European Tour

May 29, 2009 | 3 Comments

Sorry, forgot to mention that I was heading to Europe for the Broadsides promotional tour. I’ll write more later — I’m pooped! — but for now, here’s a video of my first interview (I think they’re digging it!).

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog

Tim Geithner Mowing (Daily Post #2)

May 28, 2009 | 3 Comments

This is no time to worry. Or so I’ve been told. Because there are people with fancy degrees in places of higher power working diligently to correct it all. Later today I’ll be sending them a picture of my brain with a note that simply says: Fix This.

But that’s not helping now.

I still feel worrisome. Or anxious. You know, like things are not really okay.

To calm myself down I look out the window to see the neighbor mowing. He thinks it’s okay enough to take some time to mow the lawn. I feel a little bit better. Until I realize it’s raining and he shouldn’t be mowing the grass in the rain.

Maybe he’s not okay.
Maybe he’s trying to do whatever he needs to do to be okay.
Maybe he’s onto something.
Maybe I should mow.
Or maybe I should just be okay with mowing.

I’m confused.

And I’m still worried.

I think I really need to see Tim Geithner mowing before I really feel any better about the way things are going on all around me.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog

On Sotomayor, the “New” Big Tent, Flanagan & Seven Days and More

May 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment

“Judge Sonia Sotomayor was conferring with White House aides on Wednesday as conservatives said the court pick had energized their forces.” – The New York Times

Hmm, ever wonder where energized-conservative forces meet? Here:

Think of it as their new “big tent.”

–

Department of Dopey Reporting:Speaking of Sotomayor, here’s the first paragraph of a front-page article in this morning’s New York Times about her appointment:

“The White House’s Supreme Court selection plan had been months in the works, involving veterans determined to avoid the pitfalls of the past.”

Ya think?

–

Quote of the day:

“If you still have an Obama sticker on your car, maybe think about scraping it off and sending it to the White House with your objections,” says Mike Roselle of Climate Ground Zero, who is working hard to stop mountaintop removal in West Virginia and elsewhere. “Blowing mountains to pieces is a crime.”

[From Jeff St. Clair and Joshua Frank’s “Obama and the Environment:
The Politics of Bait-and-Switch.”
–

Flanagan & Seven Days: I’ve been meaning to say a couple of words about last week’s cover story about Vermont State Senator, Ed Flanagan. The article, by the usually fine Ken Picard, feels like little more than an insiders’ whisper campaign against Flanagan, a man who is still recovering from his horrific auto accident more than four years ago.

Apparently, Picard sets out to “prove” what Flanagan readily admits: He’s not the same. And where, pray tell, is the news content here?

While I did find it refreshing that Picard and Seven Days were making an attempt at looking behind the curtain, I thought their choice of Flanagan and his physical and mental challenges was a poor place to start – especially when they provide no evidence whatsoever that the “new” Flanagan is not performing his duties or satisfying his constituents.

Instead, Picard reports on Flanagan’s “odd” behaviors while at the Statehouse, things like taking naps without his shoes on and pushing jellybeans around the table without eating them. Hmm, sounds pretty normal to me, especially when you compare them to the truly odd things going on there. You know, like vetoing gay marriage legislation and the budget and refusing to listen to the people regarding true health care reform.

Flanagan may be pushing jellybeans around, but he’s still standing up and speaking out admirably for his constituents and “special interests” like the mentally and physically challenged.

Sorry, but this was a swing and a miss for Picard and Seven Days. Keep looking behind the curtains of our leaders, for sure, but wait until you’ve got some content – or news – before making it a cover story. And while you’re at it, swing at a bigger fish – you know, like Douglas, Leahy, Sanders or Welch.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog, war & peace

Oh My, A Post With Lots & Lots of Things

May 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment

A Central Vermont state representative, Paul Poirier, announced yesterday that he was leaving the Democratic Party to become an independent. Why? Because he felt that the Democratic Party wasn’t taking the issues affecting working people seriously enough.
Bravo to Poirier.

But his very thoughtful and open decision sent the local Democratic Party faithful – you know, the ones who hate war unless it’s a Democratic war, or injustice unless it’s Democratic injustice (read: Obama and gay marriage), etc. – into an all-too-familiar political tantrum.

One particular Dem blogger who is known for having a near-constant brain wedgie from his ill-fitting corporate-issued Dem cheerleader outfit wondered what Poirier could possibly mean by middleclass people being disillusioned by the Democratic Party. Hmm, let’s see, how about these three issues: The war(s), health care, and economic injustice (as in: bailouts for billionaires, flagger-jobs for the rest of us).

The power of the Obama haze never ceases to amaze me. Worse, the continued – and even worsening – manner in which worshipers of the two parties defend their churches – err, I mean, parties – to the detriment of the issues they claim to “fight for” remains simply bizarre.

Remember, for example, that Obama was an “anti-war” candidate. But once his “team” won, out went the issues of the day and in came a most disingenuous form of reasoning that goes something like: Just wait. And wait. And wait.

Do these folks envision little smiley faces on the bombs of Obama? Oh look, honey, he makes them happy before they die from his tyranny and our inaction….

Again, congrats to Poirier. The parties don’t matter – unless you’re looking for easy friends and a job – but the issues do.

–

Telemarketing No-No: I recently got a call from a salesman at the car dealership I bought my truck from about four years ago. He began with a lame attempt to convince me that someone out there really, really wanted my used truck. All I had to do was bring it in, get a “fantastic” deal, and go home with a new truck and a brand new five-year loan.

After telling the salesman that buying the truck was a ten-year decision – five with payments, five with repair costs – he launched into his spiel about the latest and greatest plan from his company:

“Don’t worry about carrying the loan. Because if you lose your job, we’ll take your truck back.”

Oh fuck, we are in trouble. Because if this is how they’re trying to sell stuff out there, there really is no hope – not for the sellers and not for the buyers.

Are people actually falling for this line? If so, the reasoning goes like this: Oh shit, I lost my job. But oh great, they’re taking my car.

And then what? Deliver newspapers via bicycle?

File Under: Some people never learn.

And then repeat after me: Bailouts for billionaires, platitudes for the multitudes. [Trademark pending.]

–

Diary of a Modern Man: I’m wireless now. Everything I say to you has passed through the foul air of my office. I mean, like right now, I smell of coffee, damp nature offal and even a little garlicky. But I’m really digging the possibilities of lugging my oversized desktop computer anywhere I want in the house.

Because I am modern. And I do what I have to do to stay that way.

–

Note to Readers: I have been reading your emails. And, frankly, some of the things you’re involving yourselves in seem a bit questionable. Please, if you’d like to read my words, clean your minds and your habits and come here with the kind of clear sense of purpose that I deserve. Thank you.

–

Recipe: For Disaster

It’s an old family recipe. And it goes like this:

Eat it.
Drink it.
Say it.
Do it.

And then wonder: “What the hell?”

And say: “But it wasn’t me.”

And think: “Oh fuck, I’m busted.”

Rinse and repeat as necessary.

Carry on.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog

Liberals v. Dick Cheney (Or: They CAN Be Fooled Again)

May 22, 2009 | 3 Comments

Liberals are fooling themselves by being giddy over Dick Cheney’s recent media blitz. In case you aren’t following the lib-giddiness, it goes like this: “(Giggle, giggle) Ain’t it great that the old bear, Cheney, is the “new” face of the Republican Party? This only helps us!”

Right? Wrong.

Because the liberal’s great wet dream of a president, Obama, is doing more to appease the Dick Cheney followers of the world than he is to any leftist agenda.

Take, for example, Obama’s decision to backpedal on the release of the as-of-now unreleased Abu Ghraib photos. Obama listened to the Cheney-types and their fear mongering over what the released photos could give rise to (more terror! more fear!). He then listened to the ACLU-types and their arguments that full-disclosure and transparency on these matters was what the nation – and world – needed most. And, despite Obama’s election-season endorsement of the ACLU’s path on this matter, the President apparently saw the Cheney shadow looming over him and hid underneath it, declaring, just like Bush/Cheney, that secrecy was best.

But the liberals still giggle over Cheney’s appearances, pretending it helps them – ah, yet another excuse to sit on their hands. You are familiar with today’s liberal mantra, aren’t you? Yeah, the one that goes like this: “If you don’t have something nice to say about Obama, don’t say anything.” I guess these folks never read Thomas Paine. Or Lincoln. And nor, apparently, have they heard about the “squeaky wheel getting the grease.”

Because Cheney’s squeaking…and squeaking… and squeaking while the mainstream media laps it up and, as a result, puts him front and center on the U.S. political agenda as if the spewing and spouting is all coming from a sane man.

This is why impeachment mattered. It would have – and should have – put the Bush/Cheney team in full-defensive mode, fending off indictments and even jail time for the outrageous miscarriages of justice that flourished under their reign of errors.

And it’s also why Senator Patrick Leahy’s call for judicial investigations of the Bush/Cheney regime should be followed through on. But Leahy himself is backing down from his own idea, trading any real investigations or – better yet – subpoenas for a spate of meaningless huffing and puffing in the press about what he “might” do in some distant time. Oh yeah, that’ll scare ‘em.

But the Dems have taken a shameless pass on sending Bush, Cheney & Co. down the prosecutorial path that they belong on. So instead of facing a judge and the cameras outside a federal courtroom, Cheney gets to face the warm glow of an all-too-willing media as he continues to propagate his ideology of fear, hatred and raw injustice. And, worse, Obama is forced to respond to Cheney’s nonsense as if Cheney matters.

But Cheney does matter. Because the Dems have yet to find the guts necessary to defend the Constitution and the protocols of the Geneva Convention that were so flippantly trashed during the Bush/Cheney years.

In the meantime, liberals need to stop fooling themselves about Cheney’s media face time. It’s not helping them. Unless, of course, they think having Obama refuse to release the Abu Ghraib photos and asking for nearly $100 billion more to continue the Bush/Cheney wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as “victories.”

Yo liberals, start squeaking already. You sent Obama millions of dollars. You plastered your cars with his likeness. You believed. Now start making some demands. It’s called democracy, you know. Give it a try.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog

Quote of the Day

May 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment

“Sources tell TPMmuckraker that it is indeed possible to understand straightforward questions after having smoked pot.” — TPMmuckraker, from its story about the increasingly flimsy story being spun about the “terrorists” recently arrested in New York City. Read the whole story here.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog

Thursday “Sick Day” Blogging

May 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Yeah, you know the day we’re having in Vermont: 85-degrees and sunny. So wouldn’t you know the daughter-figure came down with a mysterious illness as she was getting ready for school.

“Dad,” she said as she jumped on her scooter. “I’ll probably be calling you at lunchtime. I’m planning on being sick.”

I guess they would call this “bad parenting.” But, what the hell, it’s going to be a fine day by the river.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog

Lame Horse Blues

May 19, 2009 | 1 Comment

Damn, the big fella, Jim, has been lame. He came up limping last week and I first diagnosed it as a chip in his hoof. But while trimming and cleaning up his hoof, I encountered the awful and unmistakable smell of “thrush.” That, my friends, is an all-too-common bacterial infection in the hooves that thrives in the kind of wet and damp conditions we had last week. And it stinks, too. It comes off the hoof in a thick, black, tar-like substance, mostly in around his “frog.”

The good news is that it’s easily treatable: diluted-bleach solution applied daily for about a week. I’m on about day is and he’s finally getting better – barely a limp. But it sucked to see him limping about the pasture. Not the way this working horse is supposed to look. Keep your fingers crossed that this problem is solved – because we’ve got work to do.

What’s wrong with this picture?

I’m on a tractor, pulling a horse-drawn disc while the horses are lounging.

Here’s the other view:

Nice day, though.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog

Observations

May 18, 2009 | 1 Comment

1.) My daughter telling me: “You’re a dork.”
2.) Hiding my smile.
3.) The horses choosing their new pasture.
4.) The neighbor calling to say: Your horses are out.
5.) Don’t they understand the process?
6.) The Celtics lost. Good. Because I hate Paul Pierce.
7.) The breath I could not find while watching our daughter nail her solo at the school concert.
8.) The voice that tells me: Stop it.
9.) Shhh, keep it down, the nation is sleeping.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog