What's for dinner?
(Or, whatever meal you're due to eat next in your part of the world.)
Question of the Day
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Lissie's Delicious Hot German Potato Salad.
Recommended Reading:
Michelle: [TW for discussion of body image] Pictures of You
sheridf: [TW for medical malfeasance; fatphobia; violence] These Days I Hate Going to the Gynecologist
Echidne: Smiling Guys Finish Last
Andy: Report: More Countries Supporting Gays and Lesbians
Tigtog: @mfarnsworth on Blanchett
Steve: Pawlenty Should Rethink the "Doofus" Line
Leave your links in comments...
Quote of the Day
"Yes, I think [I could have beaten President Barack Obama in the 2012 election]. I mean, no one can know."—Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (R-Everberatingthunderfuck), on ABC's "This Week" over the weekend.
Oh, Mitch, you're so humble. No one can know—but I'm pretty sure I would've won!
Do shut up.
The Parade
This post originally appeared on May 25, 2009.
I grew up in Perrysburg, Ohio. It's a small town, a suburb of Toledo, and when I was a kid in the 1950's and '60's, it fit all of the images that small towns in the Midwest have: tree-shaded streets, neat homes, lots of churches, and a main street -- Louisiana Avenue -- with little shops like the drug store with the fountain, the dime store, the barber shop, the hardware store, the bakery with the smell of bread baking and the sweet scent of icing, and the bank with the solid stone exterior. They're all still there, just under different names now, and my parents, who still live there, still call the drug store by its old name, even though it's changed owners and become a jewelry shop. In the winter the Christmas decorations line the street, and each Memorial Day there is a parade that starts at the Schaller Memorial, the veterans hall, and proceeds up Louisiana Avenue, taking a turn when it reaches the Oliver Hazard Perry Memorial ("We have met the enemy and they are ours...") and marches down West Front Street past the old Victorian homes that overlook the Maumee River.
When I was a kid the parade was made up of the veterans groups like the American Legion and the VFW, and platoons of soldiers and veterans, including, through the 1970's, the last remaining veterans of World War I. They wore their uniforms and their medals, and those that couldn't march sat in the back seat of convertibles, waving slowly to the crowds that lined the sidewalks. They were followed by the marching band from the high school, the color guard, the Cub Scouts, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the drum and bugle corps, floats from church groups, all of the city fire equipment, antique cars, and the service groups like the Shriners, the Elks, and the Kiwanis Club. After the last float came all the kids on their bicycles decorated with streamers, bunting, flags, and all the patriotic paperwork we could muster. My friends and I would try to outdo each other, and it had less to do with patriotism than it did with seeing how many rolls of red, white, and blue crepe paper we could thread in between the spokes of our wheels.
I was about ten or so on one Memorial Day when I spent a lot of time getting my Schwinn Racer ready for the big parade. It was a perfect day; the sky was a sparkling spring blue and all the floats, cars, and fire trucks were gleaming in the sun as the parade organized on Indiana Avenue in front of the Memorial Hall. The high school band in their yellow and black uniforms marched in precision as the major led off with a Sousa tune, and as the parade slowly made its way down the avenue we could see the crowds along the sidewalks waiting and waving. As we waited our turn we wheeled our bikes in circles, just like the Shriners in their little go-karts, and finally we got the signal that it was time for the kids to roll. There was an organized rush to lead off, and then we were slowly pedaling down the street, waving to everybody outside the library, the Chevy dealership, even the people lined up on the roof of the pizza parlor. I looked for my dad shooting movies with the 8mm camera, but didn't see him. Oh, well, it didn't matter; we were supposed to meet at the home of friends who were hosting a post-parade picnic in their backyard. Their house was at the end of the parade route, so that was the perfect place to pull out of the parade and have the first of many Faygo Redpops that summer.
But for some reason I stayed with the parade, on down West Front, and then up West Boundary and past the gates of Fort Meigs Cemetery. The floats and the fire trucks were gone, but what was left of the parade -- the color guard and the veterans -- went through the gates and along the path. There was no music now, just a solemn drumbeat keeping a steady muffled tapping. The color guard turned at a small stone memorial, and then past it to a gravesite where a family was gathered; a mother in a black dress, a father in a grey suit, and a teenage son and daughter, looking somber and out of place. The grave was still fresh, the dirt mounded over, the headstone a simple marker with a flag. A minister spoke some words, and then the color guard snapped to attention. A volley of rifle fire, then Taps, and then a tall young soldier in dress blues handed a folded flag to the mother, who murmured her thanks and tried to smile.
I suddenly realized that I felt out of place there with my gaudily-patriotic bike and my red-white-and-blue striped shirt. No one noticed me, though, and when the people started to slowly move away from the gravesite and back to the entrance, I followed along until I was able to ride slowly back to our friends' house, park my bike with all the others, and find my parents, who probably hadn't even noticed that I was not there with all the other kids running around and playing on the lawn.
Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.
Memorial Day
Posting will be light today, as today is Memorial Day in the US, and many of us have community and/or family events we'll be attending.
On Memorial Day, we remember and honor the women and men of the US military services who have given their lives for their country. If there is someone specific you would like to acknowledge today, please feel welcome and encouraged to do that here.
I would like to remember my Uncle Edward, who served in the Pacific Theater during World War II, and was one of the 292,131 servicemembers who never came home. I never had the chance to meet him; the closest I ever got to him was dragging my fingers slowly across the raised fingers of his name on a bronze memorial gone green with age.
Open Thread
Hosted by Ray Harryhausen's monster from It Came From Beneath The Sea.
This week's open threads have been brought to you by tentacled things.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Quote of the Day
"The House GOP's rather pitiful jobs manifesto...illustrates, once again, the foolishness of believing that we can reach any real bipartisan agreement on economic policy. The GOP stopped thinking a long time ago; all it knows how to do is parrot Reaganite rhetoric over and over. And there’s so little there there that the document—look at it!—has to rely on extra-large type and lots of pointless pictures to bulk it out even to 10 pages."—Paul Krugman.
In related news, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ealpieceofwork) says "substantial Medicare cuts must be part of a spending and deficit cut package to get his support to raise the debt limit." Or, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's spokesperson Jon Summers aptly describes it: "Republicans are holding the United States' credit hostage to ram through their plan to end Medicare."
No jobs, no healthcare, no social safety net...just BOOTSTRAPS FOR EVERYONE!!!
Two Facts
1. When I contemplate the amount of blogging I have been obliged to do in the past year about protecting from our government reproductive rights and female survivors of sexual assault, I feel hated by my country for having the temerity to be a woman.
2. The next time I am accused by a conservative of being insufficiently patriotic, I will not launch into my usual response about the difference between loving this country for what it could be, versus loving it uncritically for what it is. I will simply say, "Yes. I find it challenging to express love for my country, when it so clearly does not love me."
Just...what.
The House GOP are really full of...ideas...aren't they? Here's a new one from Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA): clear cut the rain forests. Why? To eliminate greenhouse gasses responsible for climate change.
Yes. I know.
Anyway, here is what happened:
...Mr. Rohrabacher declare[d] during a Congressional hearing on Wednesday that clear-cutting the world’s rain forests might eliminate the production of greenhouse gases responsible for climate change.Sigh.
On the witness stand was Todd Stern, the Obama administration’s climate change envoy, who was questioned on whether the nation’s climate policy should focus on reducing the more than 80 percent of carbon emissions produced by the natural world in the form of decaying plant matter.
“Is there some thought being given to subsidizing the clearing of rain forests in order for some countries to eliminate that production of greenhouse gases?” the congressman asked Mr. Stern, according to Politico.
“Or would people be supportive of cutting down older trees in order to plant younger trees as a means to prevent this disaster from happening?” he continued.
Pope Advisor Oversees Priest Arrested for Sex Abuse
[Trigger warning for sexual violence; clergy abuse.]
Father Riccardo Seppia, a 51-year-old parish priest in the village of Sastri Ponente, has been arrested on charges that he attempted to molest an underage altar boy and gave young men over 18 cocaine in exchange for sex.
The accused was overseen by head of the Italian Bishops Conference, who "has been working with Pope Benedict XVI on reforms to respond to prior scandals of pedophile priests."
Of course he has.
[H/T to Spudsy.]
Just a Simple Question
Q: If a corporation can now, like an individual, contribute directly to a political candidate, then why the FUCK can't they be taxed like an individual?
A: Radix malorum est cupiditas.
Random YouTubery
[Video Description: Kitten looks adorable while sleeping on its back in a bed, twitching dreamily; Mama Cat looks adorable while hugging kitten and then snuggling hir even more tightly.]
