–just one full week, that’s all i ask–actively looking for the number 5. focus on the number 5. look for the number 5 everywhere you go, everywhere you are, during everything you do.

here’s a prediction: if you do this diligently, you will quickly (probably within just the first few hours), observe that the number 5 is freaking everywhere. after a day or two, you’ll find events are grouped in fives, there’s always five people wherever you look, and strange things happen five times. by the end of the week, you’ll observe that many things happen in, or can be found, in multiples of five, and in fact, that five fives is incredibly common. you’ll see 25 blue cars on your way home from work. you’ll notice 25 blondes in the supermarket, or realize that there’s 25 kids in the pool and they appear to be grouped in fives as you observe them.

notably, however, if i had asked you to focus on the number 3 or 7 or 9 or 4,622, you’d draw the same damn conclusion. whatever it is you’re focusing on is freaking everywhere. this is the direct result of our facility to identify patterns and fixate on any random thing, event or idea, coupled with that incredible human facility to anthropomorphically and ubiquitously apply subjective meaning to literally anything we desire to correlate.

there are other ways to play this game: listen for a three-word phrase from your favorite (or least favorite) song. look for a specific shade of the color of your choice. look for people with a specific hair color. whatever.

the point? certain individuals involved in journalism and politics are indeed misogynists. but not all such people are inherently or even necessarily so. some people have speech patterns that are actually derived from habit and are otherwise innocuous. but if all you do is spend your time looking for examples of misogyny, you’ll find them. and if, frankly, you conduct this search so ineptly as to ignore societal speech patterns and mannerisms, you’ll find yourself believing even that many women are misogynists. but of course, being hyper-focused on the man-folk, you completely ignore the same phraseology and verbiage coming out of the mouths of women, even liberal/progressive women. and as a result, the assertion that these male, conservative pundits and politicians are inherently misogynistic simply by virtue of how you interpret what they say is a) puerile, b) self-defeating, and c) well beneath the level of intelligence you otherwise exemplify.

and if you’re really worried about confronting/combating misogyny, you might try doing something other than jumping up and down and throwing a temper-tantrum about it like a three-year-old….boy.

good day. that is all.

fuck you.

no, really. FUCK YOU.

the vid link.

the transcript of the white-girl wannabe newsanchor says that we “can see the people there responding.”

really? where?

really? responding to what? the lint in their collective belly buttons?

where the fuck are the dutiful Hartford citizens who are responding to this man? for fuck’s sake, one dude gets out of a car off-camera and just saunters off across the street while the victim is laying there….WITHIN FEET OF HIM.

at best, by the clip’s end, a few people have managed to “respond” the edge of the curb, four vehicles have just driven by, and one vehicle simply left the opposite curb, apparently oblivious to what had to have been a significantly loud ‘thump’ and probably a scream or two.

one guy. one. slo-o-o-o-owly walks over to the victim, just as the tape ends, 32 seconds after the dude was hit.

what the fuck ever, certain Hartfordians. you responded like…well…bullshit. fuck stopping at jacking up the hit-and-run driver. they really should jack up the bastards that drove by or just stood there, collectively immune to any sense of responsibility.

remind me not to get hit by a car next time i’m in Hartford, CT.

bastards.

Well, here I am, hosting the Carnival of the Liberals today, when I have yet to manage to get a post into one ever. There’s many reasons for this, the primary one being that I’m never really satisfied with my own prose, and another important one being that my “liberalism” has become so ingrained into my personality that I very much tend to simply live it, and not preach it.

I’ve been reading the Carnival of the Liberals for a little more than a year, I think. I’ve even gone through some of the archive links at Leo’s place and read through some of the older ones. I am always fascinated by other people’s abilities to effectively communicate their thoughts and ideals. So, my offer to host this one was driven by that as much as it was driven by a desire to pay tribute to my wife, the lovely Mrs. Other, who did, in fact, successfully bring me around from those thought processes I now refer to as “neo-conservative belly-button twiddling” and into the light of more clear-headed critical thinking.

Today marks the fourteenth year of our marriage. In another random irony, I met Mrs. Other shortly after I left the Army from Fort Bliss, where I was assigned to the 66th MI company. So, my original intent with this, the 66th installment of the Carnival of the Liberals was to focus on what caused us to convert to liberal and/or progressive politics, presuming that at least some of us, like me, came from elsewhere politically.

Alas, literally no one submitted anything along that theme, which I figure is fine. I wasn’t too uptight about it, largely because I am now possessed of this wonderfully progressive mind. The 31 submissions that I received for this edition of the Carnival were all quite interesting reads, and yes, I’m being generous. Because about half of them were right-wingers trying to convert the host, and several others were simply bizarre. After reading them, I wasn’t sure about a point being made or any argument being refuted. Luckily, that left me with exactly ten insightful, interesting, and in some cases, profound writings that are well worth sharing. So, without further ado, however, here are the ten I found to be the “best”. They are presented in the order received, not any subjective order, mind you.

First off, Holly Ord over at menstrual poetry, shows us explicitly how McCain is not a moderate. Given recent primary results and the new bandying about of the phraise “McCain Democrats”, I believe this is a very important thing to consider. Hillary-ites who express the abject refusal to vote for Obama need to seriously reconsider what they’re thinking about doing come November.

In what I found to be a quite interesting read, Greta Christina introduces us to the Harm Reduction Model, which she feels might be applicable to virtually all apsects of life. After reading her piece and continuing on to the link she provides, I find myself initially in agreement.

Ian Welsh, over at The Agonist, has an insightful take on ten issues that certainly obfuscated the Democratic primary process. And interestingly, what were predictions at the time he wrote them, have basically come true.

I found some welcome satire over at Free Cheezeburgerz. You’ve just gotta love people who spell words with z’s. Anyway, Brian Tarcy wrote up a fun little exchange between a NASCAR driver named John Q. Public and his pit-crew chief, named George. I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading it, unless you’re lactose intolerant. Because there’s lots of cheese.

Alonzo Fyfe, the Atheist Ethicist, provides us with some good legal information on the problem with having “under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance, and in “In God We Trust” on our money, through the lens of House Resolution 5872. I thought at first that this would be the same old same old on this topic, but I believe Alonso has some good points. If only someone in Congress would ever think of things this way!

Lisa Spinelli over at Greener Pastures: Personal Finance contributed this article about the Bush Administration’s bizarre tactics when it comes to environmental issues. I say bizarre, because they are ultimately self-defeating in highly personal ways. If you breathe air you might well want to read about How Politics Can Mess Up a Perfectly Good Environment.

This next one comes from Heather Johnson over at the Criminal Justice Degrees Guide, where she reminds us of 20 Civil Liberties Every American Should Know. A very good, detailed read of many of the guarantees provided to us by our Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and one which, in my opinion, should be predominantly references during the national presidential campaign. Because the right wing doesn’t care about this stuff at all, it seems.

Sometimes, we need a reminder that those who tend towards the extreme in either party do so from a completely understandable basis. I would even go so far as to point out that in some ways, extremism provides a perspective that is unmuddled by the vagaries of the day-to-day world. Steve Snyder, the Socratic Gadfly, points us to a fine example of such clairvoyance by Ted Rall.

Doctor Biobrain provides us with a well-written, scathing response to the premise that Barack Obama is supposedly a Marxist. Being the type of post that naturally elicits entertaining stupidity in the comments, I’m still not sure which was the better read: the post or the comments. Either way, you should read it.

This last article came in late the last night that submissions were accepted for this installment, and to be honest, I found it the most intriguing. In it, steppen wolf, the skeptical alchemist, describes some interesting goings-on over in Italy, where it appears that democracy is slowly, skillfully, and mostly silently being replaced with dictatorship. Quite profound, if true. I know I’ll be keeping tabs on Italy a little more closely in the future, and I hope you will, too.

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Issue #67 of the Carnival of the Liberals is scheduled for June 18, 2008 at Situation Awareness. Issue #68 is currently slated for July 2, 2008 on Globally Rational. Be sure to visit, and I’m even thinking of submitting something myself this time!

(my apologies for getting this out so late yesterday. thanks to several things happening at once, i wound up having to reconstruct this entire post over yesterday afternoon, which, as noted above, wasn’t exactly the best of days to spend on the computer as opposed to working on my “honey do” list. well, at least i got it done. the list never goes away.)

The days and weeks grow upon the commander, filling him with a profound sense of “What the fuck has happened to my life?!?!” So, I’m sorry for the lack of posting. I am pulled in various directions at various speeds, and I find myself variously intrigued and saddened by the changes.

My time, you see, is no longer really my own.

But, that’s okay. I’ll survive.

Today is the Big Day! By that, of course, I mean, that the Montana and South Dakota Democritic Primaries (no, that’s not a typo!) are under way. While I am glad we have finally reached the end of the primary season, the outcome here in South Dakota is as predictable as predicting that water will be wet. The majority of SD’s “Democrats”, you see, at least the vast majority of those over the age of 40, are really moderate conservatives. And by “moderate” I mean, “slightly left of hardly anything”. And by “slightly left of hardly anything” I mean, “they’d never vote for a woman if their lives depended on it, and would only vote for a black guy if it meant making sure that a woman wouldn’t be elected to office.”

Which is not to impugn the dignity or intelligence of Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, our single Representative in the House. But she is, after all, just one voice among hundreds. Presidentin’ be a whole ‘nother thang.

All that to say, even without Hillary supposedly conceding tonight (it’s about damn time, Senator!), I sincerely doubt she’d ever have had our handful of delegates anyway. Those are the unfortunate facts out here where people proudly wear their “Rush Rules” t-shirts as representatives of organized sports committees while interacting with foreign national players.

Just sayin’. And while, as a 40-something Democrat living in Sioux Falls, I don’t fit the gross generalization I provided above, she still wouldn’t have had my vote anyway, based on her personal merits. Because I believe things like personal merits do matter.

So, it’s basically over, even before we had the chance to sing the final number here in South Dakota. That’s okay. I’ve been too busy to help out much anyway.

Moving forward, though, once Senator Obama is formally announced and the country can get back to the inherent simplicity of just two real candidates (Nader who?), I’m going to start digging into the doings of my favorite little scab on herpes-infested pimple of right-wing politics here in South Dakota, and that is the Abstinence Clearinghouse. Pun totally intended, by the way. Because, with another election now looming in the near future, the likes of my favorite duplicitous trollop, Leslee Unruh (see photo at right, then go wash your eyes), are no doubt going to claw their way to the surface once again. Because inflicting a failed, unpopular, illogical worldview on the rest of the country IS a religious thing, and it IS a political thing, and it IS the sum and total of what they know how to do: that is….to act duplicitous.

O wait, it’s not an act.

Those few of you remaining around the otherwhirled have probably long since realized that atop a recent move and certain personal/family things going on right now (not to mention new full-time employment), frequent blogging on the various inanities we humans refer to as “politics” and “religion” has somewhat lost its shine.

That shine was just starting to get polished up a bit (I’ve even got four drafts going right now!), and then Hillary Clinton goes and drops this turd on us:

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it.”

Now, with many years of soccer refereeing experience and over two decades’ work in quality assurance, I long ago learned how not to lose my cool even when somebody really pissed me off. I don’t think for a moment that Hillary Clinton is so stupid that she was inferring that gee, golly wouldn’t it be candy if somebuddy happened to off that other democratic senator who happens to be running for president right now? I also don’t think she in any way meant it as a slight to the Kennedy family, either.

In fact, I dare say that the assassination of Robert F Kennedy came to mind so readily because of Ted Kennedy’s recent hospitalization and unfortunate diagnosis, so I don’t fault her for thinking of RFK at all, really.

What bugs me is that a candidate for president can let such carelessness out in public, unfiltered. We’ve come to expect that kind of shit from the current buffoon occupying the Oval Office. She’s running on a campaign that purports to do better than that, but she manages to sound at least something approaching the same level of daftness.

Now, Hillary-lovers, don’t go get all up in a huff because I said “she”. It’s the proper pronoun to use for a female. That doesn’t mean I’m bashing Hillary because she’s female. It means this little episode simply underscores her basic unpreparedness for the tasks ahead of her. This is pitiable. This is right up there with “Nelson Mandela is dead,” and for someone campaigning for the presidency, that shouldn’t be the type of company one would want to keep.

But, of course, that’s not the end of it. Not satisfied with equating her own acumen with that of the man she would hope to replace, she took that original turd and just threw up all over it:

“I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation - and in particular the Kennedy family - was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever.”

Read that carefully. Now, read it again. Is Hillary sorry for what she said? No, in the grandest tradition of her Republican counterparts, Hillary Rodham Clinton isn’t about to admit that she fucked up. No, instead she regrets that some people might have been offended by what she said.

Not. Even. Brave. Enough. To say. “I Fucked Up.”

Leadership. That’s what this country needs. Leadership. Sometimes a good leader has to be willing to say, “I fucked up. Don’t be like me in that way.”

But we don’t see that from Hillary Clinton.

To those Hillary supporters reading this blog, you have my heart-felt condolences, and I urge you once again to reconsider the logic that breasts make a candidate worthwhile. They don’t. Professionalism and leadership are a significant portion of what does, however, and your candidate appears to equate professionalism with Bushism and leadership with avoidance.

There’s only one real candidate left for president of these United States, and it’s not Ralph bow-to-my-irrelevant-and-sorely-misplaced-hubris Nader.

Senator Clinton, there is exactly one set of options to you, and they can be expressed quite succinctly: “Shut up and get out.”

Edit: hah. It appears that great minds think alike, or at least in my case, that my feeble little mind might occasionally spark upon something that a great mind already thought of. I did not have the pleasure of viewing or reading Keith Olbermann’s piece on this same issue earlier tonight when I wrote what I wrote above.