Now THAT'S what I call HARDBALL!!

You may not believe it, but I am really not a confrontational kind of person & yelling & screaming is not usually my modus operandi, but I inadvertently saw this on Hardball last night (I was just wasting time waiting for my hero, Keith Olbermann, to light up my TV & my life) &, even though, in my humble opinion, Chris Matthews is a little too enamored of John McSame & has proven himself to be a bit of a Clinton-hater, and is altogether just not my cup of tea, politically- or televisionally-speaking, I was just mesmerized by his interaction with a hapless, screaming right-wing Bush lover named Kevin James (not he of King of Queens fame, by the by) trying to take down our Mr. Obama & trying to equate talking with your enemies with surrendering to your enemies (a la Neville Chamberlain).

To Chris's credit, he just couldn't let that bit of stupidity ride & repeatedly challenged Kevvy to specifically state what it was that Chamberlain did pre-WWII that the world now sees as appeasement of Adolf Hitler. It seems that (obviously NOT) College Boy couldn't answer the question. Seems the Kevster was more interested in trying to take down a few notches the guy he knows not-so-deep inside is probably gonna be the next President of these United States with some mindless spoon-fed right-wing pablum.

I can't believe I find myself saying it, but Chris was right*: we can't just talk to our friends in this world; if we want to make progress on some issues & make the world even a tiny bit safe & potentially more stable, sometimes--JUST SOMETIMES--we're gonna have to talk to our enemies. It's not like they're gonna go away if we pretend they're not there (no matter what President DICK Cheney & his sidekick Dubya & their fanboy Kevin seem to have concocted in their nefarious noggins)! TALKING TO YOUR ENEMIES IS NOT THE SAME THING AS CAPITULATING TO THEM...DUH!

You gotta give it to ol' KJ, though, even given his obvious anger issues, what he lacks in historical knowledge, he sure makes up in hysterical volume! I actually even felt oddly uncomfortable for the guy. Heck, I even almost didn't laugh out loud at his getting caught at his obviously flawed imitation of a Repugnant Party parrot!

Give it a watch! Mark Green, by the way (the actually obviously sane guy Chris was interviewing too, does a great job. Made me glad he's on my side!)

*in this ONE instance

"...an individual's capacity to establish a loving & long-term committed relationship with another person...does not depend upon...sexual orientation"

"Our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation..."

California Supreme Court Ruling S147999

Even the Governator of California says, "I respect the court's decision and as governor, I will uphold its ruling...and, as I have said in the past, I will not support an amendment to the constitution that would overturn this (ruling)."

Apparently the same infamous US Supreme Court that installed Dubya as President of these United States 7 long, long years ago may still yet be able to undo the right thing done today by California's Supreme Court with an appeal of today's ruling, but for today, at least, the Golden State has never been more golden!

WARNING: Expect to hear the "liberal media" talk about how badly this will damage Obama's chances in November. This old line has just been done to death! Call me overly-optimistic, but, ever since John McSame's home state of Arizona narrowly rejected the "Gay Marriage Ban" in 2006, I have begun to suspect that the fear-mongers of the RRR (Radical Religious Right) have begun to run out of juice, as they say, on the subject of marriage equality. They just can't scare most people now with talk of the great threat people like me pose to the "sanctity of marriage". Most folks nowadays have too many threats that are more real & more tangible to them than the monster called GAY MARRIAGE: like the cost to fill their gas tanks & the war-without-end in Iraq & a government that has become the enemy of the governed & is slowly squeezing the life out of the same rights it says it’s fighting to protect & what happens if they or a family member gets sick or hurt & doesn't have health insurance or if the health insurance they have won't even cover their particular situation & wondering how to they can afford their prescriptions and their groceries & how they can pay for college for their kids, etc., etc., etc., etc.

MSN story here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24649689/

Califormia Supreme Court ruling here:
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/080515_CA_SC_Marriage_Ruling.pdf

I [Heart] Stephen Colbert (but, Bill O'Reilly, not so much--OBVIOUSLY)!

Unable to embed the video for some reason, but you really should copy & paste the link into your browser. It's pure Colbert gold!

http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=168451

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms & Moms-To-Be out there! Unfortunately, I won't get to see my mom today, but, like millions of other Americans on every 2nd Sunday in May, I will be calling her today to wish her a happy day today & to let her know how blessed I am that she's my mom!!

Below you will find a short history on Mother's Day from the good folks at Wikipedia, including the fact that it was originally intended by the woman who first thought up the idea in the U.S. shortly after the U.S. Civil War as a day for mothers (& others) to protest the idea of war. You can find a more detailed history of Mother's Day around the world & more info on how the original founder of Mother's Day in the US eventually came to renounce the day due to what she saw as it's over-commercialization at Mother's Day Central at http://www.mothersdaycentral.com/about-mothersday/history/.

The United States celebrates Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May. In the United States, Mother's Day was loosely inspired by the British day and was imported by social activist Julia Ward Howe after the American Civil War. However, it was intended as a call to unite women against war. In 1870, she wrote the Mother's Day Proclamation as a call for peace and disarmament. Howe failed in her attempt to get formal recognition of a Mother's Day for Peace. Her idea was influenced by Ann Jarvis, a young Appalachian homemaker who, starting in 1858, had attempted to improve sanitation through what she called Mothers' Work Days. She organized women throughout the Civil War to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides, and in 1868 she began work to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbors.

When Jarvis died in 1907, her daughter, named Anna Jarvis, started the crusade to found a memorial day for women. The first such Mother's Day was celebrated in Grafton, West Virginia, on 10 May 1908, in the church where the elder Ann Jarvis had taught Sunday School. Originally the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church, this building is now the International Mother's Day Shrine (a National Historic Landmark). From there, the custom caught on — spreading eventually to 45 states. The holiday was declared officially by some states beginning in 1912. In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother's Day, as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war.

Nine years after the first official Mother's Day, commercialization of the U.S. holiday became so rampant that Anna Jarvis herself became a major opponent of what the holiday had become. Mother's Day continues to this day to be one of the most commercially successful U.S. occasions. According to the National Restaurant Association, Mother's Day is now the most popular day of the year to dine out at a restaurant in the United States.

"...we ain't what we should be, we ain't what we're gonna be, but at least we ain't what we were..."

I just finished watching one of my most favorite episodes of Designing Women where Charlene was giving birth to her daughter, Olivia. The title of the episode is "The First Day of the Last Decade of the Entire Twentieth Century" and was aired on CBS on January 1, 1990 (pretty appropriate, I guess).

One of the last scenes in the episode show the main cast huddled around the bed of one of the hospital's oldest patients, Miss Minnie Bell Ward. Being a century old, she was apparently in the hospital a lot, so the hospital staff knew her well, and they invited the Sugarbakers & their friends to come talk to her while they were waiting for Charlene to have her baby.

Miss Minnie apparently had a lot to say regarding her life: watching her children be born & then, one by one, leave her behind. She was obviously so tired & so ready to be done with a life without those people her heart had grown to love over the many many years.

Her last few lines, as she lies in her bed on the verge of her last breath, have always really touched me, and I am sharing them here with you in hopes they touch you too!

"...I thought as I got older, the bold outline of truth would be revealed to me, but it hasn't happened. When I was young, I was in such a hurry. And now, I've been here a hundred years. It seems like only yesterday I held my babies in my arms. I'm glad to be going home. It's been a long time since I've seen my family. And I wish for all of you, all the love and happiness I had in my life -- and I hope the world keeps going toward freedom. And I hope that people everywhere can learn to live together in peace. As my pappa used to say......we ain't what we should be, we ain't what we're gonna be, but at least we ain't what we were....."

Ironman is da bomb!

All I can say is "F'ing cool! GO SEE IT! NOW!!!!!"

Happy (????) Anniversary...

5 years ago today, on Thursday, May 1, 2003, after making 2 fly-bys from the co-pilot's seat of a Navy S-3B Viking jet fighter, President George W. Bush landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln off the shore of California &, under the infamous Mission Accomplished banner proclaimed, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

Five years & 4,064 US military deaths (and multiple thousands of Iraqi deaths) later, per ICasualties.org, we are still mired in Dubya's War Without End, and we're all left to wonder just what the Shrub's idea of "major combat operations" is. Considering his obvious aversion to reality that doesn't suit his political goals, in his "mind," I'm sure he sees no contradiction. I guess, in comparison, John McSame McCain's willigness to keep us there for only 100 years is a blessing! :-/

I hope that, today at least, each of keeps in our minds & in our hearts the brave soldiers who have, as President Lincoln once said of fallen heroes from an earlier time, given "the last full measure of devotion". I pray, too, that the families of these heroes are able to find a measure of peace in the loss of their loved ones, knowing how much the rest of us--regardless of our stance on this war--appreciate & honor their most noble sacrifice.

Speaking for myself, it is the war I hate, not the warriors.