I have only recently reconciled things with my partner's family, most notably her parents by telling the truth. Her parents are Mormon. Anyone who has come from a Mormon background knows what a pain in the ass it can be to grow up in a family that seems to expect perfection while saying "nobody's perfect". It's an insane family system and I have watched it up close for years. My beloved suffered terribly as a result of her choice to leave the faith and join with me. Her parents would not speak to her, punished her with silence and disappointment, her brothers shunned her, and her so-called friends in the LDS church went out of their way to say the nastiest things they could about us. I never felt welcome one day in her parents' house and although they said that I was family, I knew it wasn't true. I have been aware of their judgements of me for being black, defiantly non-Mormon, and not as successful in my career as she's been in hers. Despite all the talk about how family is a wonderful thing, and all the conservative baying at the moon about how families are in jeopardy, the truth is that sometimes a family is not a very nice group of people to be around.

So anyway, a few weeks ago I told them how things looked from my perspective. I also told them how much I resented them using a punishing standard to judge us.

I told them that we were not joining or rejoining the family religion and they'd better get used to that idea or there will always be problems. We didn't know how they really felt about it until her Dad went into the hospital. It was a minor scare and he's fine, but it was obvious her parents were grateful that we came to the hospital to cheer them up when all the Mormon family members had other things to do. My point is this: families can be made of not very nice people who find absolutely ridiculous reasons for being the way they are. Part of going sane is to see that, detach from it and get what you need where you know you can get it. Seems to me this LW is going sane and I wish her the best on that journey.

Yeah, there were happy endings in Everwood.

But life has happy endings too.

And there should be more of them. What's the good of talking about things ending well if they never do? Or even seldom do. Everwood could do sweet endings and these were just as sweet and satisfying as any I'd seen. It reminds us that there can be joy after the pain, and in the end the thing that matters is love.

Shapiro makes a great point about Rove's hand in the effort to privatize Social Security. That literally blew up in the president's face as did the Dubai Ports deal and so many other things that have started this downward spiral for Bush & Co.

So while I would like to see Karl Rove frogmarched out of the White House and the sight of him still around is horrific, Rove is clearly weakened as is the president. And don't think for one minute that there isn't another kind of karma awaiting people like Karl Rove or George Bush for that matter. Did anyone actually believe that this would be an easy fight? That the Republicans would just lay down and let the sane among us take back power? There does seem to be a move to re-instate the cynicism that allows us to stagnate instead of move forward. Al-Zarqawi's death, while a good thing, is not the end of the aforementioned downward spiral, nor is the two point "boost" Bush got in the recent USA TODAY poll. It only means that slightly more people from the lunatic fringe think Bush is doing a good job. So what? Who didn't see that coming? 36% approval still means that 64% still believe these people are completely drunk with power and totally mad and should be replaced by saner folks at the very least. Only people with everything to lose would see a two point blip upward as a sign of "progress". To me it says you're still stuck. Meanwhile, the war has lost support. Domestic policy is a shambles, the "throw the bums out" chorus is getting louder, and the whole neoconservative worldview is falling out of favor. Why? Because at the end of the day, IT ISN'T WORKING. Don't let's get too worked up here. Don't let's throw aside hope just yet.

Meet the new Bush Administration mouthpiece

Same as the old Bush Administration mouthpiece.

Why are we even doing this?

Can't someone, just once say it straight?

"Tony, the president lied about EVERYTHING and continues to. We all know it. We're just waiting for you to get with the sane crowd and admit it. So how about it, huh? Come clean. Just this once. Otherwise we're just burning daylight here."