(Sheesh!) 
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Archive for the 'goodbyes' Category
Oh, this is a hard one to take.
Back when Emmie was in high school, she really, really, really hated the girls’ prep school she was attending. And when I say hated, I mean she started out disliking the place and eventually learned to hate it with the burning hot passion of a thousand suns. And I have to admit, I can’t blame her. What seemed at first like a rigorous academic institution turned out to be more about indoctrination into southern conservative values. So, after several years of giving it one more try, she finally decided after the 10th grade to strike out on her own. We looked at other options, but didn’t find anything else that felt like a good fit, so Emmie ended up just finishing up high school on her own.
And that’s where Howard Zinn came in. This amuses me now, because when I was in college I read all the traditional stuff, but always felt that I learned more about history from Howard Zinn and Gary Trudeau than anyone else. So, when my kid was rolling her own when it came to high school history, I suggested that she read Zinn and Trudeau, and she did — which eventually led her to reading all the traditional stuff that I slogged though in college. Zinn was a great thinker, historian and humanist, and while he liked to look at history from a perspective that didn’t follow the traditional model, he was, above all, an advocate of being well-informed. And I’m glad that he passed that imperative on to my daughter.
I feel like we’ve lost a friend. A high school teacher. And — need I say it? The progressive movement has lost one of its fiercest advocates. This is a devastating loss.
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Well, God done and called him home.
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Perhaps they are not
stars in the sky,
but rather openings
where our loved ones
shine down
to let us know they
are happy.
It’s a nice thought, from an Eskimo proverb.
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The Mary in Peter, Paul and Mary is lost to us today.
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One of the best things about my childhood was Saturday nights.
It was my mother’s night off, so my father was in charge. And that meant a trip to the YMCA for swimming and then home for one of the two meals that my father could cook: either pork & beans (heated and poured over bread, of course — can it be served any other way?!?) or pancakes, fresh off the griddle. Either way, we got one of my favorite dinners, followed by my father’s famous popcorn, cooked the old-fashioned way, heated over oil and salted — and peppered!!! — before serving. I just don’t think it gets any better than that.
And of course, because it was Saturday night in the early 70s, there was the TV (I was only 10-ish, so clubbing wasn’t an option). And back in the day, that was a good night for television. What a lineup! All in the Family, M*A*S*H*, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, The Carol Burnett Show. Classics, all. Not a dud in the bunch.
The man who brought us M*A*S*H*, Larry Gelbart, died today at the age of 81.
Thanks for the good times, Larry. If I close my eyes, I can still smell the chlorine in my hair and the popcorn in the air…
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First, the Ted Kennedy stuff: The play-by-play, Obama’s eulogy, Ted, Jr.’s eulogy, the Big Picture, and Eugene Robinson’s “A Prince’s Fate” (and one more: What Teddy would do).
Then there’s health care (the Huckabee plan is already in place!):
Where’s the efficiency in this system?!?
And the rest…
Oh, the fakery. The faces of coal are fake. The anti-marriage Mainers are fake. Which is all very sad and pathetic. But this fake Ronald McDonald is pretty much hilarious.
The Man Who Walked Around the World.
Ta-Da! The gays save marriage!!!
And finally, this is a jam-packed “New Rules” from Bill Maher, including these choice tidbits:
But, what did Obama actually say to make Karl Rove’s head explode and the popcorn fly out? Well, cover your children’s ears. When he was asked if he believed in American exceptionalism, he said he did the same way the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism. Yes, “President John F. Kenya” actually said that people in other countries might like their countries better.
Well, I was so shocked, I nearly dropped the Bible I was using to help me masturbate into my gun.
Sarah Palin, in her farewell speech kept telling us how she’s wired. You know, I’m not a doctor–or an electrician–but, I suspect this is faulty wiring, this world view that, in her words, we should never apologize for our country. Really? Never? Not for slavery? Or Japanese internment camps? Or if we tortured the wrong guy at Guantanamo Bay? The Indians?! Nothin’, Sarah? “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” maybe?
I mean, shouldn’t John McCain apologize for…you?
Mitt Romney’s new book is called No Apology: The Case for American Greatness. You can find it at Borders in the “Suck Up” section. It’s such a perfect title for today’s conservative, combining paranoia with arrogance. “No one has yet asked me to apologize, but if someone ever does, f*ck them.”
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I was saddened to find out this morning that Ted Kennedy died yesterday. I’d heard that he wasn’t well enough to make it to Eunice’s funeral, but I still hoped he’d live long enough to see the passage of health care legislation.
As long as I’ve been aware of the Senate, Kennedy has been a Massachusetts Senator (in fact, he was sworn in when I was just months old). It’s a sad thing to imagine our country without the Great Liberal Lion fighting for progress. Rest well, Senator.
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