Driftglass and Blue Gal's Friday Podcast

A big thank you to those who contribute five bucks into the podcast hat. You pay for this, and it's so appreciated.

MPS has a contest - Laura Bush Book Cover

Here's my entry and here's the contest post.

Immigration is ALWAYS about racism. Ask Ben Franklin.

Don't think for a minute that it isn't. Who we "let in" to the country is only an issue when we are talking about someone who is different in race and/or language from us. So when someone wants to talk about immigration and "illegals" make sure you change the subject and start talking, immediately, about race hatred. And here are some talking points from a post I did back in 2006:

_____________

In 1751 Benjamin Franklin was all freaked out in Philadelphia about German immigrants:

Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our anglicizing them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs anymore than they can acquire our complexion?

Huh? Germans not white enough for you, Ben Franklin, poster boy for the Minutemen?

A little later in US History 101, we'll learn about Teddy Roosevelt, another dead white guy who worried publicly in 1903 that the progeny of dead white guys would not longer rule the world unless white guys persuaded white gals to spit out the babies like poor, southern European, (oh hell, just say it, Catholic) immigrants were. He went so far in one speech as to warn against (white) "race suicide." Yeah.

A modest suggestion for democrats.senate.gov

Just leave the filibuster cots set up permanently forever, like a campsite, so that every single US Senator has to walk between cots every day on their way to work. And anytime the word 'cloture,' 'filibuster,' or 'block debate' is mentioned by any Republican at any time on the floor, have Carl Levin and Barbara Mikulski stand up, wiggle their hips, and shout

 

"Yay!!! We're headed for the Cot Room!!!"

Also, spread the word: nobody earns rewards points with each stay. .

Bush Book Cover (Photoshop)

There's more at Mock, Paper, Scissors, Fried Green al Qaedas, and Ian David also too.

Tucker Carlson creeps me out anyway...

But not as much as when he appears in the Washington Life society pages. Sorry I'm so late to the party, Tucker. The party-going of the villagers disgusts me, but really, we should be watching because you guys run the country and determine what we are permitted to discuss. And you party with each other, only, there's a club and we're not in it, etc.

So henny-way Tucker, some desperate DC Sally Quinn wannabe opened her house so your website**** (yeah I was the hit you had this morning, you're welcome) could have a launch party. Did she write the article, too?

So many people came to Juleanna Glover’s house to help inaugurate the Daily Caller that partygoers looking to find the website’s founder, Tucker Carlson, had to call him on their cell phones.

The Daily Caller went live on Jan. 11, adding yet another must-read for news junkies – who should probably file a sleep deprivation class action suit against Matt Drudge. (After all, his Drudge Report pretty much started the phenomenon).

Has Tucker finally hit his stride? We hope so. He’s hosted or been a guest on all the major cable networks with multiple writing positions along the way. The consensus according to radio talk show host Bill Press: “If anybody can cut through, thrive, and survive, it’s Tucker. He’s always fresh and different.”

Guests included media stalwarts Ann Compton and Christopher Hitchens as well as hip young reporters Emily Heil of Roll Call and Kiki Ryan of Politico. The big surprise of the night: “Plamegate” scandal figure I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby circulating – mostly unrecognized – in the supposedly politically-savvy crowd.

Wow. Unrecognized? Is that the polite villager euphemism for "who invited the ex-convict?"



original photo and article here.

****I feel so much better knowing that someone is losing money right now from The Daily Caller, which features horribly-written, desperate link-slut headlines like "HuffPo celebrates 5th birthday as it remains on the rise." The end.

Salon tonight, but first, a little Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater

Because really, the description in the CURRENT knitting pattern magazine for this sweater says, and I am not making this up:

Just take a fruity raspberry color, a pinch of nougat, a sporty rib pattern and make a man wear it.

Make a man wear it? Hey, you knit it for him, make him wear it all the way to the bus. Then, blame the "curse of the boyfriend sweater" for the fact that you never hear from him again.

Salon tonight here at 9 Eastern.

McLaughlin Group said WHAT?

Heather at Video Cafe emailed me. Apparently the panel was giggling over Palin/Bachmann being the "Thelma and Louise" of the GOP. John McLaughlin wondered aloud if they would run together to lead the country in 2012.

Because we all know how Thelma and Louise turned out.

Movie poster (photoshop)

original here.

Saturday Song

Something I want to make a political mashup for someday. An old fave.

Driftglass and Blue Gal's Friday Podcast

Since we have no corporate sponsors, we ask for five dollar contributions from those who like these podcasts. Once you give, you're off the hook for life!

A big thank you to those who have already contributed five bucks into the hat. You pay for this, and it's so appreciated.

Thanks!

At What Point Do the Tea Party People Become A National Joke?

Right about here:



via.

Podcast later today.

"Don't forget your Illegal Immigrant shirt, dear." (photoshop)

Representative Bilbray (R-CA) says police can tell an illegal immigrant by his clothes.

via Intoxination.

Book Report - What are you reading this summer?

Not. This. One. I just got a whiff from Will Bunch:

An early hint may come in June, when Beck publishes his book The Overton Window, which he described as "a story of America in a time much like today where the people are confused," with a government in crisis and the rise of a citizens' group called the Founders Keepers, which "leads to a battle and a civil war, and life is upside-down planetwide."

A Glenn Beck book where "people are confused"? Oh who am I kidding?!? I can't fucking wait for this book to come out, and I'm saving the above graphic to post at larger sites (apparently Huffpo isn't doing any contest after all? Pity.) I actually may have to get some audio clips of "read by the author" for a movie mashup. And you know the General's review will be worth the wait.

I was so disappointed to read about the new release of one of my favorite authors, Justin Cronin. His books The Summer Guest and Mary and O'Neill are lovely, just lovely. The Summer Guest is definitely great American novel material and Blue Gal highly recommended.

Now he's come out with an 800 page dystopian novel about...vampires. Sigh. Also before it was a novel it was the subject of a movie rights bidding war. Well of course it was. I'm delighted that the author of two lovely little books gets almost two million bucks out of his career, but at that cost it makes me weep.

I'd love to hear what's on your bookshelf for the summer.

Gay? Controversy? You're kidding.

People who are different from us:

1. The publicists for American Idol and/or Ryan Seacrest, who seem to think "floating" "rumors" that Seacrest is gay extends his shelf life or something.

2. People who are freaked out that their Tivo didn't catch the end of Glee.

3. People who spend valuable minutes on this earth being "mad at Ryan Seacrest."

PS who the fuck is Crystal Bowersox? Please, DON'T TELL ME.

Mitch McConnell's 'scream' #p2

Read more here.

Twins.

Original photograph here.

Why we write. [Louise Erdich]

h/t anonymous benefactor, from Bill Moyers Journal, interview with Louise Erdrich.
And here is the poem she reads on the video, "Advice to myself."

Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs at the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew in a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls under the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzle
or the doll's tiny shoes, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic.
Go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paperclips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in through the screened windows, who collect
patiently on tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience.


My guess is Louise Erdrich's children are like mine. They're artists in their own right. And so when I emerge from my writing / film mashing / photoshopping / podcast editing and walk into the living room and there is a garbage bag laid out on the floor (thank you child) with sharpie markers and paper and a bottle of olive oil from the kitchen (yes really) and they've made something too, there is mutual space, mental and physical and temporal, for all of us to do our work.

7yo is sitting next to me right now and so I asked her how do you become an artist. She replied, "I don't know, I was born that way. I was born with ARTISTIC ABILITY." as she swishes her hand across the air. It's in her, it's in me. And there is space amid the mess.

More, including examples of my children's work, at this post from 2008. You can help keep the crayons sharp at our house by donating on this, the last day of my quarterly fundraiser. Thanks.

Two white people!

We talked at this week's podcast about how much of the "debate" over race is between two groups of white people. They're represented here:



I'm holding a fundraiser, asking my readers to give five bucks, either to the podcast or to me. I'm so grateful for support of my writing, artwork and broadcasting. Thank you.

Justin Bieber gets his revenge

Because I couldn't avoid that trending Twitter topic any longer. Apparently he's a blonde haircut with autotune, but then my generation had Shaun Cassidy, so yeah, I'll shut up now.

But...you gotta ask yourself, would they love Justin as much if he traded hair with Don King?



ps. 7yo thinks he's quote, "just amazing and he's totally hot and stuff? I wish I could meet him."

Saturday Song

Driftglass and Blue Gal's Friday Podcast

This one was just plain fun.

Michelle Obama's Conde Nast Traveler cover/article is here.

Thank you to those who contribute five bucks into the hat. You pay for this, and it's so appreciated.
Thanks!

The Glenn Beck Book cover you wish I had not 'shopped.

...me too. But I kinda had to.

Chaser Amy (photoshop)

Miss Kitty at C&L said,

"Palin reminds me of Aimee Semple McPherson only sleazy."

And Heather sends a photoshop challenge and there ya go.

Podcast this afternoon and it's very good if I do say so myself.

Three Reviews

If you like tense drama with a cyber feel, I think you'll like John Sundaman's Acts of the Apostles. I kept thinking it would make a GOOD James Bond movie with just a few tweaks. You know, good James Bond, Goldfinger James Bond. Goldfinger with Daniel Craig tenseness James Bond. Oh you get my drift.

Do click the link and explore John's site, where you can read more. And buy the book if you want to read it. We're very pro "pay the damn writer" here at BG.

John attends Chat Salon on Mondays from time to time so if you buy his book and want to talk to him about it, he's available.



__________________


If you haven't watched the entire 70 minutes of Red Letter Media's Phantom Menace review, you should. Even if, like me, you never saw Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Actually, this review will make you glad you didn't. But you'll stay for the 70 minutes, even if you think you won't, so set aside the time. (PS there is a sub-plot to this that the narrator is a wife-murderer, but he will also mail you a Pizza Roll. I mean, really. But if you are sensitive to fake horror movie plot devices you might want to skip it.)

__________________


Finally, this negative review of an audio book from Audible is too good not to share:

review of audiobook The Magicians by Lev Grossman

"All Hope Abandon Ye Who Listen Here"
By: Brad (USA)
November 01, 2009

This novel aspires to answer the question: what would happen if jaded, hyper-sexed versions of Harry, Ron and Hermione found themselves on a quest in Narnia . . . ?

The answer is: you don't care. Because by the time you make it to the end of this gaping sore of hopeless apathy, you'll begrudge J.K. Rowling and C.S. Lewis just for conceiving two worlds that could be so poorly re-imagined by a douche like Lev Grossman. And you won't thank narrator Mark Brahmall for pouring his weak sauce over the whole s--t sandwich.

This is one mess of a story that really begs the question: why write it? why read it? why listen? Stay away . . . and if still decide to try it on: it's definitely not for kids. Unless you let your kids listen to explicit stories about straight; gay; orgiastic; pedophilic; and bestial sex. In which case, this is the book for you . . . sicko!

Happy Thursday; Podcast tomorrow.

Sarah Palin, Cheerleader! (and You)

So Nicole Belle emails last night a funny line from Glee, where Sue says:

You may be the stupidest cheerleaders ever and that's saying something, I once coached a young Sarah Palin.

So I walked over to my easel and made this. We'll be running it in an upcoming open thread.



While working on this a Steve Martin routine went through my head.

I seen people going to college for fourteen years,
Studying to be doctors and lawyers,
And I seen people getting up at seven-thirty in the morning
Going to work in the drugstore
And sell Flair Pens
But the most amazing thing to me is...
I GET PAID FOR DOING THIS.

Except in my version, it's "I DON'T get paid for doing this."

Except when you toss a few coins into the proverbial hat and contribute five bucks. It's fundraising week. If you enjoy what I do, all I ask is five bucks, no more. Times are too tough to ask for more, and I consider each and every reader such a miracle (thank you for coming here) that I wouldn't anyway.

If you value what I do enough to come here, please consider paying the artist and writer of this blog a little something to show it. And THANK YOU.

Could someone please break it to Joe and Sean that Ronald Reagan is DEAD?

h/t Heather for the idea, pointing out that on Morning Joe they started calling Chris Christie "another Ronald Reagan. They need to just prop up the corpse and be done with it."

Salon Tonight 9 Eastern, but not before....

A new, Hugh Laurie-directed episode of House, MD.

I don't squeee, but if I did...

Salon is here, see you at 9 Eastern. A reminder you do NOT need a webcam, microphone, or anything but a keyboard and internet access to participate, and no email registration is needed. Easy. xoxo

The importance of turning off one's internet prejudices, and clicking where thou wilt....

...because, Citizens, I cannot tell you which link would, by my conscious brain, be most likely to block the use of my fingers on the mouse: "Margaret Carlson" or "Daily Beast." The two are, on the scale of 'Forsooth I do have better things to do with my time,' roughly equivalent. Imagine my surprise to find my screen lighting upon this article, then, where we consider taxes on sugary drinks and dare I say it without blanching, softer than average (and environmentally unfriendly) toilet paper.

Of course I was immediately transported to my days of undergraduate study of humanities, which, alas, is seen by our willfully ignorant age as being beyond luxury, to the reading of Gargantua and Pantagruel, where the scientific study of arse wiping settled the issue of luxurious bum cleaning to the present day. It saddens me that we have made few improvements to the discourse since that time, because, of course, Rabelais was writing during the mother fucking (oh do not think I use that term as a swear rather than a literal interpretation of Chapter 1.III) Renaissance.

Afterwards I wiped my tail with a hen, with a cock, with a pullet, with a calf's skin, with a hare, with a pigeon, with a cormorant, with an attorney's bag, with a montero, with a coif, with a falconer's lure. But, to conclude, I say and maintain, that of all torcheculs, arsewisps, bumfodders, tail-napkins, bunghole cleansers, and wipe-breeches, there is none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose, that is well downed, if you hold her head betwixt your legs. And believe me therein upon mine honour, for you will thereby feel in your nockhole a most wonderful pleasure, both in regard of the softness of the said down and of the temporate heat of the goose, which is easily communicated to the bum-gut and the rest of the inwards, in so far as to come even to the regions of the heart and brains. And think not that the felicity of the heroes and demigods in the Elysian fields consisteth either in their asphodel, ambrosia, or nectar, as our old women here used to say; but in this, according to my judgment, that they wipe their tails with the neck of a goose, holding her head betwixt their legs, and such is the opinion of Master John of Scotland, alias Scotus.

I for one would take great pleasure in any account of white American Teabaggers protesting a luxury toilet paper Obama-tax by populating their manicured sub-division front lawns with shitty-necked geese.

Kyl loves him some Fox News Sunday! (video mashup) #p2

Election Illustration

Click image for larger.

Keep your enemies close?

Click image for larger.

Driftglass and Blue Gal's Friday Podcast

The full 74 minute unedited director's tape is also available at the Podcast Website.

Our very special guest Arvan is at Sex Gender Body. Thank you so much Arvan for being on the show!

Monk's blog, mentioned in the podcast, is here. His bondage rope color of the month is...oh. Sold out. Nevermind.

Thanks to Darkblack for our new logo!

We just paid our podcast bill for the next 30 days. Thank you to those who contribute five bucks into the hat. You pay for this, and it's so appreciated.
Thanks!

I'm...number two? (Welcome KO to Twitter)

I'm geeking out because, I am the second person to retweet Keith Olbermann's first tweet. I'll be telling my grandchildren.

Dear Chris Matthews:

>



Here's the deal: DON'T YOU EVER mention Sarah Palin's name without having a chyron floating beneath you that says,

FULL DISCLOSURE: WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HER TO GET RATINGS. OBVIOUSLY THIS WOMAN HAS NO QUALIFICATIONS TO HOLD PUBLIC OFFICE.

It's missing from this amazing, and I mean that in a bad way, clip from Heather at C&L, who also summarizes:

Matthews and Buchanan... describe the Palin and Bachmann rally and their featured speakers as...an amazing event...very fascinating political figures... very good on the stump... much more exciting than Mitch McConnell or John Boehner... the new "star power" of the Republican Party... dazzling... dynamite... extremely attractive women... rodeo queens...

Jerking off to her "appeal" is no way to be a self-respecting pundit, Chris. When you neglect the obvious facts, you look, well, as mentally out of touch as, you know, Pat Buchanan.

That is all.

Why NSFW is BS

Quote of the day from Susie Bright, in a post on writing and money that every blogger should read:

Nancy Pelosi quips that health insurers consider "being a woman" as a disqualifying pre-existing condition.

The same is true for women bloggers. If we discuss the normal life cycle of female existence, our content is labeled "NSFW."

We can't menstruate, have babies, get pregnant, have an abortion, nurse, go through menopause, or have a single sexual opinion without being labeled “NSFW.” It's a bogus, unmandated censorship nanny-wall and I, for one, HAVE HAD IT.

Nothing in my blog is more revealing than what you could see in Vanity Fair. The New York Times can write about pedophilia scares, publish nude artwork, and cover the abortion debate without having their site banned. I want the same respect.

I think she's really on to something here. Sexism and prudery and Republican-ism so often go together. See for instance, John Boehner's War on Women at Crooks and Liars.

Of course, there is something to be said for NSFW, in that if you are being paid to sit in a cubicle and enter numbers into a database, you probably should not be spending that time surfing the web for porn on the office computer. As I describe the blog The Aristocrats, "Safe for work? Sure, because you're fired."

My ex had a fascinating web experience at the law school of the Baptist institution at which he taught. They had a net-nanny attached to their entire server, so anyone using the campus internet would be prohibited from examining 'colorful' websites. When it became clear that due to the content of certain articles pertaining to the Monica Lewinsky incident, the main page of The Washington Post was being banned on campus (words like "oral sex" were strictly filtered) my ex hit the roof and sent an email to the campus-wide faculty list that this was an outrage.

One professor in the science department (Baptist school science department, yeah.) replied to all.faculty that he didn't see how reading the Washington Post could be "work-related."

At an academic institution. Really.

Hilarity, at least at the Law School, ensued.

Also law students and professors researching legal rulings on "medical marijuana" were nannied off the internet as well. I wonder if someone in the "science" department could Google "weed." You know, for agricultural purposes.

Language is so deliciously vague. Filters based on word usage can't possibly work, ever.



Our topic this weekend on the podcast, not to take anything away from Susie Bright***, is going to be "Republicans and Sex, or all the news I've heard about bondage in the past year has come from Michael Steele." Until then.

***Susie's Audible.com show on Palin and Sanford is one of the best political shows I've heard, ever.

A letter from my 7 1/2 year old and some responses.

Early last month my first grader had a writing assignment to write an actual snail mail letter. She wrote it to me:

Dear Mom,

I WANT a hambster. I want a habster because I never had a Pet and I want to know what it fels like to have a Pet. I will feed it and You will clene the cage.

Love So much

[signed]

Her teacher wrote at the bottom in red pen:

Why do you deserve a pet?

I responded with this:


It's a gerbil, actually, as they are said to be a bit more social and a bit less nocturnal than hamsters.

At last night's salon we talked about what to name her. I want a bloggy name but I was afraid if I named her Jane she might set fire to her own cage, and if I named her Digby she'd just want to write brilliantly all the time and I'd get very very jealous.

Some at the salon suggested Gilly. A heartfelt suggestion, but really, this rodent is small, female, and fair of color. Not a good match.

The kids want to name her "Jessica Awesome." I have no idea where that came from, and it seems a little "Kim Possible"-ish to me, but time will tell.

In the meantime she survived the night, she's eating and chewing the toilet paper roll we gave her, and she hasn't growled once at anyone.

The first grader, to her credit, read aloud to Jessica Awesome for over 45 minutes last night.

I have a little shelf in the dining room where her cage fits, but the kids want her at eye level on the dining room table for now. Will that become her permanent spot? Ya think?

Eat your heart out, Michael Steele, National Review Online is also doing the sexy fundraiser thingy.

This via TBogg: Kathryn! Jean! Lopez! finds a shiny distraction to her beloved pedophile priests by trolling her readership for their...experiences with pornography?



I'm cutting it into lines because, really, she's writing PURE POETRY here, people!

"The piece we published today

on the devastating effects of pornography

has kept a steady stream

of e-mails

coming

into my inbox.

Some telling devastating tales.

Some confessions.

Some adamant defenses

of pornography

from frequent users.

Some cries for help.

Please feel free

to keep them coming.

I’ll report back here before too long.

Good night for now."

Interview with yours truly regarding Blog Against Theocracy

...is here.

Also, I think I've got everyone as of this writing linked over at the BAT website. If your post is missing, fill out this webform and I'll make sure your blogpost gets linked.

Thanks for another great blogswarm!

Waterloo? (Photoshop)

thx mfanik for the Wellington idea.

The Driftglass and Blue Gal Weekly Podcast

We are resolving some sound issues. Thanks to those who have sent in suggestions; I think it's going to involve some cash outflow in the microphone department.

What I REALLY think about sex clubs and the GOP. (VIDEO)

Blog Against Theocracy - The Movie

More info at the Blog Against Theocracy website.

You can promote your posts with the #BlogAgainstTheocracy hashtag on twitter, or if you're old skool, the Blog Carnival info is here.