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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Well said, cecilbeanie. It seems the upper-crust are managing to fool lots of Americans about elitism. I started buying my school clothes in the 8th grade by doing ranch work in the summers. I put myself through college by working in the woods with a chainsaw. I paid for graduate school by working on Forest Service Roads in Montana. And, of course, I was drafted for service in the Vietnam War, where I started out as a private and came home a buck sergeant. In all these things I think I was pretty typical of young men in my generation of country boys who were curious about the World and who did not want to put in 35 years in a smelter or foundry or factory like our fathers did. But over the years we got to see the rich kids go off to prep schools and the Ivy League colleges, then somehow mysteriously not be called by their draft boards. While some of us were firing howitzers, they were getting established in law firms or in businesses through family connections. We know who they are, you bet we do. And they ain't Barak Obama. So, right on, Cecil. Good work.
The phoniest catchword in the Republican (or Democrat) vocabulary is 'elitist.' McCain is married to a multi-millionaire beer distributor heiress. His father was an admiral in the Navy who helped him not get bounced out of the Academy. His wife gave him the seed money and connections to win his first election.
He is surrounded by telecom lobbyists, lobbyists for the Republic of Georgia, and backed by much old money. He has so little in common with any 'common' folk that it is ridiculous to even talk about it as such, except to swindle people. Much like we thought that drinking beer with the dry-drunk Bush is what governing is all about.
McCain wins the sympathy vote, as he is injured. However, we are not electing the 'prisoner of the war of america', we are electing our national leader. Again, being shot down over Vietnam is not the guage. Instead, we should see how that experience shaped McCain. And his continual threatening and war-mongering remarks show he learned little in Vietnam. He still thinks there is a miliary solution to every problem. And that is just an extension of Bush.
I have always had some admiration for McCain over the years, but this snarky, my-wife-has-to-help-me-with-the-internet crap has sent my opinion of him spiraling into the crapper. I don't know if this is him talking or if he makes these comments because his advisors said it would make him "more real" but I can't believe that anyone would fall for that caveman routine.
If McCain is going to go the route of previous Republican candidates and try to "return" us to the simple, maple-dappled days of the 50's (a time that Reagan seemed particularly fond of) because gee whiz those times were just great, count me out, and a pox on anyone that can't seem to figure out that those good ole days NEVER EXISTED. I know, I was there.
I can't believe some of the snarky comments about the internet and computers in general that have been written. Without computers thousands if not millions of people would not be able to communicate without answering yes and no questions (remember Steven Hawking assh**ts?), our bookshelves would still be groaning with out-of-date reference books that still might not tell us who signed the Declaration of Independence. As far as those who malign people who look up medical stuff on the internet - go to hell. My condition would not have been diagnosed even half as quickly if I had not printed out a page from a reputable website and taken it to the doctor with me. He at least had the balls to admit that the condition was so rare and outside his field, I would have been submitted to thousands and thousands of dollars of useless tests had I not done a little research myself. And many GOOD doctors use the internet themselves to e-mail other doctors, do video consultations, and yes, find a diagnosis.
I really don't care if McCain personally uses the internet, although I really have to wonder about someone who won't even learn to send an e-mail. I mean that pilot thing cuts both ways. He can learn to use and pilot a plane, but can't send an e-mail?
Did some of you snarkers want to do away with books or minimize their importance because everyone knows that people only read romance novels and car repair books?
My point is that you have to live in the world as it is, and really see it as it is. I don't need to build bombs to know they are dangerous, and McCain does not have to personally upload videos on You Tube to have some knowledge of its influence. But for God's sake, at least find out something about it. Making fun of the internet is not going to minimize its influence. It just makes you look like a relic.
but you can suit yourselves with all this faux nonsense - although, Lord between us and all harm, that's another French word for false. I don't know now, but it appears that Americans would like to be French or is it British as so many seem to admire Margaret Thatcher. Dear Margaret is a Baroness now and is remembered for many things, one of which is her reference to those who opposed her as being motivated by "the politics of envy". It may be that the unchosen ones are all fired up to be the chosen but that some people are too choosy - the electorate - to regard what's on offer as any choice at all. This codology seems "unsavory" to Ms. Terkel who prefers cranberry stuffing although Europeans tend to choose sage and onion when stuffing the Christmas turkey.
The above comes straight from Taurus (the bull) but why not respond in kind to an article that purports to show that the use of a mouse is the latest sign of evolutionary advancement?
In case you're wondering, US troops have just arrived in Georgia which has no connection at all with Atlanta but is in S.E. Europe somewhwere between the Caucasus mountains and the Black Sea. The place is full of Caucasians but they don't speak English or know much about Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Angelina Jolie (oh, that's French too). The American soldiers may not be terribly interested to hear that it was the German physiologist, Blumenbach, who inspired some other pointy-heads in the USA to call white Americans "Caucasians" but they do need to know that Stalin, as cruel a tyrant as Hitler, was a Georgian in what was once the Russian Empire. Happy days are here again but you'll be fine and dandy if you can just Google it "as an increasingly technological world requires", from the Black Sea, to the White Sea and from the Yellow Sea to the Dead Sea, which Michael Phelps doesn't need to keep afloat but which the rest of us might, if only there's room.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
