El Blog Que Es Un Poquito Màs Macho Que Fernando Lamas. A Companion to the Assassin Bug: On Baseball, Jews, Baseball and Jews, Politics,Politics and Baseball, the Musical Genius of Susanna Hoffs, Books, Plutocracy, and Piano Music, scribbled by an unapologetic liberal. Lately, including posts on parenting, divorce, moving, and my bad attitude. Contact at themetabug@gmail.com
Today I called up the offices of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) and Congressman Seth Moulton (D-MA).
Our current administration seems to be heading us towards more armed conflict rather than less. In order to have any fair discussion about the use of the military, the country needs to have a fair discussion about making everyone pay the price for using it.
So I called some legislators in my state
From Elizabeth Warren’s office: The kind person on the other end of the phone had no idea what Ms. Warren’s position was. She said they would get back to me.
From Edward Markey’s office: The kind person on the other end of the phone had no idea what Mr. Markey’s position was, but maybe I should check the website. I said I had and had not been able to find a policy statement. She said they would get back to me.
From Seth Moulton’s office (Mr. Moulton is a veteran): The polite person on the other end of the phone said that she was an intern and could not give out policy positions. She did not offer to get back to me. I asked her to do so, and I left my phone number and email address.
I don’t block people because they’re idiots. I block people because if I don’t, I waste my time arguing with idiots. Which makes me an idiot, of sorts.
Richard LernerThe fact that you conflate a statement where someone clearly misspoke with a prepared talking point that borders on the ridiculous pretty much says it all. If you can’t see the failure of the logic that allows that then it would be like me trying to explain music to the tone-deaf.
Tifney Terry-FranksRight. He clearly misspoke. Amusing how liberals misspeak and conservatives are just stupid in the eyes of a liberal. I am not the one tone deaf sir.
Tifney Terry-FranksNo I get it. You like others want to discredit Palin at face value because you think she is stupid/ignorant. Shows where you are coming from, she is not a stupid or an ignorant person.
Block me as you please. It will have no impact on me or my day.
James C. SummersThis post is funny ! I might be on the same side of the political spectrum as you , Tifney ! You don’t have to return every volley . Chalk this one up as a loss !
We know from the Jones case during the Clinton administration that a president can’t be sued for something done while in office, but can be for things done before taking the oath. However, that wouldn’t seem to preclude conflict of interest suits, which–by definition–would only occur while the president is sitting? Can someone explain this to me?
Please go to this site and give a hand. Or a few bucks.
There are NO veterinary schools in Haiti. The Christian Veterinary Mission is teaching young Haitians to be veterinary agents, helping them take care of the livestock that is so important to their livelihood.
So few people read this virtual rag that statistics are probably useless. However, we did go over 100 views for ENTIRE WEEK! I realize that more millions more people than that will watch a cute cat video in the time it takes to read this paragraph. I can live with that.
I am too smart to eat chocolate cake. I am cat.
And I’m glad that you’re interested in the thrilling story about Genius Mutt defying death after eating a chocolate cake.
But people! In all of this political talk flying around, NO ONE is talking about the proper use of the military. It would be nice to have this discussion before we get stuck in another stupid quagmire that costs the lives and health of those willing to sign on that line.
It is the unanimous view of the Meta-Bug editorial staff that the draft needs to be reinstated. We don’t like the draft. We don’t like the fact that having a large standing army tends to get overused. We wouldn’t like the increased military spending that would accompany a universal draft. We don’t like the possible militarization of society that could occur with a universal draft. We don’t like having permanent military bases in places where they are not wanted or not necessary. We think that young Americans should be supported in becoming the adults they want to be, and that it should be done through education, that the money would be better used paying for universities and trade schools rather than uniforms, food supplied by contractors, and weapons.
Above all, I don’t want my children in the military.
But we are in love with our military might. For a large number of Americans, being big and powerful is part and parcel of our patriotism. We stand astride the globe, ready to go anywhere at a moment’s notice (damn the exit strategies!).
If that is going to be the case, everyone needs to take part. Senators’ sons. Kids of Congressmen. The President’s Progeny. Especially the President’s Progeny. And they shouldn’t be dragged off to the draft board kicking and screaming. They should be at the recruiter’s office, waiting at the door ten minutes before opening time. (On time in the military is 10 minutes early.)
We now have ample evidence that the United States–even in the absence of declared wars, state-to-state conflicts, and serious threats from an invading army–will continue to be a heavily armed country that relies on the use of military advantage to push our agenda in the world.
Call it what you want, but the reality is that we are going to enforce a Pax Americana and whatever the Republican-majority Congress and the Commander-in-Chief feel is an American view of the world. We will do it as much and as far as we are able. We are the modern version of Rome, by design or default.
What we are not–for better or worse–is Sparta. We engage in pieties to assuage our guilt over our “all-volunteer” armed forces. We use them without really thinking about the consequences of sending them into harm’s way. Fewer than 1% of American families have any skin in the game, and as I’ve so often heard, “Well, they signed up for it.” The last time there was a draft, the country was in the street. The idealist in me would like to say that it was over an unjust and unjustified war. The cynic in me says that the only reason anyone cared was because it was their own lives on the line that time.
tRump is pushing an agenda that could easily lead us into war. He is backing both the US and Iran into a corner. If he’s a tenth of the man he says he is, and if his offspring are not just fleas on those 10% coattails, he will encourage them to join the Armed Forces. Not the Air Force (too cushy) or the Navy, but boots-on-the-ground expeditionary forces, either the Marines or the Army infantry.
Y’know that old joke, the one where various people are having a discussion about when life begins (conception, etc), and the old couple has the punchline about life beginning when the kids move out and the dog dies. At this point in my life I’m still not looking forward to when the kids move out, nor do I want the current canine to croak, but when my previous dog died, I have to admit that I was in no hurry to get her replaced.
I had had my own dogs since my junior year in college. After around 35 years of owning various hounds, arctic breeds, retriever crosses, herding dogs, my 16 year-old Australian Cattle Dog, Maddie, was euthanized on a 4th of July. This was just slightly less than a month before my best friend died after a bout with a cancer caused by the radiation that had cured his previous cancer around 20 years earlier. When Mike died, we had been friends for nearly 4o years.
It’s not an astounding revelation that you don’t get to go back to sixth grade and make another decades-long best friendship. You’re just stuck with that permanent sense of loss that occurs when you realize nothing can ever be the same again. I will never have a best friend who was around since I was 10. I suppose that this isn’t astounding. We all know it will happen. Everyone gets to this point, some reach it quite early in life.
Mike had just turned 50, and I was just about to do the same. Plain and simple, I didn’t want another dog. As a veterinarian, I had usually counseled clients to get back into the saddle (more often than not a new pet helps ease the pain of the loss of the old one), and although I had always followed that advice myself, when my best friend died I decided that I was done. I wasn’t in the mood for any more loss. Life brings enough loss without going out and purposely adding to it.
But Jolee bugged me. And bugged me. And then bugged me some more. And went after this the way that only a child who wants a dog can. Then she started finding dogs on PetFinder.com. She worked on my guilt about the divorce. And then I broke. I should’ve known better. I’m a veterinarian, the guy who is on the other side of the exam table when the exasperated parent–usually a mother–comes in and says, “I told them they could have a dog if they would help take care of him!” To which I usually answer, “And you had what evidence to actually believe this claim?”
The truth is that no matter how much kids promise, they are going to fall short. Usually they are going to fall way short. And then they will probably leave for college before the dog dies, which means you’re stuck with the difficulties of caring for the old dog, with his arthritic joints, incontinent bladder, bad eyesight, and failing cognitive abilities. The kids are alright: they do have good intentions. They just have really poor followthrough combined with an inability to accurately assess their desires and capacities. There are a lot of stories about the strong bond between a child and a dog. But no one writes stories about when a child’s interest in the dog gets hijacked for interest in something else (sports, hormone-induced wackiness, cars, music, delinquent behavior. . .) The problem is that it takes forever to say no, but just a few moments of delusion or weakness to say yes. And in general, parents love to say yes.
But I’m digressing. This is about my son’s birthday, my dog Kaleb, who is a total maroon, and the chocolate cake. Every 16 year-old should have a chocolate cake for breakfast on this momentous occasion. Took it out of the refrigerator, put it on the counter, put the 17 candles on (one for good luck), and went upstairs to brush my teeth. Return downstairs, and Genius Mutt is licking the last bits of crumbs off of the floor.
and give a hand. Or a few bucks.
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