Just One Hell at a Time

It's Friday, July 06, 2012. Last Friday a freak wind storm stripped power from most of central Virginia. Beyond that major inconvenience, the temperatures have been 90 to 100 degrees for the last seven days.


My brain is so fried I can't muster up enough live cells to get angry enough to rant about politics or religion. To pass the time, I thought I would recollect the last time the farm lost power for more than 24 hours. It was published several years ago as a recounting of a farmer's trials Here is part of it, for my amusement, and that of anyone else trapped with only a generator for company.

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I hate Wednesdays.

That dislike is comparatively new and its genesis is from circumstances emanating from my new job as llama breeder. Yes, we breed llamas (to one another) and revel in the resulting "crias."

 Except when they are born on Wednesdays during a dry spell.

A dry spell is when Virginia soil turns to hard red clay making it impossible to bury a placenta that arrives shortly after the baby llama. 

We can have crias born all day on a Monday and before noon on a  Tuesday and we're home free. We put the 10-lb.  placenta in a feed bag, hope it doesn't leak (much), and then send it off to the landfill with the garbage man, who arrives promptly at half after noon every Tuesday.

I solved this timing problem a while back by wrapping a late arriving placenta in bio-degradable plastic (which is probably an oxymoron) and storing it in our cavernous freezer in the cellar until the next pickup. 

I realize if you are not tuned into the practical aspects of such a farmer's convenience, you might find the marriage - in mind only - of placentas and frozen food a trifle bizarre. In fact, if you are entertaining any prospect of dining with us, you might even find it too revolting to contemplate.

Last August,  we had a baby on a Wednesday and a Thursday and then on Saturday we had a stillborn. Our vet decided it would be useful to save him for research but he couldn't take him that day so we wrapped him up and stored him with the placentas in the freezer. And then forgot about them because we had a lot going on that year.

One of the sad things was the loss of the last of our guinea hens. I loved the old girl and wanted to bury her properly. Because of an early freeze, we couldn't, so we wrapped and froze her until we could. 


Then one night we had an ice storm. It was wildly destructive and we lost power. That night we ate sandwiches by candlelight because ice had damaged the power lines. It was cozy and fun.

By the third night, it wasn't fun anymore. We had to bring water from the ponds to the house to flush toilets and then travel several miles for drinking water for us and the animals.


I fast tired of gritty coffee that tasted of smoke, and there was no romance left in fireplace-toasted muffins.

By the fourth morning we had electric service. It wasn't until two days later we discovered that service was not connected to our freezer. We called the electrician to find out why. A heavy duty wire had become worn and tripped a circuit in a box we hadn't known existed.The electrician, a nice, helpful guy, helped my husband empty the ruined contents.

The stench was so awful I let the men do it alone. As the mess was hauled out onto our truck, I glimpsed the black and white leg of the stillborn showing through the plastic. I retreated into the house, sad for the loss of the baby.

Then I realized that I hadn't explained to the electrician. Not the corpse of the cria, the feathered hen and the sack of rotting placentas. What must the man be thinking. I ran out to explain, but he had driven off, his good deed done.

Can you imagine how he recounted that day for his wife, and described to her what he must believe is the preferred diet on the McGrath farm.

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Just Filled With God's Love

I've acquired a new friend who took issue with me about my anti-theist point of view. Her argument was that belief in God saved her sanity following the death of her son.

Considering how great the loss she suffered, and wondering how I would handle it, I hesitated to tell her that not even this kind of tragedy could sway me. Then, accidentally, I came across a site labeled GrandfatherPolitics.com commanded by some guy called Gary and I realized that I can never sanction any form of religion because it just encourages the crazies.

This GP blog appears to be a political site where there is no citation made for any claim....just one opinionated anti-liberal screed after another, and drawing analogies that have little basis in logic.

It gives no information about the background or history of the author but, if you click on his name, that single bit of intelligence (and I use that noun with irony) leads you to AmericanVision.org

And  there you find the genesis of the filth he and his followers spew in the ungrammatical, misspelled, hate-filled commentary  we've come to expect from the Religious Right. (Because this URL ends in Org, I fear it might be an entity that is sucking away at government funding.)

Now, I must admit that I have risen on my high horse and called people like  Limbaugh, Cantor, McDonnell, Thomas and others a lot of bad things such as stupid, assinine, batshit crazy and even twerp and turtleface.  But I can't recall ever wishing that any of them get a disease and die. Nor have I ever threatened to knock anyone's teeth out. What a piker I must be.

But this is the kind of rhetoric that issues from the mouths of those who are filled with God's love. 

Besides getting rid of Citizens United, we must start proceedings  against the laws that allow religious entities to avoid taxes. If they want to function in society as a political force, they need to pay for the privilege of agitating for political candidates and issues.

And beyond that, I think I might start praying for the Rapture to be true.

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Karl Rove: Bag Man Collects Advertising $$$

I don't consider Georgie Porgie perceptive. But, like an idiot savant, he does have a talent:  Distilling people to their essence. In dubbing him "Turd Blossom," W homed in on Karl Rove's likely dung heap origins.


What made me think of Turd Blossom? Because there was his face (along with those of some deep pocketed creeps) on Huff Po's political banner this morning, grinning like a debauched cherub as he reportedly takes command of the Goppers'  $71 Million Plan to oust Obama and put in his place a man the movers and shakers can buy to manage their affairs.

Billionaires appear to be a dime a dozen....and almost all of them  favor Republican candidates. That seems a reasonable result of self interest, but it does make you wonder why so many of this country's great unwashed side with these plutocrats when there isn't a chance in hell that they will benefit from their efforts unless they get hired as one of their butlers, chauffeurs or maids.

Except for a few liberal millionaires who have brains and a heart, the Goppers seem  to have a lock on the cash. But even so, they bitch about all the money that  goes to Democratic candidates from unions..... and George Soros.
 
"The AFL-CIO, the nation's largest federation of unions, contributed $2.3 million to super PACs through April 2012. The federation, boasting 12.2 million members, is made up of 57 national and international labor unions. Its funds come from the dues paid by members" 

They're complaining about the unions' $2.3 million? That's chump change! But it gives political bag men an excuse for their existence. If the public understood how uneven the advertising playing field really was, it would be hard to generate the kind of hysterical pushback these titans require to see their filthy ideas succeed.

If the dummies the bag men's ads succeed in convincing -  to vote for the well financed loudmouths who rely on lies and exaggeration - ever found out that "louder and oftener" don't equate to "truth and reality,"  they'd be up the creek  where they belong.

Advertising gets the job done....by hook or by crook.  When it's political, you can bet it's both. 

Hey, man on the street! Hey, WalMart mom! Before you cast your vote in November, let me clue you in on something. One of the most successful beneficiaries of advertising to the mindless is the Venus Flytrap.

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How Now, You Cow (Redux)

Could it be there is a chastity belt in your future?

Could Rick Santorum and Virginia's Bob McDonnell be any more out of touch with this epoch?

Actually, I'm not exactly sure how long an epoch is, but nothing either of them says carries any association with anything I believe or have experienced, and I lived most of my life in both halves of the last century.

Unfortunately, those who are being born in this century are going to have a lot to deal with if the religious nuts who are, in the main, white, middle-aged males buttressed with Viagra, and who are swanning about on the political stage advising women they are just so much meat.

Are you a woman who dares to entertain the idea of ending an unwanted pregnancy? It's legal but, damn it, before you can take advantage of this right, you must submit to the governor of Virginia. Lie down, spread your legs and let some guy probe you with a wand that isn't his own.

Unbelievable!

We are being told contraception is bad. It leads to - heaven forefend! -  inappropriate activity like sex for fun and pleasure.  We can't have that! Any woman who dares to want to get laid just for the hell of it might,  in a few years, find herself in the public square with her hands and feet locked in the stocks while upstanding male churchgoers chuck rotten eggs at her.

 Or, remember the ducking stool?

What kind of a society of guilt-ridden masochists and sadists are these bulwarks of religion trying to turn the population of this one-time democratic-loving, freedom-pursuing - and, Christ, yes, religious-free country into? 

This is a resurrection of the Inquisition.

Ladies...get out your pitchforks and get into the fight. 

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(This was repeated from February 22, 2012 blog entry that was termed "spam" by someone and the URL was removed)

Monday Morning Meaninglessness

When I started my blog a little over a year ago, a very old friend (who has since been sent to his great reward after being struck by a speeding vehicle...a circumstance I am not drawing any correlation to) said, "You have to make up your mind what you are going to write about so people will know what they are going to get when they click on your site."

His critique was correct and I have settled on ranting about religion and politics, since those two topics are guaranteed to make the greatest number of friends!

Nevertheless, I sometimes get the giggles and want to share some of life's absurdities.

I just finished reading a "cozy mystery" where the author spent 350 pages leading to the denouement...and then accomplished it in about 20 paragraphs.

She obviously got bored, and I can relate to that. I am reproducing here a poem I wrote in the eighth grade and which has become a standing joke I share with my daughter whenever something wildly  too  previous  comes to our attention. For your possible amusement, here is:

Captain Kidd 

When pirates sailed the seven seas,
   They buried their treasures 'neath the trees
Of some deserted isle....where they perhaps had lingered awhile.

But as these pirates rough and bold
   Buried their treasures of jewels and gold,
There appeared upon the ocean....Captain Kidd with a curious notion.

For he had papers of a privateer
   And roamed the seas far and near,
To harry the French and sink their ships....the order had come from the King's own lips.

But then as fast as doom it struck.
   Captain Kidd had lost his luck.
On the horizon then appeared, a Portuguese Caravelle....for which they steered.

Without Kidd's consent
   And with murderous intent,
The crew opened fire....the Captain's future looked hopeless and dire.

And so a price was put on the head of Captain Kidd who now is dead.

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Rapacity, Mediocrity...and Romney

Romney officially heads the Republican party and his handmaid, Trump, is trumpeting his success at making stupidity a made-in-America commodity.

We are slouching toward a slough of despond!

Yeah, I guess I'm mixing literary metaphors, but tough times call for tough measures.

Is there good news anywhere? No!

The most boring member of a bizarre band of brothers competing in a totally witless primary has, unthinkably, achieved stature as the leader of a party whose name conjures up a litany of Romney-inspired terms:

Money, absurdity, larceny, money, acrimony, tyranny, hegemony, villainy, money, gluttony, calumny, money, felony, cupidity,  mendacity and, maybe, above all, monotony.

The European economy is on the verge of collapse; Syria and Iran and Israel are lighting the fires of catastrophe; Islamic zealotry and Christian hypocrisy have the world by its short hairs and, into this potentially monumental conflagration, slouches a man with a name that rhymes with all that is wrong with this world. Romney!

It's all too much to bear.

Every day a new poll appears that shows this totally useless excuse for a paragon of virtue, is gaining on the good and sensible.

Every day we hear reports that  Rove, the giver of eight years of Georgie Porgie & Co., is readying his army of evil elves to bury sanity and even-handed justice under a pile of stinking cash that will keep us down and dirty forever.

The merry month of May is sinking under the weight of the prospect of a summer of no-good, lousy news. And I can't do a thing about it.

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Barf Bag Sunday

I watched Republican "strategist" Ed Gillespie holding forth this Sunday. He looked so sweetly sincere in his pity for President Obama's lack of a snowball's chance in hell to be returned to office in November, that I couldn't help admiring his brass. He delivered his malevolence without raising an epithet or an eyebrow.

This is the talent of the present day Goppers.  They have, through their belief they are the favored species, practiced and perfected the appearance  of infallibility while they spit out their Shinola.

You absolutely know they are lying, exaggerating and spinning when they lay down a memorized carpet of offensive barbs with a deftness that defies belief. Those of us with the benefit of functioning brains, but the drag weight of a sense of honor and  fair-play, are left in the dust, sputtering like Tin Lizzies. (Witness Rachel Maddow last week dealing with the supreme condescension of a Goppy activist on MTP.)

I couldn't believe the idiocy spouted on this past airing of ABC's This Week. Bay Buchanan is the quintessential narrow minded Irish biddy that Maeve Binchy evokes in her amazingly candid stories about the Gaelic psyche. Buchanan, like her brother, is so full of venom, I can feel it splashing on my face 10 feet from the TV set. 

And shame on Tavis Smiley for having to fault Obama for not making the world free of murder and mayhem concomitantly with his having to surmount the devastating effects of a bloody-minded opposition in his own government.

And can you imagine McCain defending his selection of Palin and then asking us to believe it is Obama whom "...history will view  with the scorn and disdain he deserves."?

Where does the gall come from and why is it so hard for liberals to ingest it and then disgorge it at will as Goppers can and do?

Oh, I can and do say mean things. I can and do rant and rave and be generally and insultingly dismissive of Gopper nonsense. But I find it almost impossible to dissemble with the artistic finesse of a Rove or Gillespie or that really creepy Castellanos. There definitely is something in the DNA of these critters.

With all the books coming out analyzing the Republican mindset,  I see I am not the only one who has noticed that there is something very wrong about conservatives this year.

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