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Comments Posted By choicelady

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JUST IN: The Nominees For The Republican Academy Awards!

Oh these are just TOO good, AdLib! I’m with Nirek though – ALL top LOSERS. I do love Full-o-MEAN-a. That is right on the money but still should lose big time.

Cruz IS the Canadian Hustle. Now if we could just prove he takes bribes…wonder if he’d sucker for a bimbo ready to reel him in on his own corruption?

VERY fine line up. But I fear it will be a very short show…

Thanks, AdLib!

» Posted By choicelady On January 16, 2014 @ 7:22 pm

Chris Christie’s Implausible Deniability

Cynically I’d say he’s NOT in pay to Koch brothers so much as The Mob. And I suspect the Right will let him die. They hate him for his cozying up to PBO over the hurricane, and unlike Dems, they don’t ‘rehab’ their former focuses of hate.

» Posted By choicelady On January 13, 2014 @ 6:47 pm

I don’t think anyone can sweep this mess under the Koch Welcome Mat. The Right may be rallying, but it’s pretty weak save for the FOX folks who think Christie is ‘masculine’. Uhhhh.

This one won’t go away. It won’t be covered up. It’s just too juicy. Ann Coulter and the extremists hate him, so…

Sorry but Benghazi isn’t going to cut it. Neither will the IRS or any other phony Obama ‘scandal’ that never was. Nothing here for the Dems, but Christie – hated by the hardcore right – will become a sacrificial lamb to their interests. Just wait a few days. The enthusiasm will poop out like a tired helium balloon.

» Posted By choicelady On January 13, 2014 @ 6:45 pm

The Weekend Music Thread – Life, The Universe and Everything

I’ve never met someone whose youth was wasted shooting pool. I’m in awe. That is SO American! So “Music Man”! Really glad to make your acquaintance! And you must be more or less my age to have had RECORDS. I remember that album though I did not own it. But wow – you’re the quintessential American story. Zowie!

» Posted By choicelady On January 13, 2014 @ 9:58 am

The Brains of Climate Change Deniers Are Frozen

Yup – he insisted trees CAUSE pollution.

» Posted By choicelady On January 8, 2014 @ 5:38 pm

When the sneering naysayers pounce on this storm, I mention this film. It’s worth seeing and makes the ‘warming-freezing’ issue quit clear.

» Posted By choicelady On January 8, 2014 @ 4:45 pm

We do have to watch what goes INTO those products. They cause pollution at the point of extraction for silicon, mercury, etc. Nukes aren’t clean – the carbon emitted to extract uranium is horrific, and ‘breeder reactors’ are impossibly dangerous. We need NOW to start policies that prevent uses of materials that make them ‘blood minerals’ – contributing to slave labor, to war, to all kinds of violence.

Nothing is without impact. That’s why we need to reduce USE – overall very little will help if we dam every river for geothermal, impede every flyway for wind, destroy all the coast for wave. We simply have to stop USING so damned much and focus on reducing demands -and that is what the GOP cannot abide.

Long uphill battle. It will never end unless we MAKE it end with sensible policies that help people go about their daily lives with as little upheaval as possible. That’s how we got into this mess. It is how we have to project getting out of it.

» Posted By choicelady On January 8, 2014 @ 4:43 pm

Right up there with Reagan’s ‘trees emit pollution’. Uh huh.

» Posted By choicelady On January 8, 2014 @ 4:37 pm

The Year in PlanetPOV Parody Art

LOL!!! Those WOULD be the stories, those WOULD be the proper artistic venues, yes!

VERY funny, AdLib, and a look back at what you wrote over the course of the year is quite wonderful. You are an excellent prognosticator and have an apt eye for pop cultural connections to our “leaders” (I use the term VERY loosely.)

Thank you for an excellent reminder of why we are all here. PPOV is where you go for humor and insight, and that combo, IMHO, is what drives good analysis that is memorable.

Happy New Year to you and yours and to all the Planeteers! Let’s make 2014 even MORE memorable by putting a functioning Congress in place to help this amazing president get the country moving toward real justice for all.

» Posted By choicelady On December 27, 2013 @ 10:12 am

A PlanetPOV Christmas Carol – 2013

Perfectly fittin’ for the people who today are sitting around opening high priced useless crud and stuffing their faces with expensive food. Why should THEY care about anyone but themselves? God, through his mouthpiece, Sarah Palin, says they’re his “Elect”.

So much for 2000-plus years ago when the baby they say they care about AFTER it was born found his origins in the most rude of circumstances and kept up the message that the rich will NOT find favor with their false piety and massive wealth.

So it’s the poorest of the poor who have love in their hearts for one another who make manifest the real ‘reason for the season’. That’s what has gotten Christian humankind through for all these centuries. Some folks got the message, and it’s not about self indulgence at the expense of the poor.

Happiest of holidays to all who celebrate and those who don’t. Peace on earth, goodwill to all!

» Posted By choicelady On December 25, 2013 @ 11:00 am

The Capitalism That Stole Christmas – The Anti-Materialism Theme of Classic Christmas Films

I always suspected that The Wonder Years was inspired by The Christmas Movie with the adult Kevin remembering the boy Kevin just as Jean Shepherd had done. I loved that amazing ability to remember one’s childhood and recall if FROM the younger person’s perspective.

I did NOT know the other links, however. Wow – kind of a cottage industry!

I think it sad the Shepherd apparently got grumpier as he aged and wound up kind of disavowing his own writings and reminiscences. That’s a loss to him even if not to us.

The Ralphie homestead is indeed preserved, as is the neighborhood, in the Tremont area of Cleveland, and yes you CAN still see the steel mills from there. It’s a lovely area, very gentrified in parts, and some of it was where scenes from The Deer Hunter were filmed. All that honoring of industrial grit meaning atmospherically and culturally is very dear to me. I figured Ralphie’s father was an office guy at some low level position though, not a ‘hand’ since his clothes give him away as having a cleaner job. The rest of the folks could have been anyone. That was the nature of the neighborhood – supervisors, clerks, steel hands all living together.

I have ATT U-Verse with the same sorts of all music channels and yes, one with Christmas music. I also listen to it in background so I KNOW your mother rocks!

Happy New Year!

» Posted By choicelady On December 27, 2013 @ 2:17 pm

Great treats, AdLib, thank you.

I have always been amazed that the folks behind “It’s a Wonderful Life” weren’t brought up on suspicions of communism. It’s a powerful anti-corporate film indeed. Covering the message with a pastiche of faith and Americanism worked – and is not false to the issue – but MAN is this an indictment of the 1%! Cool movie indeed.

» Posted By choicelady On December 25, 2013 @ 12:11 pm

I like the 1970s musical version, “Scrooge” because Albert Finney captured the heartache of Scrooge better than anyone. The tears he shed remembering what he’d given up for money were so moving! The transformation, to me, was best felt through his performance.

» Posted By choicelady On December 25, 2013 @ 12:08 pm

Hi- Was a resident of Pawtucket and knew Jon’s restaurant (breakfast 99 cents) and all of the city’s ills. Once met John Chaffee – he was a very accessible guy – and like Lincoln from what little I know of him.

It is my belief that the fights over cheap goods come almost exclusively from those who are living on the thin edge and for whom the holiday “sales” are perceived as their ONE chance to be middle class on their very meager budgets. We never had to do that when we had good jobs, good incomes, and if we paid people well, had basic industry and union wages, we’d quickly see an end to this. As we boycott Wal Mart for being open on Thanksgiving, it is employees from OTHER substandard jobs vying to get the things they want to pretend they’re once again middle class. have the things those of us with incomes already own. It’s not materialism per se so much as desperation to be ‘normal’. One day a year they can try.

So this, for the 1%, is the new version of the Coliseum and gladiator matches. I hope they’re amused at the hell on earth they created. Merry Christmas my ass. It’s all about keeping the poor in their place and using them for amusement by dangling the glitteries in front of them.

I did Rhode Island in the 80s through Reagan’s deep recession. Pity is that the recovery NEVER came to Central Falls or most of those embattled cities. Sadness and heartache attend those communities fraught with desperation that is now decades old. I hope they can find some peace and happiness with one another even so. But it gets harder and harder to find hope when the decks are so stacked against them.

Happiest of holidays to you. Thanks for the memory of RI – I miss it a lot.

» Posted By choicelady On December 25, 2013 @ 12:02 pm

Thank you for all those many greetings, Kalima! Beautiful.

I agree – it’s about family, friends, and giving. May all peace and joy be yours.

» Posted By choicelady On December 25, 2013 @ 11:53 am

PocketWatch – my love for The Christmas Movie is that it’s pretty much where I grew up. Although it was filmed in Cleveland, it’s actually from the Chicago area. The school? Mine. The working class neighborhood? Mine. The clothes and presents? Mine (girl versions thereof). The house is different, but otherwise it’s the same. I can’t get enough of it. I do resist the lamp, but otherwise… We did have a coal storage unit in the basement, but before my folks bought our place they lucked out and got hooked to the town gas lines, so clinkers weren’t something my Dad needed to wrangle.

This morning – Christmas Day – we were greeted with a full page RELIGIOUS ad about Christmas and salvation. From HOBBY LOBBY. I am outraged – I do NOT take faith from someone trying to sell me their crap. I find this so offensive! Three years ago Coit Carpet Cleaners did the same Bill O’ “Jesus is the reason for the season” crap, and I boycott them as I will Hobby Lobby (though also over their war on women!) Not one of these smug faux “Christians” have half the heart of the Christmas Movie.

Enjoy Ralphie and his family that is your sweet memory. Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you and yours.

» Posted By choicelady On December 25, 2013 @ 11:51 am

In Defense of Intelligent Design (sort of)

Can’t reply below – it was a JOKE, KT. Sorry you couldn’t see it.

» Posted By choicelady On December 21, 2013 @ 11:00 am

Oh goodie – you just became an Evangelical Taoist. My mother was an Evangelical Unitarian, and I never got over it.

» Posted By choicelady On December 20, 2013 @ 5:36 pm

I would point out that Newton, Bacon and others of their time thought that science ENHANCED their spiritual quest, that learning just made them more aware of the vastness of the universe and all its operations. It wasn’t just the mysteries but the discoveries, too, that brought them awe. I know a lot of scientists feel precisely the same today – awe.

That may or may not feed into faith (religion being something different from that) but does tend to build within the researchers a sense of the magnificent, no matter there is or is not a ‘prime mover’. It just IS all pretty darned amazing.

» Posted By choicelady On December 20, 2013 @ 4:29 pm

LOL!! You’d have been right at home about 1500 CE. It IS a form of scientific observation though probably not leading to huge revelations. Still – you are in good company, even if the other practitioners are long dead. Yes – they no longer move…

» Posted By choicelady On December 20, 2013 @ 4:25 pm

I think that’s the wisest position indeed – it’s impossible to know true reality. When does life begin? Define “life” as opposed to existence. How is it that young scientist discovered a species that exists due to (OK – I forget what – arsenic?) not oxygen and carbon. And that is here on earth, never mind the universe.

It’s pretty arrogant of earthlings to think life could not exist in vastly different forms elsewhere, that we are the final creation and perfect in every way. (Well, OK maybe those of us on the Planet…) I remember one of my profs “proving” that there cannot be any form of mind-mind connection because the tests could not prove it. But the tests were SO unsystematic and primitive, and then along comes quantum physics showing these amazing connects between particles, and… With the discovery of chaos and randomness at the subatomic level, the whole idea of Einsteinian physics got turned on its head. Not invalidated, but enhanced with far more questions than we can answer even now.

I understand why some people embrace the clean idea of a watchmaker, a One, who set it all in motion, because it’s so hard to wrap our minds around infinity and eternity. But to deny science is to live in a bubble. To deny there are things we don’t comprehend is to live in a box.

Life is a journey, there are more questions than absolute answers, and it’s just too bad we probably won’t all live to find out. Inquiring minds want to know! But it sure is fascinating along the way!

» Posted By choicelady On December 20, 2013 @ 4:23 pm

I was kind of hoping you’d found a photo of God. Would clear up a lot. He looks a lot like Ed Asner whom I know, and that would be fun.

» Posted By choicelady On December 19, 2013 @ 3:08 pm

Thanks KT – I’ve not yet listened to the video, but I have ONE question: is the guy with the white hair GOD? He’s creating one man, one woman and the universe there. So what else am I to think?

Or he’s Santa on vacation…

Thank you for sharing this!

» Posted By choicelady On December 19, 2013 @ 2:47 pm

NEWTOWN: One year later and seemingly no wiser

I don’t own guns but do know how to shoot. Got some minimal training from a law enforcement citizens’ academy. I do support the right of self defense and hunting. For many families the latter is a critical part of their protein access when they can’t afford to purchase meat. For the former it’s not casual “defense” against a woman knocking on your front door but against real and present danger from the zealots of our nation. I’m not afraid of my government. I’m afraid of those who hate it – and by extension the rest of us.

I also – being close to your age, Murph – remember when the NRA worked against weapons of war, for gun safety and responsibility, registration. I’d actually begun to think I was nuts, so I appreciate your confirmation that something really horrible has happened to change them into those very zealots I already fear.

I can’t identify quite when this change occurred, but the entire shift of the nation from one that had some sense of community to hyper individualism seems to have solidified under Reagan. He made racism acceptable, so the fears of “them” became a justification for social isolation AND defending yourself against: them. He made selfishness laudable and dismissed government and society as worthy parts of our consideration.

But 20 children in a quiet Connecticut town? A charming Congresswoman, a grandmother, and a 9-year-old girl? People at a midnight movie? Unknown people in malls and on the streets? We now have equal-opportunity fear of others coupled with anti-government zealotry. EVERYONE is our enemy and thus perfect targets for our rage.

I do not believe this is entirely a matter of mental instability. Many of the shooters have expressed extremist political rage – this latest seems to be no exception – as well as personal fury at injustices, real or imagined, done to them.

What has to change is care for others including the potential shooters BEFORE they can do harm. I may be alone, but I feel great sorrow for Adam Lanza and his social isolation that morphed into such violence. No one took care of him because we affirm his right to be isolated and private so that WE don’t have to intervene.

Hyper individualism breeds a lot of what is wrong because without the NRA teaching us about our responsibility to others as well as our individual rights, we lose the sense that we are connected. Until we find a way to restore that sense of nationhood and community, these things will continue to occur. You cannot have empathy until you see yourself as part of the whole.

» Posted By choicelady On December 15, 2013 @ 7:33 am

Ohhhh – to read this afternoon that the young woman shot yesterday is NOT doing well, to fear another family will lose their child. Why?

Thank you, Murph, for the powerful and wrenching memory coupled with reflection on the most recent violence that has harmed yet another of our young people.

I could ALMOST tolerate the gun supporters if they’d once – just once – expressed a shred of compassion for these victims, especially the children. They never do. I am sick at heart wondering when our right to live a life of ‘quiet enjoyment’ will equal the Second Amendment. “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” aren’t amendments – they are fundaments. It was not a founding principle that we should all be armed, 24/7, to keep one another at bay. We live in the most free society ever and hate our government anyway.

And so from paranoia and Hollywood images of gun slingers, we keep letting our nation’s children be harmed or die for – what?

There are a number of the children who’ve not been much noticed because their families wish it to be so. One who has been is Jesse Lewis who tried and succeeded in saving some of his classmates by telling them to run. He did not make it. His father’s awesome memories of Jesse break my heart. But so do they all. And the little girl, still unidentified, who survived hidden by the bodies of her classmates. All of these children, living and dead, were not worth the notice of the NRA. And they therefore need to be in the forefront of our concern.

Rest in peace, little ones.

PLEASE survive and recover Claire Davis. We are hoping and praying for your life and well being.

» Posted By choicelady On December 14, 2013 @ 3:03 pm

The GOP Problem with the Problem About the Problem with Obamacare

I spent many years doing the right thing. In theater parlance – I’ve shown up and hit my marks. It got noticed FINALLY so that I can write to the Regional Director and have him actually PAY ATTENTION. He is notifying HHS in DC, and we will go on from there.

Yes – this is OVER THE TOP! They have to be exposed and NOW.

» Posted By choicelady On December 3, 2013 @ 8:42 pm

…and the NYT turned around and ran an article about the outrageous costs of health care such as stitches in the ER.

This is true. It will no LONGER be true thanks to ACA. But they cannot give up the “godaintitawfulabouthealthcare” meme, so they use the existing problems to IMPLY that nothing has changed.

Apparently they don’t read their own paper.

» Posted By choicelady On December 3, 2013 @ 7:18 pm

Yesterday a Tweet suddenly alerted me to a phony web site misdirecting people on ACA. It turns out it was posted at TAXPAYER EXPENSE by the CA Assembly GOP Caucus.

Well I was the WRONG person to learn that because the Regional Director of HHS is a strong friend and ally. I immediately forward the Tweet – and this is going to get fun. The Caucus is about to become TOAST.

That is how low they are – they would MISDIRECT their constituents to sites that could NOT help them at all – and provide lies and distortions along the way.

I have HAD it. They will PAY for this. Big time!

» Posted By choicelady On December 3, 2013 @ 7:09 pm

You you you OBAMABOT!

I totally agree.

» Posted By choicelady On December 3, 2013 @ 7:06 pm

A Thanksgiving Tradition – 2013

I got in the turkey, OK but am allergic to everything else. Sounds GREAT and hope everyone has his and her fill. We have so many people in our neighborhood without anything at all – churches in the area are providing dinner, but not everyone is well enough to get there, so the fact I could go, could eat what I could – priceless.

And equally priceless are indeed the wonderful people here on the Planet. I will treasure always having known bito and KQuark who enriched us all. I delight in everyone who posts here, and agree along with AdLib that everyone’s contribution has made this a better world.

Thank you for the friendships, the support, the ideas that made me rethink things, for just all the good thoughts and writings here. May everyone have a great ‘remains of the day’ and enjoy Thanksgivukkah – the once in 79,000 year convergence – however you may spend it. I would suggest that it be made permanent. Both the candles and turkey leftovers last eight days. It would be a good melding of traditions, right?

Happy Thanksgiving one and all!

» Posted By choicelady On November 28, 2013 @ 4:25 pm