Posts from — February 2011

I watched Fair Game Last Night in a hotel upstate and honey it all came crashing back.

The power team of Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby and more, how they took us to war in Iraq under the guise of weapons of mass destruction, a war we are still in costing thousands and thousands of lives and lords knows how many trillions of dollars
And how no one, except for a commuted sentence to Scooter Libby seems to have been held accountable.

Okay Libby clearly the fall guy, has a felony on his record and a loss of his law license,but no jail time. What about those he reported to and took orders from?

Watching Sean Penn masterfully play Joe Wilson, who after writing his New York Time’s piece exposing the full-of-shit-ness of the WMD cake bought in Africa, saw his wife Valerie Plame’s career as a C.I.A. agent destroyed. Her outing put their family in danger and may have cost the lives of operatives who trusted her. Her outing could be traced all the way back to the white house.

What I like about great movies and great actors is that perhaps Fair Game and Naomi Watts and Sean Penn and the great writing and directing could do more then blogging and writing and interviewing and interrogating can. Maybe movies like this can force sleeping people to wake up and sit in the shoes of Valerie and Joe and to relive those moments when to speak out against the war in Iraq was to be treated like a traitor or a suspected terrorist.

to ask the question sean penn’s joe wilson asks…why do we all know who Valerie Plame is and not what were the 16 words George Bush
used to get us into this war. Who got us asking who is Joe Wilson’s wife, not why are we going to war.

The spin masters of course. Karl Rove was a master, so was Cheney.

Sometimes I think 99% of government is Public relations and how things can be spun. Mostly. I think i’m right.

I remember walking through Union Square park when the Republican convention was coming to nyc some years ago and joining with a group of war protestors, peacefully marching around the park, all of a sudden this orange net sprung up by riot police around us and it was just by a quick move to the right that I managed to drag my friend and myself out of being netted. Later on I found out the war protestors were thrown in jail for days on end, presumably to keep them quiet until the press and the convention left town. I’m quite sure many lawsuits came out of that and should be. I watched the news about the innocent jailed people who were treated like terrorist suspects and criminals for speaking out against the war and thought; didn’t we learn anything from Vietnam? Doesn’t anyone study history? Does History always repeat itself? Mostly i thought, “damn that coulda been me?”

Listen, as some of you who’ve been reading my site long enough know, I was very torn about the war in Iraq. I hated Saddam and what he did to his people, so had a hard time feeling bad about his regime toppling. I liked the vision of him being dragged out from under his hiding hole, beared and ruined, but I didn’t like the feeling of being dragged into an ill planned war with no exit on the basis of lies. Wouldn’t it have been so nice if Saddam could have been forced to step down like what happened in Egypt this week? Okay yes that’s a pipe dream, but here’s hoping the strength of the Egyptian people brings about a real democracy for them and it’s contagious and becomes the new voice of toppling evil regimes. Less war more democracy.

Maybe if we hadn’t been dragged to war when the Bush machine wanted us to, under the lies of WMD, we might have gone to war with Saddam anyway, but at least, America would have the feeling that we’d gone to war for reasons that were true. At least soldiers who risk their lives would really know why.

So after watching the movie last night, I am asking the question
Why didn’t more heads roll? Have they ever found any WMD in Iraq?
Maybe I’ll let some of my smarter commenters say their piece, cause I’m stumped here. We impeached President Clinton for having some not sex with his intern. Why didn’t we impeach GW Bush?

History has been very kind to Ronald Reagan, honey i don’t remember that many folks liking him that much when he was president. MAybe I was too young. But GW Bush does not deserve any kindness from history. Maybe it’s not very American to say this about a former president or maybe it’s totally American, but I think the closest he came to getting what he deserves from history was that flying shoe.

well kids i have to admit this urban cowgal
is not a sports fan
i once bartended at a bar filled with construction workers and needless to say sports fans
when the world’s series came up, the only way the cocktail waitress and i survived the mad boredom was by giving each player a 1-10 rating on body, face and tushy and um other features
then adding our own commentary
so and so may have struck out but he scored a 9.5 in butt!
when the super bowl came on the other night, i had to ask folks who was playing and then decided to root for the steelers cause, ya know i’ve been to pittsburgh
i didn’t watch the game, just turned it on to see the black eyed peas do the half time show and mainly only cause i like fergie
she’s a female sex symbol who has some meat on her bones and isn’t two years old, it’s a nice change!
then i caught a few minutes of the post-game show just to find out who won. the green bay packers, okay well at least i’ve heard of them anyway..the only person i really felt sorry for was christine aguillara- did i spell her name right?
i mean that’s gotta be ambarrassing flubbing the words to the national anthem in front of millions! hmm but then with all her moolah
i’m sure she can find a way to console herself..i’m not a christine fan,but i do like that she demanded her co-star in burlesque be Cher
i mean hello the woman rocked the movie like everything else she does
and she’s over 60
i don’t really understand the appeal of watching football but i have to amit it is less boring to me then watching baseball
i guess the sport i find the least boring is wrestling- is that considered a sport? maybe i like watching men kick each other asses
who knows?
but here’s what i do like about sports
i like that the superbowl gave millions of folks a night to not think about their problems and just root for their team
they threw their super bowl parties of nachos, beer and chicken wings
even the president threw an equally un-healthy super-bowl party
part of the charm of the night
nobody throws tofu and crudite super bowl parties do they?
i don’t think i’ll be turning into a sports fan anytime soon
i used the super bowl night to catch up on harry’s law with kathy bates
which is a great a new prime-time show
and supporting a show starring a talented lady
with a good chunk of chubby..well past her 40′s makes me happy
if betty white hasn’t taught us that america is ready to love women of a certain age i don’t know what has
well kids that’s it for now
touch down!

Hello biscuits
Sorry to be so long in posting life has been busy these days
But going into our third or is it fourth snow storm here in nyc
It’s hard to find the time to do anything but stay warm…

Aaaak!

But here’s what’s on my mind right now
Randomly

Health care- I like that my brother can now insure his kids till they are 26
I like that the dozens of people I know who can’t afford health insurance may now be able to

I like that my good pal who lived in fear of losing his insurance lest a new company turn him down for his pre-existing condition, now doesn’t’ have to worry about that

Here’s what I don’t like, my friggen insurance company in an effort to pay for the new mandates
Hiked up my insurance hugely and lowered what it pays for quite noticeably
So clearly, once again the person who pays for doing the right thing
Is not the insurance companies, but the folks who were managing to have insurance.
Sigh, I’m a good enough person that it’s still worth it to me to suck it up, pay more, get less in order to help the common good. I’m kind of thinking of it as my charitable donation for the moment, but it sure didn’t feel good when I took a good hard look at my renewal break down.

As to Obama’s State of the Union.. He gave a great speech of course. The man’s a great speech giver and all the hoopla comparing him to Reagan is because of that, but you know, I really couldn’t stand Reagan, so I won’t weigh in on the comparison. I liked the mixing of dems and repubs and the huge effort to create a bi-partisan feel. It seemed to largely work at least symbolically anyway. I think Obama played it fairly safe, stuck to the big picture and gave more of a pep talk then a nitty gritty detail kind of talk, but I also think that’s what American needs right now. Do I still wish it was Hillary, yeah sometimes, but I’m mostly behind the guy and I love that he finally got Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell 86’d.

About the huge Republican take-over, yeah that’s all about the jobs of course, but why are so many Republicans who campaigned on more Jobs focusing on less abortions. I mean helloooo should that really be their focus right now?
Okay I’m all for a woman’s right to choose, so I admit I wouldn’t like this focus anytime, but it does seem a bit extra off right now.

Now on to other things, for those in need of a good pick-me-up in these days of confusing struggling money blues, I say go see “The Fighter”
Christian Bale gives one of his best performances and Melissa Leo who I have to admit I hadn’t heard of before this flick is just amazing. They’ve both been getting some well-deserved awards. Mark Wahlberg, well he was great but the guy pretty much always plays himself. I don’t think he’ll be winning any acting trophies but he should have got one for the bulking up he did on his body. Anyway it’s a story about working class folks in a working class town, rising up and above, kinda like the way Rocky 1 made you feel. I left thinking if he can do it so can I and that’s just the way you want to feel to these days.

So here’s what I think, whatever strife you’re going through, let it go, let it loose, feel free and fly high. Breathe the air, savor the moment, love as much as you can and try to soar above the blues. We’ll get through it with laughter and love or at least, it will feel a lot better in the trying.