Last weekend I saw this sticker on a car in a Target  parking lot — in Edina, no less.  More proof of our ever-bluer suburbs, eh wot?

I like this image better than the one the Wege gacked from Peace Chicken the other day, mainly because it bypasses the X’es- on- the- eyes eliminationism.   We don’t need to go to that well, folks; the other side dips deeply and often enough for all of us.

Say it with me, won’t you?        Republican’t. 

Would make a nice retort anytime one of those bozos trots out the lame “Defeatocrat” taunt. 

Republican’t.    I like it.

 

 

Posted: November 30th, 2006 under General, Republicans.
Comments: 5

It’s been a while since we had a Bishop Spong essay, so here’s a quick fix. Not much in the way of preface is needed here; For both Spong the writer and us the readers it’s easy to recognize a budding Jim Jones when we see one.

I especially like how Spong is careful to point out a distinction: in abusive situations like this one, religion is only the vehicle, not the underlying pathology itself.

On a personal note: if I were the sort of person who wanted to kill anybody, this type of abuser — whatever the pretext they use for their abuse, be it religion, science, love, national security, or whatever — would be first up against the wall.

Carolyn Stephens writes:

I would very much like to hear your comments on “religious abuse” particularly as it concerns fundamentalism, especially within a family. I am closely connected with a family where the father of two teenage daughters has them “brain-washed” into believing that he speaks for God and that God speaks through him. He has for all practical purposes separated them from the world, using home schooling as a way of keeping them from being involved in the “evil world.”

To my knowledge, there is no physical abuse in the family setting but there is certainly emotional abuse. The girls arefrightened of their father because to displease him is to displease God.

There is a book (older - published in 1991) on the subject: “When God becomes a Drug” by Father Leo Booth that hasbeen helpful to me. Can you recommend anything more current on the subject?

Dear Carolyn,

Your letter on the surface points to a deep pathology that has religious overtones. However, it is dangerous to prescribefor sickness based on second hand data. Unfortunately, if what you say is true, they will not respond to intervention because anyone who intervened would be working for the devil. Our society gives wide berth to obvious pathology when it is covered by religious language.

If you could read my mail, you would see countless numbers of letters from people like the two teenage daughters to which you refer, who tell me of similar abuse and how they managed to escape it. Those who don’t escape it become mental patients themselves or repeat the abuse in another generation.

The signs of pathology are the identification between the authority figure (the father) and God so that by disagreeing with or disobeying the authority figure is regarded as being identical to disagreeing with or disobeying God.

The idea that only the parent can teach the child and abandoning the public education system is normally the sign of a deeply threatened, controlling personality. Parents who control their children through fear are also deeply disturbed people.

Since I do not see this as a religious problem but as a psychological problem, I think you should read in qualified psychological books and journals under the subject of Religion as Pathology. Leo Booth’s book is a good beginning;  perhaps his bibliography will give you more clues.

My best,

John Shelby Spong

 

Posted: November 30th, 2006 under General, John Shelby Spong, Religion.
Comments: none

The world according to Dr. Erick Kerouack, Bush’s newly appointed HHS deputy assistant secretary overseeing family planning and advising on reproductive health issues…

“New scientific studies also suggest that if a woman has multiple sexual partners, this will lower her levels of oxytocin which in turn will damage her ability to bond. Oxytocin is a neuro-peptide most commonly associated with pregnancy and breast-feeding. It seems to act as a human “superglue,” helping a mother bond with her infant. It is also released during sexual arousal and there, too, seems to work as a “superglue.” Since estrogen enhances the oxytocin response, females are capable of more intense bonding than males, and are more susceptible to the suffering that accompanies broken bonds. According to an article by Drs. John Diggs and Eric Keroack, “People who have misused their sexual faculty and become bonded to multiple persons will diminish the power of oxytocin to maintain a permanent bond with an individual.”

In more basic terms, sharing the gift of sex is like putting a piece of tape on another person’s arm. The first bond is strong, and it hurts to remove it. Shift the tape to another person’s arm and the bond will still work, but it will be easier to remove. Each time this is done, part of each person remains with the tape. Soon it is easy to remove because the residue from the various arms interferes with the tape’s ability to stick. The same is true in relationships, where previous sexual experiences interfere with the ability to bond.”

Catholic Answers, Chastity Q & A

See, kids:  Jesus wants you to keep your tape sticky.

Let’s see now…  It’s true that I’ve been in a monogamous relationship for over 20 years, but I didn’t get married until I was 32.  For at least a dozen years before that my, uh, tape dispenser was in regular use, and in several different applications.  Holy crap!  The sweaty fingerprints and lascivious dryer lint of nearly four decades of sexual activity can’t be wished away, I fear. O the shame of it:  

My tape is not sticky.         

Guess it’s time to read about this oxytocin stuff. 
Hmmm; this is one well-rounded ribosomal peptide. The poster child for hormonal multi-tasking,  oxytocin is involved in processes ranging from childbirth and lactation to stress reduction and increased trust levels, sexual arousal and orgasm to social recognition , maternal bonding and, yes, to pair bonding. 

Notably in prairie voles. 

But, people aren’t voles, or any other species of rodent, or at least we weren’t the last time I looked.  Because this distinction is fairly self-evident, kindly old Doc Keroquack   seems to be suffering from a powerful case of  wishful thinking.

PZ searched for any kind of scientific data to support Doc Kerouack’s  oxytocin-sticky tape theory; found nothing.

Jessica at Feministing has more.

As does Tristero.

And Charlie.

Alternet wraps it all up with helpful visuals from Doctor K’s  powerpoint presentation.
Yep, everything I needed to know about Christian sexual purity I learned from Bugs Bunny and Popeye:  
         
 

 

Posted: November 27th, 2006 under Eric Keroack, General.
Comments: 2

Here’s three dishes I made this weekend strictly from leftovers and ingredients I had on hand

(mainly because going to a grocery store even once between last Wednesday and today would have driven me to ritual seppuku)

Apparently I’m a culinary genius; they all turned out pretty good.

Brunch Egg Bake

8″ square glass baking dish

Spray inside of baking dish with non-stick cooking spray

Then put in:

1 cup leftover salad croutons (I had Garlic and Butter, but any flavor’s probably okay)

2 1/2 cups leftover broccoli rabe, steamed/wilted (spinach or broccoli or collard greens would work too)

2 cups leftover turkey white and dark meat, cut in 1″ chunks

1 1/2 cups grated Co-Jack (Colby and Monterey Jack; but again: use whatever you’ve got ; Swiss; Cheddar, Jarlsberg, Muenster, whatever cheese you’ve got on hand that sounds good)

Then in a medium size bowl put:

5 eggs; beat with a fork or whisk

Add 1 1/2 cups milk

salt and pepper

Whisk together the eggs and milk and salt and pepper; Pour the egg and milk mixture over the other ingredients in the baking dish;

Bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees.

~~~

Baked Butternut Squash and Parsnips

16 oz. (about 4 cups) uncooked butternut squash and parsnips, peeled and cut in 2″ chunks

Put the squash and parsnip chunks in an 8″ square glass baking dish

Add about a Tbsp of water in the bottom of the baking dish

Dot the vegetables with 1 Tbsp butter or margarine; more or less depending on how much you like butter; I love butter (Insert commercial here: actually I use Smart Balance, which is made with olive oil, is non-hydrogenated, has no trans-fats, has the omega-3 and omega-6 stuff that’s good for reducing cholesterol, is great for cooking and baking, and best of all: tastes good)

Sprinkle with a little coarse kosher salt or sea salt and black pepper

Bake uncovered in a 350 degree oven for 45-50 minutes

~~~

Turkey Noodle Soup

Melt 1 tsp. butter or margarine in a large saute pan (Insert commercial here: actually I use Smart Balance, which is made with olive oil, is non-hydrogenated, has no trans-fats, has the omega-3 and omega-6 stuff that’s good for reducing cholesterol, is great for cooking and baking, and best of all: tastes good)

2 cups each, leftover carrots and celery sticks, chopped

1/3rd of a medium-sized onion, diced
Add carrots and celery and onion to the melted butter in the saute pan; braise for a minute or two to soften

Add 1 packet of Herb Ox sodium-free Chicken bouillon granules, dissolved in 1 cup hot water

Add 1 or 2 tsp. dried herbs; I used a McCormick’s blend called Herbes de Provence that contains rosemary, marjoram, thyme and savory

Add 3-4 cups of leftover turkey, light and dark meat, cut into 1″ chunks

Simmer the broth, vegetables and turkey for about 5 minutes, then put all into a large deep cooking pot or dutch oven

Add 2 8oz containers of natural (low sodium, fat free) turkey stock

Add 1 can low sodium, fat free chicken broth

Add 5 cups water

Let it simmer on low heat while you cook the noodles:

Add 12 oz of medium egg noodles cooked according to package directions, drained

Let the pot simmer on medium-low heat; Makes a great big ol’ mess o’ soup.

Yum.

Posted: November 26th, 2006 under General, the Tild Test Kitchen.
Comments: 5

Ahoy, o my brothers and my sisters. The creature wakes.  Horror as the beast-woman stalks.

In other words:  yes, altho the rest of the clan is still in its grip, for me the haze of tryptophan-induced narcolepsy has been lifted.

Yesterday’s dishes are washed; the kitchen floor’s been swept; fresh hot coffee is in my Red Wing Pottery coffee mug and close at hand; if I wanted anything for breakfast I could choose from pumpkin pie or cherry pie or cranberry bread or just have an entire ‘nother turkey dinner (we had leftovers of everything) …but so far this morning I’m still of the opinion that I won’t be hungry again for a couple of months.
In other words: I’m up, I’m up, and there ain’t any going back to sleep now, so what say I post something on this “blog” I seem to possess.

Let’s start with a couple of lists. First up, from the CAP Action Fund:

This Thanksgiving, progressives have a lot to be thankful for. Here’s our list:

We’re thankful for our country’s troops. We’re thankful America dumped the 109th Congress.

We’re thankful Rick Santorum will have more free time to find the WMD.

We’re thankful we don’t have to go to war with the Secretary of Defense we had.

We’re thankful for “red state values,” like protecting reproductive rights, supporting stem cell research, and rejecting discrimination.

We’re thankful Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who calls climate change the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” will no longer chair the Senate environmental committee.

We’re thankful that Matt Drudge does not rule our world.

We’re thankful Al Gore helped the country face the inconvenient truth.

We’re thankful Bill O’Reilly does not resort to name calling—well, besides labeling the Progress Report/ThinkProgress as “far left loons,” “kool-aid zombies,” “hired guns,” “vile,” “haters,” a “far left smear website,” and “a very well-oiled, effective character assassination machine.”

We’re thankful minimum wage ballot initiatives passed in six states. We’re thankful the Dixie Chicks aren’t ready to make nice.

We’re thankful Ted Haggard bought the meth, but never used it.

We’re thankful for the 100,000 readers who responded to our Tell the Truth About 9/11 campaign.

We’re thankful for “the Google” and “the email” (and the “series of tubes” that make them possible)—but not iPods, which are endangering our nation.

We’re thankful Maf54 isn’t online right now.

We’re thankful people send us Jack Abramoff’s email.

We’re thankful Keith Olbermann’s ratings are up and Bill O’Reilly’s ratings are down.

We’re thankful President Bush’s secret plan for Iraq is safe with Conrad Burns.

We’re thankful we won’t spend Thanksgiving turkey hunting with Dick Cheney. We’re thankful the “Decider” only gets to make the decisions for 789 more days.

~~~

Next, a little list from that naughty Maru:

Things you can only really get away with saying on Thanksgiving:

1. Talk about huge breasts!
2. Tying the legs together keeps the inside moist.
3. It’s Cool Whip time!
4. If I don’t undo my pants, I’ll burst!
5. Whew, that’s one terrific spread!
6. I’m in the mood for a little dark meat.
7. Are you ready for seconds yet?
8. It’s a little dry; do you still want to eat it?
10. Don’t play with your meat.
11. Just spread the legs open and stuff it in.
12. Do you think you’ll be able to handle all these people at once?
13. I didn’t expect everyone to come at once!
14. You still have a little bit on your chin.
15. How long will it take after you stick it in?
16. You’ll know it’s ready when it pops up.
17. Wow, I didn’t think I could handle all of that!
18. That’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen!
19. How long do I beat it before it’s ready?
20. Your mother has the greatest yams!

(from all around teh intarwebs)
- m

~~~

Prayers From the Conquered: the Rude One quotes Bedagi “Big Thunder” of the Wabanaki Algonquin.

~~~

(Via) Now you can design your own Penguin book cover:

Penguin is issuing hardbound editions of 6 literary classics with blank covers that you can design yourself. The 6 titles are:

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Magic Tales by the Brothers Grimm

The Waves by Virginia Woolf

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Emma by Jane Austen

See a gallery of some notable first efforts here.

~~~

Looks like the musical accompaniment for this holiday weekend at Tildebunkport is going to be an infinite loop of the Citizen Steely Dan box set, set on random/shuffle.

I have cravings for the song stylings of Fagen & Becker every so often, just like for brussels sprouts, and the only way to assuage that itch is to play everything they ever did until I’m once again sick of the snotty frat boy inside baseball crypticness of it all, and ready to relegate SD back to the dusty basement of my music collection.

I’ve thought about doing a post that includes links to all the Steely Dan lyrics interpretation sites I’ve found over the years. I thought the perfect title for such a post would be No Marigolds In the Promised Land (from “King of the World”.) Just now I Googled the marigolds line to see if anybody else had ascribed particular obscure meaning to it, and it turns out that a guy named Curt Cloninger wrote a nifty SD appreciation with that title back in spring of 2000. Well worth excerpting:

Becker and Fagan are masters of the cryptic short-short-story lyric. Most Steely Dan songs drop us into the middle of some elaborate plot that is either stream-of-consciously mused upon by the song’s main character, or subjectively sketched by some leery omniscient narrator. Steely Dan gets all caught up in the details without ever bothering to explain the context. Such is their genius. This approach would never fly in a novel, but it works marvelously in a lyric. We get all the charm, atmosphere, ambiance, and mystique of a pithy hard-boiled detective novel without ever knowing whodunit, much less what they dun.

While other narrative lyricists (Don McLean, John Prine) strive to pen the Hamlet of their genre, Steely Dan settles for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. They skip the headlines and turn straight to page 15 for the back story – “While Holding Entire Town Hostage with Guns and Explosives, Son of Oregon Accountant Discovers in His Mind the Mechanized Hum of Another World. Details at 11.” By focusing on such marginal minutiae, Steely Dan gives us “the rest of the story,” the part that even Paul Harvey doesn’t know. Umberto Eco might observe that Steely Dan reveals the rose’s proper name. (Her name is Darling, by the way.)

Cyberpunk pioneer William Gibson (coined the term “cyberspace,” sadly remembered for the screenplay to Johnny Mnemonic) cites Steely Dan as one of his primary literary inspirations. Ironically, Steely Dan cite beat novelist William Burroughs (coined the term “heavy metal,” sadly remembered as the old guy in the Nike ads) as one of their primary inspirations. Becker and Fagen read Gibson. I wonder if Gibson reads Burroughs. Regardless, there is a lot of literature orbiting the Steely Dan nexus. And you thought it was just some guy not wanting Ricky to lose that number.
[...]
How two Yankee college grads sussed up and represented the dregs of urban humanity more evocatively than either Raymond Chandler or Francis Ford Coppola is difficult to speculate. Steely Dan’s lyrics are populated with murderers, drug runners, drug addicts, small-time L.A. fashion playa’s, yokels, shell-shocked Vietnam vets, washed up negro jazz greats, and every 9-5 schmo next door dreaming of lounging poolside at a plush Miami hotel sipping coconut-cradled, umbrella-laden daiquiris while his wife remains conveniently back in Hackensack washing the dishes.

But rather than generalize and dilute, let’s meet some of the actual characters themselves. From your hazy ’70s radio days, you may already know Peg, Josie, Rikki, Nineteen, and Deacon Blues. But have you met Lonnie the kingpin, Felonius the gentleman loser, or the corpse of William Wright? Do you know Buzz, Charlie Freak, Doctor Wu, Mr. LaPage, Carlo, Kid Charlemagne, and my man Pepe? Let’s not forget the women – Rose darling, Snake Mary, Lady Bayside, Louise (pearl of the quarter), Broadway Duchess, Ruthie, Lucy, Aja, and Jack’s Eurasian bride? Yo, my funky one, any major dude with half a heart surely would tell you to include Hoops McCann (you know, schoolyard superman? Jungle Jim?), Jack with his radar, Klaus and The Rooster, Babs and Clean Willie, Chino and Daddy Gee, the Mayor, The Archbishop, and Jive Miguel. And what list would be complete without the historical figures – Napoleon, Good Kings Richard and John, the Queen of Spain, Cathy Berberian, ‘Retha Franklin, Mr. Parker’s Band, Elvis, The Eagles, and yes, even Steely Dan.
[...]
What about experimental operatic diva Cathy Berberian? What role does she play in this sordid menagerie? “Tobacco they grow in Peking. In the Year of the Locust you’ll see a sad thing. Even Cathy Berberian knows there’s one roulade she can’t sing. Dumb luck, my friend, won’t suck me in this time.” Interpretation? – “The inevitability of bad luck is chance’s only surety,” said the wise gambling man to the double-or-nothing Reno seductress – or so I infer. I imagine twelve trippin’ hippies gathered around the feet of Becker and Fagen. One bold disciple pipes up and asks, “Masters, explain to us the meaning of the parable of the locust and the unsingable roulade.”

Read all of No Marigolds In the Promised Land.

~~~

Ooooh! Pulp lesbians!

~~~

Movie quote of the day

In The Women (1939), soon to be divorced socialite Mary Haines, played by Norma Shearer, is comforted by her mother:

“Well, cheer up, Mary; living alone has its compensations. Heaven knows it’s marvelous being able to spread out in bed like a swastika.”

Posted: November 24th, 2006 under General.
Comments: none

..Or is it the other way around?

UPDATED:  No, on second glance I take it all back.  There is really absolutely nothing funny about these soul-destroying little glimpses of hell.  Jesus wept. 

John of A Hole In The Head scanned and posted pages from some of the most depressing magazines I have ever seen:

Some time ago at a yard sale I came across a pile of magazines called “Woman’s Household”. At first glance they just looked like your run of the mill woman’s recipe and crafts magazine, but with each one I picked up I was stunned; I had never seen such despair wrapped up in so much yarn. The woman running the sale, gave them all to me for a dollar, saying “Take them all, they are just going in the garbage.” I knew I’d do something with them someday, I guess this blog is it.

“Woman’s Household” was a monthly crafts publication which sold for 25 cents an issue. Their slogan was “Meet Other Friendly Woman Just Like You”. The key phrase being ‘just like you’; middle aged women isolated in small towns across America. Every month readers were encouraged to participate in the writing of the articles, such as My Pet Peeve, or Words I Live By, My Diet or just to write a poem about Christ or their cat. Subscribers were able to read fascinating articles about fellow crafters such as in the column “Her Creative Busy Hands” …  

Read the whole thing (and abandon all hope, ye who enter) here.

Posted: November 17th, 2006 under Being Female, General, the Reading Room.
Comments: 5

I don’t watch soap operas.   Never have.   Umm, except for that one brief unfortunate dalliance with General Hospital back in the 80s.  I got snared on the Luke and Laura thing  just long enough to learn how soap opera reality works.  See, in Port Charles rape isn’t necessarily a crime, leading to conviction and imprisonment.  Oh no.   Sometimes it’s an important steppingstone in one’s career development.  One day you’re the guy with the cover-up-the-receding-hairline perm and the Members Only jacket who manages the local disco.   Then, only one little rape later:   you suddenly fall in love with your victim, go “on the run” across the country all summer long, and end up an heroic, world-saving International Man of Mystery. Now that’s a career path even Horatio Alger could be proud of.   My fascination with GH lasted all of  2 months, and then I quit mainly because I could feel my head fixin’ to explode from all that “reality”.

Maybe nobody’s immune to soap operas.   I used to think that if anybody was, it was Grandma Tild with her brutal Swedish practicality and no-nonsense approach to everything.  Then I was disabused of that notion one day when for some reason I was at her house on a weekday. She was in her living room, banging her fist down on top of  the television repeatedly and yelling “Now you yust stop dat right NOW!” at the actors on Guiding Light.

(Well, to be fair, Grandma Tild was in her 80s at the time, and was starting to exhibit a few behaviors associated with senility. She had started to drift mentally back and forth between the present in Minnesota and seventy years earlier in Sweden.  I often thought how fun it must be to experience life  in such a fluid state of reality, with no pharmaceuticals needed.)

Do I need to mention that I can’t stand the Sopranos?  Ditto:  Deadwood, Lost, and pretty much every other tv series past or present that’s basically a pimped up soap opera with just enough cussing and skin added so that guys are unafraid to be found watching and thus incurring the scorn of  the Testosterone Police.  I can’t stand any of those shows, and so of course it’s the curse of my existence to be the only female in a household full of males who are slavishly devoted to ALL of them.  Jesus H Christ the Baron Krauss Von Espy!

But to get to my point –and I do have one– can you guess what soap operatic show I DO watch?

Yep, and I say it with some embarrassment:  I’m obsessed with Meerkat Manor.

One Friday night a couple of months ago I was bored and clicking around  looking for anything even mildly interesting  when  I happened to stop on Animal Planet and caught the last half of an episode of MM.   For those of you who want to know the backstory:  an animal research team from Cambridge went to the native meerkat habitat  in the Kalahari desert in southern Africa and set up cameras around a meerkat colony. Researchers even managed to fit tiny fiber optic cameras underground in the meerkat burrows.  The result is that  the daily life and times of what’s been christened the Whiskers Clan have been documented down to the most minute detail for the past 10 years.

Starting in 2005,  half-hour episodes of the life-and-death goings on amongst  the Whiskers have been produced and shown worldwide as “Meerkat Manor”. The estimable Bill Nighy narrates the episodes shown in the UK, while Sean Astin does the honors for the US version.  (Hmmm. Is it just coincidence that both Nighy and Astin have played the part of Sam Gamgee in film or radio LOTR adaptations? Is this perhaps a requirement for Meerkat Manor narrators?  And if so, does that mean that the guy who narrates the episodes for Australian TV must have played Sam at some point too?)

All it took was 10 minutes and I was hooked.  

An introduction to the Whiskers clan and a family tree

Will feisty wayward daughter Mozart  be accepted back into the clan by her mother, the ruling matriarch Flower?  And will Flower let Mozart stay long enough to raise a litter, or will she kick Mozart out again as soon as she’s given birth and then kill Mozart’s babies?  What happened to Mozart’s sister Tosca and their doomed little brother Shakespeare, who was ready to keel over dead at the end of the first season?  Will stalwart, strong but silent heartthrob Mitch ever stop standing guard and finally find love?  With the help of faithful consort Zaphod, can Flower come up with a successful defense strategy to outsmart the ruthless Commandos?  Can plucky Daisy resist the seductive wiles of  lothario Carlos from the rival Lazuli clan?

…And what about Zaphod’s troubled brother Youssarian?

I’m telling ya, it’s insidiously addictive. The only thing I could wish for that would make the whole experience even more satisfying in a meerkat Watership Down kind of way would be some meerkat mythology…

Watch:  Meerkat Manor

Where:  (cable channel) Animal Planet

When:  Fridays, 7PM Central Time, with repeats at 11PM and   2AM 

 

UPDATE:  I really expected to get at least some feedback or reaction to this jokey little picture I cobbled up, but so far zip , zilch, nada.  Come on, people– haven’t any of you ever seen The Lion King? Sheesh!  ~

 

Posted: November 15th, 2006 under General, Meerkat Manor.
Comments: 7

Yesterday I overheard three people critiquing the ”Borat” movie…

First 40-something woman:   “Well my daughter saw it and she said it was really not funny at all.”

Second 40-something woman:  “I saw some clips and it sure didn’t look very funny to me.”

40-something  man:  “I saw all the clips too, and I didn’t laugh even once.”

First 40-something woman:  “My daughter said there was a scene where the Borat guy is in an antique shop and smashes all these antiques.  I mean, those were very valuable things, the kind that can never be replaced.  What’s funny about that?”

Second 40-something woman:  “Oh, that’s not funny, that’s sick!”

40-something man:    “Yeah.”

 

[Also posted at Overheard In Minneapolis]

 

Posted: November 14th, 2006 under General.
Comments: none

Yeah… yeah…. basically I agree with the Wege:

When you’ve got all those pictures of Bachmann looking like the just got laid prom queen the morning after, you don’t need to run pix of her with horns.

Seriously. This isn’t humor so much as grist for the other side. I don’t agree for a second that the Living Word video hurt Wetterling, but there’s no way we gain from photoshopped rudeness and every likelihood these pix will surface in two years at an inopportune time. Put another way, how would you react to seeing Keith Ellison with horns? I know I for one would be a little pissed if I saw that.

Fighting the wingnut hordes doesn’t require us to adopt their tactics. There are more ways of being mean than “conservatives” can begin to imagine, so let’s try something a little more imaginative and a lot less persecutory.

You’ve got a meme: Bachmann’s church despises Catholics. Stick with that one. Horns just make people feel persecuted, and I think we all know what pains in the ass Christians can become when they feel persecuted.

Not that you don’t have every right to publish what you like. I just don’t see where the gain is in all of this.

…But, dammit! One of those pics of Michele Bachmann cries out for one single, tiny added detail to make it absolutely perfect, and just this once I’m gonna be the one to add it:

Ahhh. I feel better now.

UPDATE:  Later that same night, once I got home from work and could tweak it a little, I arrived at version 2.0
Which do you like better?  Leave your vote in the comments.

ANOTHER UPDATE:  Overnight in the comments Photoshop Goddess Idyllopus and new DL-er Nihilix both voted for the new tweaked version, and I have to agree:

 

 

 Rrrrrr!  MS Paint bad!  Paint Shop Pro good!

  

Posted: November 13th, 2006 under General, Michele Bachmann.
Comments: 8

On Friday several people sent this cartoon to PZ Myers the well-known cephalopodophile, not only because of the subject matter (Donald Rumsfeld leaving) but most especially because of the octopuses (octopi?) that greet Rummy as he descends the stairs.
Don’t miss the comments thread: PZ confessed that he just didn’t get why The Guardian’s cartoonist Steve Bell drew this cartoon in this particular way, and that cued the commenters to jump in with a little history lesson. Steve Bell based his “Donald Rumsfeld’s Departure” on a famous John Tenniel cartoon titled “Dropping the Pilot” which shows Kaiser Wilhelm watching the exit of Chancellor Bismarck.

More about Steve Bell:

The Guardian- Steve Bell archive

Comment is free..

Steve Bell–Wikipedia page

More about Sir John Tenniel:

Tenniel cartoon directory

Artist of Wonderland

Wikipedia page for Sir John Tenniel

Posted: November 12th, 2006 under General.
Comments: 1