If you don’t like this, you don’t like puppies. Or soldiers.

Aint technology grand?

I promise this is not a political post, but get this:

One of the front pager writers from DailyKos is sitting in on the Rules Committee hearing on the House Health Care Bill. He’s there courtesy of the Chairwoman, Rep Louise Slaughter who got him on as credentialed media. He’s covering it by “live tweeting” sending along 140 character updates via twitter every minute or so. It’s like having a play by play announcer in the room. Meanwhile, I am listening to the live stream of the hearing – listening, because they traditionally don’t have cameras in the hearing rooms like they do on the Congressional or Senate floors. While I am listening, it is easy to lose track of whose voice belongs to which Rep. A quick tweet to the DailyKos writer, and I get an answer! I can TALK to someone IN the hearing room which it all happens! And as he pointed out a minute ago, this hearing session is WAAAY more productive and respectful & less about theatrics & bombast. There’s a couple of members on this committee who have been *quite* theatrical with their floor speeches to the point of some sharp criticism, but in this hearing they are being quite subdued and reasonable. Is it the lack of cameras I wonder?

It doesn’t matter – I am just flabbergasted at how accessible this all is! I mean – five years ago coulf I have imagined this kind of inside access? Heck no!!

I love technology!!

 

 

He started it!

Ah, the classic way to dodge responsibility for your own bad behavior – point the finger at someone else who has done the same thing as if that somehow absolves you of guilt.

Happens in the political sphere ALL THE TIME. Conservatives disrupting town hall meetings preventing any real discussions from happening? It’s OK, the left did the same thing during the attempts to privatize social security! Joe Wilson says those famous two words during a Presidential address and the *first* thing I heard was “Did the Dems ever do anything like that?” as if finding an example of their bad manners would excuse his. Oh and the left does it too. So many times on the blogs I’ve seen “But THEY started it!” or “They do it too, and worse than us!” and so on and so on. Tit for tat and no one ever actually acknowledges that whatever the behavior is is just flat out wrong and unacceptable no matter WHO does it. And therefore no one ever stops.

If you are still defiantly thinking it’s a perfectly acceptable way to get out of trouble,how about in this scenario?

At a youth football game, a coach is screaming at his kids. Loudly. Loud enough that everyone on the other side can hear it. Dropping f-bombs and other foul language and statements at his own players, at the opponents, at the refs, you name it, he’s yelling at ‘em. You are a volunteer parents holding the down markers for the game which are held on the same side as this offensive coach. For reasons you don’t understand, the referee is not flagging this coach. Yes, they can hear him because one of them even says to you as he walks by “Man, I’ve about had enough of this” but nothing happens. Finally, after 3 quarters of this nonsense and with him standing right next to you as he yells you cannot help it and say something like “I really think you should control your language around these kids. Not to mention that everyone in the stands can hear you.” His response? “Well, that side does it too!” You respond with “First of all, no, I haven’t heard anything close to your language from the other side at all and, even if I did, what bearing does that have on your behavior?” Which of course elicits an even more vitriolic response from the coach and now there is attention being paid to the sideline and who gets flagged and thrown out? Yep – you – the volunteer parent who was trying to get the guy to behave! But you, rather than playing the “He started it!” card and arguing with the refs who you KNOW heard this stuff, calmly represent your side with some dignity and leave without incident so the real point of everything – the kid’s game – can continue in relative peace.

So what happened there? The coach was clearly in the wrong correct? Even IF the other side was “doing it too”. All that would have meant is that both sides were wrong. The point was, the behavior needed to stop. You would probably have no argument with that if you had to hear your kids being yelled at like that, right?

Since when did we stop insisting that people actually grow OUT of their childhood bad habits? Since when did we, as a nation, start letting people get away with the “He started it!” crap?

When is bad behavior just BAD no matter who does it? What example are we setting for our kids? Do you let your kids get away with this? I doubt it! I mean, if you would have gotten in trouble for that kind of out of control, rude, uncivilized nonsense as a kid, then for heavens sake don’t even *think* about doing it as an adult! Or are we really just letting the loud, insecure bullies take over?

I don’t care who used Hitler as a comparison to which President first or that both sides have done it – it’s just plain WRONG – stop it!

I don’t care that both sides have shouted down debate in town hall meetings – it stifles healthy exchanges of ideas that could help everyone and it’s just RUDE – stop it!

I don’t care who started cussing out their team first – it’s also just plain WRONG – stop it!

I don’t care who started it – I want to be able to say like I did to that parent who walked away at the right time – “Thank you for being the adult” and stopping it.

The Good Cops

A recent story that’s received PLENTY of nationl attention already kind of hit home to me. I guess it’s being referred to now as Gates-gate since it’s the story of the arrest of Harvard Law professor Henry Louis Gates at his own home thanks to a series of unusual circumstances. I’ve read several accounts and when it gets to the part where Mr Gates shows Officer Crowley his identification proving he did indeed live at that house, I always think “Ok, and that’s where the officer says thank you and goodby, right?” Because in my mind the police are public servants in a position of great power and they shouldn’t abuse that. My friend Shayera provides a perfect example of the things public servants need to learn how to deal with while representing their city/county/state etc. Police in particular are dealing with people who are MOST LIKELY to be in a heightened state of anxiety. But rather than focus on what this officer did wrong (IMHO), it makes think back to the three police officers who did something right.

Back a couple of months ago when Music Man was doing his time in work furlough, there was a clerical mix up with his records that resulted in a warrant being issued for his arrest. Yes, while he was technically in custody! Anyhow, we were alerted to it on a Friday night when our neighbor told us that the police had come by looking for him. Of course it was a Firday night right? Anyway, I was able to contact MM and get him to call his attorney to check into things first thing the next week. Meawhile he checked with his probation officer at the furlough facility who assured him that the police would not pick him from there or from his job site. They were able to look it up from their system and see it was a charge against him for possesion of Adderall withou a prescription (one pill!) a charge which had been rolled into the time he was serving. Or so he thought. Again, clerical mishap. So on Saturday I drove home after leaving SportsBoy with my parents as he was in the middle of playing in a tournament and I had an event to attend at my high school that evening. I have about 45 minutes to shower and get dressed before my friend was meeting me here to head out. As I pull around the corner I see two police cars and three police officers milling about the corner. I was floored. Sure enough, as I pull into my garage they walk in behind my car. I remember thinking “Really?! You guys are doing this to me now? Isn’t this overkill?!” So yeah, I was agitated. As I get out of the car one officer is RIGHT there asking me where my son is. I tell him at work. He says “No ma’am, I don’t believe you, his car is in the driveway.” I know I raised my voice right away and said “Oh, really? HIS car? Did you run the plates? Did you feel the hood?” He just kept saying “I know he’s in there.” I said again “Oh REALLY?! Besides not running the plates on that car, I gather you also didn’t check to see if he was ALREADY IN CUSTODY?!” I also made what I fully admit to be a very smart ass comment about how it would make the neighborhood feel a whole lot better if they spent time looking for the guy who was sexually assaulting women and robbing them vs my son with his possesion of adderal charge. A little voice in my head was saying “shut up, YOU don’t want to get yourself arrested!” but this was my son who was being ridiculously wronged, I felt they were being lazy and I felt harassed.  Which is what I stated when he condescnedingly asked me calm down. Now, the whole time it was just one of the three officers speaking to me. Another was standing next to him and the third was standing down in the driveway watching the whole scene like a bystander. Finally, because I knew they wouldn’t be satisfied and I had nothing to hide, I invtited them inside, told them to look wherever they wanted to look. So the first two spread out and go through the house while the third one finally comes in and listens to me vent some more, but wisely throws no fuel into my fire. Finally he asks if I have any paperwork in the house to prove MM is at furlough. I looked but there was nothing because MM had to keep all that with him. But I showed him that his cell phone was with me and off, (unusual for a 23 year odl right?), pointed out again that the car was in my name and had not been driven, pointed out how everything in his room was turned off – bed not slept in – and asked why they couldn’t have someone in their station check their records more closely? He claimed weekend issues with the system and not having access until Monday. Meanwhile cop #1 who had done the talking earlier comes downstairs and says “Well, he’s clearly not here, but then I didn’t open every cupboard.”

Yeah

Can you imagine my reaction to THAT? Right turdblossom, my 6′1″ son is curled in a ball under the sink – go look! Ok, I didn’t call him turdblossom, but I did say the rest! That finally got cop #3 to say “OK you guys, you can go, I have it from here.” Smart move. I asked him why there were so many of them for this misdemeanor charge? He claimed Standard Opertaing Procedure. I was transitioning from pissed off to close to tears at this point and I told him calmly that was I was quite serious about feeling harassed, that I didn’t care if it was SOP, but I felt like they had done no homework on this warrant, but had just descended on our house twice now apparently to take away a guy who was doing all the right things and trying to turn things around and was no threat to another resident here. So he asked me if I had a way to get to MM and get a copy of the furlough paperwork. I did. He told me to do that ASAP and leave that out front so that the next time they came by he could just pick that up.

My point of that whole memory dump is to highlight a GOOD cop. Really, all three of them were even though the one was on a minor power trip. They knew when to stop challenging me and start helping. And they knew when to walk away instead of making the situation worse.

And reading up on the Gates situation makes even more thankful that they WERE very good cops. Because I gotta admit that I was right there with some disorderly conduct with my verbal assults! Maybe they should go out and give a little training to Officer Crowley

I know there’s something going on

In preparation to write a diary for Daily Kos (cue scary music), I need to drain my brain first.

Happy 4th of July!! Whatever you are doing, be safe, wear sunscreen, and have fun!

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SportsBoy has now been in Sweden for over two weeks. He was in a very small village outside of Gothenburg with his grandma and great grandma until yesterday which made it harder to talk to him, but he now he is in Stockholm with his grandpa and able to call. He’s having a wonderful time as usual. Weather has been very good for him – actually rather hot! Starting a daily workout routine to prepare for football practice which kicks in the day after he gets back. Can you believe I just said that? First day of practice is Aug 1 which is now less than one month away! How nuts is that?

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So what have I been doing? Well, working of course. Fiscal year end at work was June 30th so our year end craziness has begun and wont end until the auditors complete their work in early September. I’ve been really getting into working out! Either with the circuit training class which I go to twice a week or else doing my best to duplicate a lot of those exercises at home each night. Of course even with SB gone, there are still the boards I sit on to fill up my time. I’ve given my notice to the baseball group that I want out as of July 31. I mean – I need to get out from under these things! There’s been no break just because he is out of town. His messy bedroom? Still not touched! My over grown yard? Still a jungle! But I’ve had fun too – couple of days at the county fair (I think everyone has heard me rave about the heavenly taste of deep fried oreos!) a night out or two. Heck, I even read two books! Woo hoo!

Like many though, the news of the day has been dominant either online or as background noise on the tv. I wanted to post this final video of Michael Jackson that I guess everyone has seen at this point, but I want you to watch through to the end…and listen. Listen to the director say “hold for applause, hold for applause, and…fade to black.” And remember that is exactly what he did. It’s eerie:

more about “Michael Jackson’s Final Video“, posted with vodpod

and one more for you amusement and flash back to the past. Since I was off today I was home when the news was breaking about Sarah Palin resigning as governor of Alaska. And while the speech was not even done and many of my very snarky politically savvy friends were tweeting some truly hysterical comments, all I had in my mind was this song from 1982 by one of the ABBA women, Frida, during her solo career. Cheesy and so very typically 80s:

more about “FRIDA (ABBA) – ‘I Know There’s Someth…“, posted with vodpod

I think another shoe is going to drop with this one and no, it isn’t just touring the country to raise money for other GOP politicians or hosting a tv show or being a tv talking head or writing her book, or running for President. We’ll see in the coming days if my newly honed political instincts are right or not

Well, thanks (I guess) Billy

So within an hour of the news that Billy Mays had died, I was just moseying over to my blog stats page and noticed this huge spike. The hits were all going to a post I wrote earlier in the year about the products one could buy on TV and it included a picture of Billy Mays since he was the quintessential pitch man. The day ended with over 1500 hits!!! WTF? So I tested it out this morning and apparently when you do a google image search on Billy, the first version of this picture is the one that I used:

I shows up on the first page of serach results. Now, I had noticed that in the last month this post had been getting an increased number of hits so somehow my site must have been moving up in the google rankings and the combination of that and his untimely passing (attributed to heart disease, NOT the bump on his head from the plane) created a perfect storm of blog hits! Really interesting how that works!!

Stonewall Riots 40th anniversary

more about “Judy Garland – Over the Rainbow 1955“, posted with vodpod

I remember a fine June breeze swishing its way up Christopher Street from the river and the sweet aroma from the joint in my hand as I sat on a stoop up the block with some friends, the night New York’s finest raided the Stonewall Inn (“Stonewall bar riot was clarion call for change,” Monday). The Stonewall had been there for years. A pub, it is said, built before the American Revolution of the granite blocks from which it took its name. In my time it had been the best speakeasy dance bar in the West Village. By that June night in 1969, its faddish heyday had passed and it had become the party bar for drag and its fans. It was run, as were all the queer bars in New York City at that time, by the mob and its minions.

Remember, in those days, it was almost illegal to be queer, to congregate, to drink together, much less dance. We paid the mob in our private clubs and they paid the cops so we would be left alone. And that’s why that night, as I sat with my friends blowing a joint up the block, the cops raided the Stonewall. They raided it over a “bump in the pad,” an increase in their bribe. The Stonewall wouldn’t pay, so it got raided. (One of New York’s dirty little secrets.)

Go read the rest of this brilliantly written letter to the editor sent to commemorate this anniversary. Open it in a new tab while you listen to Judy singing the song he refers to in the letter to set the mood.

Grieving etiquette – when can you speak ill of the dead?

Every time someone in the public eye dies and the media saturates their shows with coverage, a huge debate busts out on DailyKos over when it is OK to cover the negative aspects of that person’s life. So naturally, with such a controversial figure as Michael Jackson passing away this week, there have been some very heated discussions going on there. At issue in particular was that MSNBC and NBC put Maureen Orth on the TV within hours of Jackson’s death knowing full well she was going to go 100% negative. Here is a quick link synopsis of what she was saying right away. I have to admit that while a part of me believes what she is saying 100% true – a larger part of me cringed to hear it so quickly. Perhaps there was the irony of WHO was saying these things? After all, she is the widow of Tim Russert who also died quite suddenly of heart failure. While he was not nearly as world wide popular or controversial, he still had his critics and you be damn sure if she and her son had heard ANY of those things within even a few days – let alone HOURS – of Tim’s death that they would have been even more devastated.

And there in lies the rub I think. Because no matter how heainous someone may have been while living, they were still someones loved one. Someone’s child, sibling, parent, grandparent, left long friend etc. And I think the issue is one of respect for THEIR feelings and grief over the loss vs trying to protect the reupatation of the recently deceased. After all, the deceased is..well…dead! Nothing you say is going to hurt THEM anymore.

So clearly I fall on the side of zipping lips for a short period of time. But for how long? And what’s the scale of how bad the deceased has to be before you don’t even bother with respecting their family? Ted Bundy bad?

What do you think?

RIP Michael Jackson

What do you mean it’s not Adam Lambert Tuesday?

I know I know, give it up right? Sigh..fine…but I’m taping all of the interviews they are making them do this week to get my fix.

I have to say though, that it’s turned out to be quite the eventful/historic Tuesday hasn’t it?

President Obama makes his first ever Supreme Court Nominee – Sonia Sotomayor:

What I know about the law and judges you could fit on the head of a very small pin so I wont opine too deeply other than to say that what I have read about her since this opening came up was very impressive and what I heard from her today at the announcement made me feel confident this is a very wise selection. And whether I agree with what Obama does or not, I always know he has put great thought into things and consulted with many voices first.

Then the California Supreme Court released it’s ruling to uphold the passage of Prop 8 but also to uphold the 18,000 marriages which took place between the first court ruling legalizing same-sex marraige and the passage of prop 8 in Nov.

It’s an old cartoon, but it still applies and the decision is extremely disappointing but not unexpected. So, the fight continues. There will most likely be another initiative introduced in 2010 which will be more CLEAR about what people are voting on. I am also confident that the groups supporting equal rights will do a much *better* job about getting the word out than they did in ‘08. Of course, even state recognition is just a part-way answer. As my friends explained who did get marriage in that window of opportunity, they still had to file taxes seperately on the federal level since all marriages are not recognized with them. *sigh* Gotta keep chipping away!

Today is also the 7 year anniversary of a guy just starting his own blog to release his frustration at the direction our country was going in:

Well, now, that little sideline endeavor seems to have turned out pretty well, dontcha think? Happy Blogiversary Markos!

So I guess there is enough going on to distract me from missing the lack of a new Adam Lambert performance tonight.  Allow me one thought on him: I swear that kid is the second coming of Elvis! Perusing some fan boards this weekend the level of passion devoted to him is pretty stunning and it’s not all young girls and boys. It’s international and multi-generational and really pretty phenomenal. As was said to him in one interview this weekend – he will never be anonymous again.