Paradise Stinks

Well, it’s all coming out now: Honoluluans stink enough that certain political forces want to legislate who can ride public transportation. Stinky people aren’t welcome.

Oh, please! And let’s define olfactory offense: pleasant smells can be just as offensive as nasty ones. I remember my dear, childhood piano teacher glumly admitting during one lesson (to my great relief) that she had to stop wearing her favorite perfume because it made her students break out in hives, suffer watery eyes, sneeze, etc. (Curiously, when attending college recitals and concerts, I often sat next to a girl named Mandy who wore the same pleasantly lethal concoction–some sort of Giorgio or Chanel No. 5 knockoff?)

It was a nice scent, just not something you wanted to be trapped with for an hour.

Health Care Reform

THIS article, “Congress Is Behaving as if the Health Care System Isn’t in Tatters” by Mitchell Bard, is one of the most cogent pieces I’ve read about the ongoing health care reform debate.

An interesting parallel just occurred to me: Republicans always hated the TVA Project, citing during the Roosevelt era the same arguments used today against a government-run public health insurance option to compete with the private insurers. TVA forced utilities to provide electric power to 100% of Americans, and without it, many people in rural areas would be sitting in the dark to this day.

Maybe that last sentence should read “provide access to electric power,” since the consumer still has to pay for it.

Bush Farewell

He thanked CHENEY first, Laura second? Ooooh, big (but revealing) mistake!

I’m tired of light blue ties, which nobody seems to have worn so much before him (the red “power tie” being omnipresent in government). Obama has taken to wearing blue-uns, too. Oh, well.

What Did You Say, Mr. O’Reilly?

“You’re Jon Stewart. If you go to Alabama you’re going to be killed. You can’t go where these center-right people are because they’ll stone you to death.” —Bill O’Reilly to Jon Stewart on The Daily Show

Oh, please. We’re polite, especially to nice, sweet liberals like Jon Stewart. When he visits, he’d be given a free bowl of grits and an extra piece of pie at the Bar-B-Que joint (since he can’t have pork). As for an O’Reilly visit, everybody would say, “Is he gone yet? Good, I was tempted to throw a stone at that rude Yankee’s head, bless his heart!”

And there’s the expression “some of my best friends are liberals,” which my friends get to use, thankyouverymuch. (But I’m really just all warm and fuzzy moderate-to-lefty.)

Random Rhetoricals

If this bear market doesn’t turn around soon, will stock brokers be able to bring themselves to buy Christmas presents of Teddy Bears for their children this year?

Since Roosevelt was “bully” about any and everything, why are there no stuffed Teddy Bulls?

Do brokers like Nestea? “Take the Nestea plunge!”

So, are sign makers happy? (Wachovia transmogrifying into Wells Fargo, alone, is business enough.) Don’t they need to use one of those removable plastic strips, like many church signs use for the preacher’s name, for the name of the bank?

Is it possible to run for any office in Alabama without shooting at something? Which is the greater crime, subverting “Amazing Grace” for political purposes, or syncopating it so to do?

And finally, does Auburn know what it’s doing? ROFL

Runnin’ Shoes

Well, the Jackasses and Elephants have both wrapped up their ‘08 conventions. We now have two super tickets from which to choose, AHEM (please forgive the internal polls and focus groups, they know not what they have done . . . to both parties). Should McCain win, here’s some advice for a favorite local resident:

RUN VULCAN, RUN!

See, Sen. John McCain, that great cavalier fighting everybody else’s pork (why else keep reelecting our Senate jokers if they can’t build up enough seniority to cash in for their respective states?), saw fit to criticize Sen. Richard Shelby for securing some federal funding for the restoration of the Statue of Vulcan in Birmingham, Alabama. Never mind that Vulcan is the largest cast-iron statue in the world, a venerable antique, and Birmingham’s most spectacular landmark. (Hey, quit kvetching about your tax money going to this–there’s precious little to visit in B’ham as it is, must have something to visit when you come here from yonder places.)

So, perhaps B’ham’s mayor, Larry Langford, will take up a collection at the next burlap and ashes rally to buy running shoes for Vulcan as sandals won’t do. McCain may come after Vulcan to get the money back. Scrap iron goes for a high rate!

[Note to B’ham expatriates: a slight twist on the pedastal has him mooning Channel 13’s studios now instead of Homewood.]

Fish Bowl Politics

It is said that running for office or holding the presidency is like living in a fish bowl. Well, no wonder we’re seeing “aquarium ruins ornaments” behind our politicians these days! Obama stood in front of a neoclassical temple set for his acceptance speech. The newly refurbished White House press room has a set decoration of columns.

Al Gore’s infamous lock box is like the little treasure chests that go in the fish tank.

A former gov’nah of Alabama used to say that the ship of state has holes. “We’ve got to plug up the holes.” There are shipwreck ornaments for the fish bowl, too.

See, a pirate can be a good political analyst.

Foot-in-Mouth Disease

I hope that the Democratic National Committee is supplying the Obama campaign with buckets of that bitter, anti-thumb-sucking stuff with which to paint Sen. Biden’s left foot in order to cure him of the habit of sticking said foot in his mouth!