Happy Birthday, Chanel

Just wanted to say Happy 21st to our local celebrity.

Happy Birthday, Chanel. Hope you’re enjoying all all the buzz. You definitely prove that it’s never too late to be a star.

Next to Leave?

Well, there are some rumors. Elephants have been heard to trumpet their discomfort with the message of the Grumpy Old Party. Frankly, they’re embarrassed at this point. The Republican Party of today no longer reflects pachyderm culture, values, nor their interests, which run to environmentalism and wildlife preservation and refuge. Would it really be a surprise if they decided to end their relationship with the Republican Party?

P. S. - Also, too, they're endangered enough on their own. They shouldn't have to worry about two kinds of extinction at once.

There Will Be No Listening - per Rush

Image via Wikipedia

The Old Kids on the Block wanted to listen to you. Well, some of you. Mostly just the ones who had thoughts about rebranding the cool new version of the GOP. Not so much anyone who was looking for more substantive changes. So Eric, Jeb, John and Mittens started this listening tour.

Even that is too much for Rush Limbaugh to allow. After all, why would Boss Rush want anyone to listen to anyone but him? Soooo - now it's a "La-la-la, I can't hear you!" tour. Doesn't make much difference. The Republican party is not currently inclined to learn anything by listening to regular people.

It's kind of interesting. Today's Republicans seem to be very hierarchical. They certainly don't listen to anyone below them - like voters, for instance. But they do seem to love being led around by the nose by anyone who can pass as the Alpha Male. Right now that's Rush Limbaugh, in the absence of any serious leadership, I suppose. Maybe they got used to be slapped around by Dick Cheney for eight years and decided they enjoyed the abuse.

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We Can Haz Cheezburger

But not without carping from the right, of course!

Specter Working On Remembering Which Team He's On - or Whoops!

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Arlen Specter either kind of forgot which party he was in or else he just remembered he wants to be the Democratic candidate for his seat next year. So when he said, "There’s still time for the Minnesota courts to do justice and declare Norm Coleman the winner." he was just a little confused and now he's sort of taken it back.

Good thinking, Arlen. After all, he could have just stayed where he was if he was interested in losing the primary, right? Maybe he'll rethink some of his positions, too, or is that too much to hope for?

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Outliving the Bastards

Image by earmuffboy via Flickr

I was going to write something about Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday, even though I was sadly absent from the concert but got kind of absorbed in the situation described iin the post below. Now the first thing in the morning there’s this interesting take on the show on TPM.  It’s about how the audience cheered every time the President’s name was mentioned and that there was a letter from President Obama, saluting Pete. And it’s about how unusual this kind of thing is at a concert, let alone a leftie concert.

Best of all was this:

Springsteen said that he never saw Seeger more happy than at Obama's inauguration, noting that Seeger saw Obama's ascendancy as proof that he, Seeger, had "outlived the bastards."

My favorite place to see Pete Seeger is right near New York City because the old commies come. And I mean old. You can tell who they are because they fly their old style commie flag high in the form of headgear.  Fiddler’s caps for the men and berets for the women. And they’re about a hundred years old and have been going to see Pete for many decades, since he performed with Woody Guthrie and so many others. They come out for Arlo, too, if he’s right in the city. And now they get to feel they’ve outlived the bastards. They deserve it. May it be true.

Weird Condition r Us

We’ve been spending the evening trying to diagnose Mr. Yenta, and by “we” I mean my sister and me. Mr. Yenta is asleep, and is likely to stay that way for some time. That’s the problem.  As I’ve mentioned before, Mr. Yenta has a number of things wrong with him. Physical things, I mean. This is not a critique of a husband. There’s Type I Diabetes with related complications including an unusually bad case of neuropathy. To complicate matters he lost a kidney to cancer and has phlebitis. Naturally this all involves a lot of different medications and getting to the cause of something new can be complicated. Which is why we’re working on the diagnosis ourselves. Doctors have done tests and not found anything that explains it yet. But he sleeps. And when I say sleeps I mean he sleeps deeply for a couple of days at a time. Sometimes more. He gets up only to answer nature’s call and when I wake him for meals. In between these bouts he’s reasonably energetic, busy and – well – normal. But this episodes have been getting more frequent and lasting longer since right after the holidays. They usually come right before or after a painful bout of neuropathy, so I’m assuming it’s related, but since it can be before or after it’s probably a little complicated.

This is completely contrary to his normal nature. He’s been an early riser since we’ve been married. Sure he might take an afternoon nap or fall asleep earlier than he plans in the evening, but this is a whole different thing. The closest we’ve really come is finding a rare syndrome that normally affects adolescent boys.  Of course we have to go back to the doctor and probably get a new referral to a neurologist for this, but being sure he’ll be awake to keep an appointment is a challenge. I mean, once this takes hold, he cannot be moved.

So that’s a lot of what’s been keeping us busy of late. Sleeping.