Let Freedom dry in the sun

Freedom is fine when you give it to people with some class, dignity and respect. Like these guys…

But 9/11/06 became a circus of the highest order. Another wasted get together, with groups of self-interested swine peddling their swill.

Evangelicals preaching Armageddon competed with a string quartet, a Japanese Kabuki dancer, and a rally for the “forgotten” undocumented workers who died during the WTC attacks or were sickened cleaning contaminated office buildings. There was even a group lobbying to “free Pakistan.”

Maybe I’d be willing to give up some freedom and a get lot more police brutality…

But brutality resides, as we all know, within the beltway. The greatest intellectual battle of the century reached a rolling boil on Capitol Hill!

“You’re soft on homeland security”
“No we’re not!”
“Oh yeah, what’s your plan”
“You… You stop politicizing 9/11″

Ted Kennedy burped out his party’s knee jerk reaction less than half an hour after Bush’s 9/11 address. He was better off sleeping on it.

The democrats have become a community college class that’s trying to screw with the Ivy Leaguers. Not one party member can describe the five greatest democratic principals. No one can! They have none.

Add to that, the lack of central leadership, uncertainty on how to spread money and you have a basketcase of a party that thinks it’s going to win the House… and people comment on low voter turnout.

Maybe I’d be willing to give up voting rights and be fatalistic about my government. This would be easier to accept if we weren’t responsible for it.

Maybe God did it? He might be responsible…

Bush told a group of conservative journalists that he notices more open expressions of faith among people he meets during his travels, and he suggested that might signal a broader revival similar to other religious movements in history.

The ‘Third Awakening?’ I’m skeptical. Maybe I’d be willing to give up my freedom of religion and hope the people of this country wake up.

Otherwise, I’d like to be tortured by the CIA. And make it sooner rather than later.

The biggest sticking point, [Senators] said, was how narrowly to define practices that might subject CIA interrogators or others to charges of committing war crimes.

I’d commit a war crime… in the war on drugs!

Marijuana can improve the effectiveness of drug therapy for hepatitis C, a potentially deadly viral infection that affects more than 3 million Americans, a study has found. The work adds to a growing literature supporting the notion that in some circumstances pot can offer medical benefits.

I can’t stand the wacky terbacky, but if it helps someone, why not?

I’d be willing to give up on this country if Americans were as dumb as they seem. But I believe they aren’t, so I’m not quitting yet…

Evil Genius & Five Years Later

This is beyond me.

The Republican Party is displaying a fearless killer instinct that borders on the inhumane. No, not even rabid monkeys treat their own this poorly.

In an extraordinary pre-emptive announcement, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has said it will concede Rhode Island to the Democrats should Stephen Laffey, the mayor of Cranston, defeat Mr. Chafee in the primary. Citing poll data, Republican leaders said they saw no way someone as conservative as Mr. Laffey could win in a state as Democratic as this; as it is, they are increasingly worried about Mr. Chafee’s hopes in a general election.

We’re back to the money of politics, and how damn well the Elephants can send greenbacks to the right state. But to be willing to withdraw support from a hard-right candidate? That’s disingenuous and robs the people of a fair election. Give me a break

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I’d be ill advised to set this day’s blog aside for politics alone. No links for this one.

Five years ago, with a mono-induced 102 fever and a fair dose of Vicodin, I swore I was watching a bad movie. That was the only conclusion I could reach from staring at my TV. “This isn’t real.”

And it wasn’t real. Even when my mom told me she heard the planes fly overhead at the bagel shop and then calmly went to work - it wasn’t real. The panic I felt until she came home, that wasn’t real. Even when I smelled it the next morning, and all the cars had a shade of gray on top, it wasn’t real.

My brain functions on logic, and I can’t find a reason… I’m waiting for the curtains to come up and the show to be over, and we can all go back to home as we knew it. That massive tomb, the shell of what used to be, I’ll visit it today. And on my way there, I’ll hope to get off the R train and find the towers standing like they were on September 10th, 2001.

During my summer abroad, people brought up this day many times, and got no more than three words from me. I wish I could find a way to express to them what these past five years have been like. The feeling has faded, sure. But when the train makes an unexpected stop, when you hear a plane fly too close… it’s there. It’ll never leave, no matter where I am.

And the one thing that might give peace to those we lost, and closure to their families, has not come. For all the talk of being the party of security, bin Laden is still out there. For that, anger is expected - no matter what your political loyalties may be.

Especially after this horse shit.

I taste bile.