Happy, happy weekend to y’all! I’m in trainings and busy the next few days, but Will Post As Able.

love,

your girl,

wm

ps — vote. VOTE. VOTE!!! Go, Obama!!!!

When I was young and drunk, I dated a large Irishman, who was 6’5″ and, like me, an English major and writer. He also liked to drink. And have conversations that were apropos of everything and nothing at the same time. (more…)

I’m talking to one of my Jeff Demo friends today and I say, You know last year, when I thought the Demos weren’t going to take both titles (men’s and women’s, 5-A b-ball), I’m not saying that I would have died, had they lost, but I would have died if they lost.

And now I’m feeling like, if Mr. Obama loses, I’m gonna die.

She says, He’s not losing and you’re not dying.

With that in mind, I taped the debate today between Mr. Obama and John McCain and… here we go. I’m fidgety, I’m a little aggravated, I’m having trouble watching this, because my heart is pounding so loud.

Lady from the audience: How can we trust either of you, when both parties are the ones who got us into this mess?

Me: That’s what she said!

Tom Brokaw: How can we all stop getting drunk?

Me: Don’t drink and drink!

My husband: I was really hoping to watch this.

Me: Yeah.

That reminds me of a joke Zip-Zip told me:

Sitting behind a couple of nuns (whose habits partially blocked their view) at a Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey Game, three men decided to badger the nuns in an effort to get them to move. In a loud voice, the first guy says: “I’m moving to Manitoba, there are only 100 nuns living there.” Second guy says: “I wanna go to Nova Scotia, there are only 50 nuns there.” Third guy says: “I want to go to Newfoundland, there are only 25 nuns living there.” One of the nuns turns around and says: “Why don’t you go to Hell, there aren’t any nuns there.”

Back to the debate:

Mr. Obama: …we need that money at home!

Me: Tell it like it are, Barack!

And… one more from the Anti-Christ:
Mr. McCain: If it’s left up to me, we’ll win this war.

Me: We’re not leaving it up to you.

Go, Mr. Obama, go. Win this race. (McCain didn’t do well in the debate, in my opinion. How can you tell he’s lying? His mouth is moving.)

Go, Mr. Obama. Win it.

I am not fond of propaganda. I am not fond of people telling me that I should hate and hate some more when you know all I want to do, even in my darkest, saddest moments, is LOVE and LOVE SOME MORE.

I want that love spread around. I want us out of Iraq. I want people to stop hurting each other, killing each other, with our words, bombs and guns. Those of you who are not in the United States, you will please remember that many of us are against America’s war against Iraq. When I first heard the news on Sept. 11th, 2001, my thoughts went in this order:

1) That can’t just have happened.
2) It couldn’t have been an attack, it was an accident. It was a freakish, hideous accident
3) It was an attack.
4) Now America will have to “get back” at someone. Now Bush and his cronies will want to lash out, bomb civilians, kill everyone they can.
5) No, they won’t.
6) They can’t.
7) They’ll learn from this. They’ll turn the other cheek.
8) No, they won’t.

So for the Oregonian, our “paper of record,” to include a hate-mongering DVD in the Sunday paper… this is just as horrible to me as knowing how German-Americans and Japanese-Americans were treated here in the U.S., during the Second World War.

You can tell me a lot of things, but you cannot tell me to hate.

Here is an extremely moving video that Portland, Oregon, radio host Opio Osokoni put together of the protest outside the Oregonian. Portland political activist Anne Trudeau and several others are interviewed. In the words of Portland blogger Terry Olson:

“Any doubt that the DVD Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West isn’t an endorsement of McCain should be dispelled by the fact that its newspaper distribution occurred primarily in swing voting states.”

Thank you, James Rainey of the L.A. Times. Old-school journalism. That’s right. And thank God, because you’re not going to get a “tough” interview from Katie Couric. Here’s Rainey, on Couric’s interview with Palin:

“…(Palin) struggled to respond to Couric’s suggestion that the $700-billion bailout might be better funneled through middle-class families instead of Wall Street firms.

‘That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in . . .’ Palin began, before meandering off in fruitless pursuit of coherence.

But I’ll let the governor speak for herself:

‘ . . . where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh — it’s got to be all about job creation too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, um, scary thing, but 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.'”

(Wacky Mommy here: Say whu? As my grandfather would say, “Girl, that doesn’t make any damn sense.”) Back to the L.A. Times:

“That mind-bender prompted Couric to muse, almost charitably, on ‘The Early Show’ that Palin is ‘not always responsive when asked questions, and sometimes does slip back to her talking points.’

It didn’t go much better for Palin when she tried to clarify the mystery of what her state’s proximity to Russia has taught her about that nation. Anyone south of the Arctic Circle would have seen this question coming and had a ready answer. But seemingly not the governor.

‘We have trade missions back and forth,’ Palin told Couric. ‘We, we do, it’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to, to our state.'”

(Please, y’all. Vote. Get your friends to vote. Vote early. Vote often. And let’s start working on getting coherent in this country. wm)

What time is it where you are? Ready for drinkies? I am going to have a glass of red wine, and we can talk. ‘K? K. (It’s a Bonterra Merlot. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiice. Thank you, R from Seattle and Chicago.)

“Don’t drink and drink.”
— Wacky Mommy

I am having a life chock-full of fun over here, Internets. Cleaning, cooking, ironing. Working, picking up kids, shopping. Sleeping? Exercising? Working, putting off my online class ’til October. We have the garden to harvest, the patio furniture to bring in and let’s not even talk about the political season and the conversations I have been having with various political types who show up on my porch.

Me: “It’s a private vote.”
Them: “Would you mind telling us how you would vote, were you to vote today?”
Me: “It’s a private vote. We vote privately in this country.”
Them, walking away: “Jeez, a lot of anger!” (more…)

Good news for Troy Davis.

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.”
— Sinclair Lewis, 1935

Governor Palin is a big reader, I hear! I’m thinking of sending her a copy of “The Witches,” by Roald Dahl. Because we all need to read more, no?

In honor of the ACLU’s celebration of banned books (an annual tradition since 1982), here are a few of Sarah’s and my favorites…

(These are books that regularly make the “hit list” for stodgy types who want to see books go bye-bye.)

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It’s Okay if You Don’t Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley?s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O?Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women’s Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil’s Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

A note from A.T., re: Snopes and Sarah Palin:

“It did not totally exonerate Palin. Snopes said that list of books was never banned, and Palin never banned books in Alaska. But, what is most notable is that there are confirmed reports from a librarian that Palin questioned her three times about the consequences of book banning. Palin said that was just informational. Palin also fired the librarian in 1997 because the mayor felt she didn’t have the librarian’s “full support”. The librarian was re-instated after one day due to public outcry.”

A note I received today from Amnesty International. Because this can, and does, happen to black men across America, every year in this country. We have a disproportionate number of brothers locked up. We need to change this.

wm

Troy Davis is scheduled to be executed on September 23.
Justice matters, stop the imminent execution of Troy Davis!

Dear Nancy,

Troy Davis is scheduled to be executed by the state of Georgia on September 23, even though his serious claims of innocence have never been heard in court.

Take action right now to stop this execution!

Troy Davis was convicted of murder solely on the basis of witness testimony, and seven of the nine non-police witnesses have since recanted or changed their testimony, several citing police coercion. Others have signed affidavits implicating one of the remaining two witnesses as the actual killer. But due to an increasingly restrictive appeals process, none of this new evidence has ever been heard in court.

Take action and then forward this action to ten friends!

On July 16, 2007, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles stayed Troy Davis’ execution, stating that it would “not allow an execution to proceed in this State unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused.” The failure of courts to hear the compelling evidence of innocence in this case means that massive doubts about Troy Davis’ guilt will remain unresolved.

Urge the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to be true to its words and prevent this execution from proceeding!

In solidarity,

Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn
Director, Death Penalty Abolition Campaign
Amnesty International USA

Congrats, Mr. Obama, and here’s to a successful race.

wm