Valrhona Single Source Shite........
I spent a purloined Saturday in May hanging with the Democrats in Monterey. Picture what it takes for me to get a Saturday off from my crew in May.....
This was the big Demo square dance of the year.....Sam Farr, Gavin Newsome, John Laird, Neon Leon Panetta. All the biggies.
I sort of sneak in by the back door. I am a famous Republican in Democrat circles.....I have been telling people for years that I am a Republican......and Irish Republican, and we have our own army.....
And, at a Mike Gravel fundraiser last year.......all the local weasley Democrats were trying to hobnob with the candidate, drink my wine and eat my smoked salmon.....and sneak out without donating. Can you imagine what face time with John McCain costs. I posted up by the door with a basket, identified myself as the Token Republican.....and hit everyone up for at least a hunsky for Mike before I would let them out the door.
Meanwhile....I am a new Democratic Central Committee member. An elected official.
Actually, not exactly elected....since no one else ran.....but securing the post did involve swearing on Bibles and hanging out at the Monterey County election office and signing lots of forms.
Actually I am probably really a Margaret Chase Smith Republican,......since the IRA won our 1000 year war ten years ago.....I am a throwback to the age when Republicans had morals, values and ethics. And believed in things like the Constitution, and other boring stuff not related to their Net Worth. A time when Democrats were whiny, corrupt fucks.
No wonder I have party identity issues.
I still have an "I Like Ike" button......that I had to hide from my union ship's carpenter grandfather when I was six.
Margaret Chase Smith was known as Moscow Maggie by her Republican peers. She was a Senator for 25 years, and a Representative for eight, and was the first woman ever nominated for President. She was from Maine....and was a school teacher in a one-room schoolhouse, a reporter, and an executive at a mill. She got the Moscow Maggie nickname from Joe McCarthy when she gave her famous "Declaration of Conscience" speech.....defending outmoded ideas like the Constitution and other annoying plebian ideals.
As a mill executive, Moscow Maggie had the idea that a healthy, intelligent and financially secure work-force would secure her company's success and solidify its bottom line. She thought that a solid, secure middle class....with generations of skilled workers would stake out her company's future for decades. She thought that freedom of speech and association and crazy shit like that were more important than State Security. She thought that party political posturing was inelegant, undignified, and completely out of place in a body like the US Senate.
What a whack job. Hillary would have called her "naive".
Anyway....upon arrival at the big Democratic dinner, all I heard was: "Wow, I thought you were a Republican!".....and, of course "Wow, I didn't know you could publish the word "cocksucker" in a newspaper........"
Ironically....and luckily....I ran into Kera, the reporter who did the big story about Jensen Camp in the Monterey County Weekly. Since MCW hires actual journalists, with actual standards and such....she was not on the Democratic Party list either..... and we wound up surfing for a spare spot at a spare table as fellow outcasts.
This happens at weddings all the time. I try to talk brides out of assigning seats to people on their day.....and no one ever listens. After months of planning and political intrigue, the bride comes up with a seating chart. On the day, her most evil friend or enemy goes around and switches all the names and places......and the "loser" people wind up walking around searching for a place to eat. Or, worse.......the C-list folks wind up sitting alone..... just one couple at a table of ten no-shows, dutifully sitting in their assigned spots, back by the bathrooms.
It was amusing to recognize the other folk at our table: the wife of Shawn Bagely....the hyper-enthusiastic Hillary Clinton delegate who never saw fit to appear to comfort his abandoned spouse (is there a Clinton metaphor there?). Shawn is the guy who drove to Cachagua with a PowerPoint presentation printed on easel paper about Democratic Solidarity after I hosted a Party event entitled "Dianne Feinstein is a Slimy Whore!".....on the possibly correct assumption that we in Cachagua would not have access to actual computers, projectors and screens. Shawn is also the guy that I posited in a post to the Obama people that no New Democrat should ever speak to again if Hillary is nominated, and that no one should ever speak to or buy lettuce from anyone Shawn had ever spoken to or sold lettuce to in his life......again ever in the history of the world.
For some reason, Mrs. Bagely did not speak to me....and looked really nervous.
Also at Reject Table 22 was the mayor of Pacific Grove, Dan Cort.....who turns out to be a really cool guy. He is a preservationist and is coming out with a book about saving architecturally significant shit-holes in P.G. Your dream mayor......and seated at the Reject Table. Go figure.
As soon as Kera and I started talking about Cocksuckers and Obtuse Old Democrats.....no one else at Table 22 made eye contact anymore.....so who knows who they were.
Anyway......the food was horrid, but I bribed the waitress to keep our glasses filled with Mark Chesebro's Syrah......donated by Mark and Caroline. Then, the whole dynamic of the evening changed for me......Gavin Newsome got up to speak, early in the program. He had to leave to be back in The City for The Bay to Breakers loon race.
Sorry, folks.....the guy is magic. A Jesuit raised poly-sci guy out of Santa Clara University. I got to talk to him once two years ago at a party......and he rattled on about the six books he had read about homelessness, while running a big city, and conducting an affair with at least one supermodel.
His talk on Saturday was about raising expectations. Changing the paradigm. Gee.....I wonder who he is supporting for President? San Francisco cut their trash volume by 40% by instituting composting. They are swapping their employer tax for a carbon footprint tax. And the city-sponsored universal health coverage....
Newsome mentioned the old Einstein homily about the definition of insanity being the constant repetition of the same action and expecting a different result. His take, learned from the Jesuits was: if you keep asking the same question.....and you don't like the answer you keep getting....ask a different question.
It turns out that providing Universal Health Insurance is insanely expensive. Providing Universal Health CARE.....not so much. Spain, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy and other backward nations might agree....
He also talked about the gay marriage decision. For a Catholic kid raised by the most right wing religious organization in the history of the world it was a no-brainer.
"You either have true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States.....or you don't." End of discussion.
The guy must be Irish.
People say he is going to run for Governor. Fuck that......we should recall Dianne the Horrible...and put Gavin Newsome in a national office. California is not worthy. Orange County would never understand.
Then up-stepped Neon Leon Panetta.....former Chief of Staff of the Clinton White House, and now director of the Panetta Institute.
"When I started the Panetta Institute studies showed that only 25% of the youth of America had trust in the system, or would consider voting or being involved in the process. Now we are dedicated to the something something blah blah blah and 75% of the youth are now involved."
Then he went on to blather about "whichever candidate" is chosen.......
Leon......if you paid any attention to anything.......those young people who are now involved are 80-90% Barack Obama people. That is why they are involved. Obama is paying attention
They, like me.....are tired of people serving us shit on a platter and telling us it is chocolate.
Two hours before George Bush dissed Obama in front of the Knesset as a naive lunatic for advocating talks with Iran......Bush's own Secretary of Defense gave an interview with the Washington Post where he advocated......having direct talks with Iran without preconditions.
Hillary Clinton and her clone/drones have been all over the media talking about how she is the popular choice and has won the majority of the popular vote.....and Obama is dis-enfranchising the people of Florida by his arrogant, elitist, legalistic cant.
Well, this only works if she dis-enfranchises all of the people in the caucus states, ignores the 200,000 Republican votes from Operation Chaos in Texas and Ohio......and reneges on her own agreements to disregard Michigan and Ohio.
I have gagged down some shitty stuff in my time......but that ain't Valrhona. In my limited world, there is no difference between this "chocolate" and the WMD thing, and the tax breaks for the rich thing, and the "high gas prices are because we can't drill in ANWAR thing"......
Or Hillary and McCain promoting a gas tax holiday for the summer...........
And John McCain skipping out on voting for the New GI Bill.....because it is too expensive (about two month's of Iraq war cost....spread out over 2o years). Or John McCain voting against his own campaign finance reform bill.....and pretending to continue to be the reformer while packing his staff with lobbyists.
I don't care what your politics are.....at some point people just want to be acknowledged as not being complete fucking idiots......American Idol notwithstanding.
All we ask is one simple thing: "Don't lie to me......"
So......what are we? Democrats or Republicans?
Valrhona or shit?
Forget Obama......I am a Gavin Newsome Republicrat.......
Moscow Maggie would be right there with me.....
This was the big Demo square dance of the year.....Sam Farr, Gavin Newsome, John Laird, Neon Leon Panetta. All the biggies.
I sort of sneak in by the back door. I am a famous Republican in Democrat circles.....I have been telling people for years that I am a Republican......and Irish Republican, and we have our own army.....
And, at a Mike Gravel fundraiser last year.......all the local weasley Democrats were trying to hobnob with the candidate, drink my wine and eat my smoked salmon.....and sneak out without donating. Can you imagine what face time with John McCain costs. I posted up by the door with a basket, identified myself as the Token Republican.....and hit everyone up for at least a hunsky for Mike before I would let them out the door.
Meanwhile....I am a new Democratic Central Committee member. An elected official.
Actually, not exactly elected....since no one else ran.....but securing the post did involve swearing on Bibles and hanging out at the Monterey County election office and signing lots of forms.
Actually I am probably really a Margaret Chase Smith Republican,......since the IRA won our 1000 year war ten years ago.....I am a throwback to the age when Republicans had morals, values and ethics. And believed in things like the Constitution, and other boring stuff not related to their Net Worth. A time when Democrats were whiny, corrupt fucks.
No wonder I have party identity issues.
I still have an "I Like Ike" button......that I had to hide from my union ship's carpenter grandfather when I was six.
Margaret Chase Smith was known as Moscow Maggie by her Republican peers. She was a Senator for 25 years, and a Representative for eight, and was the first woman ever nominated for President. She was from Maine....and was a school teacher in a one-room schoolhouse, a reporter, and an executive at a mill. She got the Moscow Maggie nickname from Joe McCarthy when she gave her famous "Declaration of Conscience" speech.....defending outmoded ideas like the Constitution and other annoying plebian ideals.
As a mill executive, Moscow Maggie had the idea that a healthy, intelligent and financially secure work-force would secure her company's success and solidify its bottom line. She thought that a solid, secure middle class....with generations of skilled workers would stake out her company's future for decades. She thought that freedom of speech and association and crazy shit like that were more important than State Security. She thought that party political posturing was inelegant, undignified, and completely out of place in a body like the US Senate.
What a whack job. Hillary would have called her "naive".
Anyway....upon arrival at the big Democratic dinner, all I heard was: "Wow, I thought you were a Republican!".....and, of course "Wow, I didn't know you could publish the word "cocksucker" in a newspaper........"
Ironically....and luckily....I ran into Kera, the reporter who did the big story about Jensen Camp in the Monterey County Weekly. Since MCW hires actual journalists, with actual standards and such....she was not on the Democratic Party list either..... and we wound up surfing for a spare spot at a spare table as fellow outcasts.
This happens at weddings all the time. I try to talk brides out of assigning seats to people on their day.....and no one ever listens. After months of planning and political intrigue, the bride comes up with a seating chart. On the day, her most evil friend or enemy goes around and switches all the names and places......and the "loser" people wind up walking around searching for a place to eat. Or, worse.......the C-list folks wind up sitting alone..... just one couple at a table of ten no-shows, dutifully sitting in their assigned spots, back by the bathrooms.
It was amusing to recognize the other folk at our table: the wife of Shawn Bagely....the hyper-enthusiastic Hillary Clinton delegate who never saw fit to appear to comfort his abandoned spouse (is there a Clinton metaphor there?). Shawn is the guy who drove to Cachagua with a PowerPoint presentation printed on easel paper about Democratic Solidarity after I hosted a Party event entitled "Dianne Feinstein is a Slimy Whore!".....on the possibly correct assumption that we in Cachagua would not have access to actual computers, projectors and screens. Shawn is also the guy that I posited in a post to the Obama people that no New Democrat should ever speak to again if Hillary is nominated, and that no one should ever speak to or buy lettuce from anyone Shawn had ever spoken to or sold lettuce to in his life......again ever in the history of the world.
For some reason, Mrs. Bagely did not speak to me....and looked really nervous.
Also at Reject Table 22 was the mayor of Pacific Grove, Dan Cort.....who turns out to be a really cool guy. He is a preservationist and is coming out with a book about saving architecturally significant shit-holes in P.G. Your dream mayor......and seated at the Reject Table. Go figure.
As soon as Kera and I started talking about Cocksuckers and Obtuse Old Democrats.....no one else at Table 22 made eye contact anymore.....so who knows who they were.
Anyway......the food was horrid, but I bribed the waitress to keep our glasses filled with Mark Chesebro's Syrah......donated by Mark and Caroline. Then, the whole dynamic of the evening changed for me......Gavin Newsome got up to speak, early in the program. He had to leave to be back in The City for The Bay to Breakers loon race.
Sorry, folks.....the guy is magic. A Jesuit raised poly-sci guy out of Santa Clara University. I got to talk to him once two years ago at a party......and he rattled on about the six books he had read about homelessness, while running a big city, and conducting an affair with at least one supermodel.
His talk on Saturday was about raising expectations. Changing the paradigm. Gee.....I wonder who he is supporting for President? San Francisco cut their trash volume by 40% by instituting composting. They are swapping their employer tax for a carbon footprint tax. And the city-sponsored universal health coverage....
Newsome mentioned the old Einstein homily about the definition of insanity being the constant repetition of the same action and expecting a different result. His take, learned from the Jesuits was: if you keep asking the same question.....and you don't like the answer you keep getting....ask a different question.
It turns out that providing Universal Health Insurance is insanely expensive. Providing Universal Health CARE.....not so much. Spain, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy and other backward nations might agree....
He also talked about the gay marriage decision. For a Catholic kid raised by the most right wing religious organization in the history of the world it was a no-brainer.
"You either have true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States.....or you don't." End of discussion.
The guy must be Irish.
People say he is going to run for Governor. Fuck that......we should recall Dianne the Horrible...and put Gavin Newsome in a national office. California is not worthy. Orange County would never understand.
Then up-stepped Neon Leon Panetta.....former Chief of Staff of the Clinton White House, and now director of the Panetta Institute.
"When I started the Panetta Institute studies showed that only 25% of the youth of America had trust in the system, or would consider voting or being involved in the process. Now we are dedicated to the something something blah blah blah and 75% of the youth are now involved."
Then he went on to blather about "whichever candidate" is chosen.......
Leon......if you paid any attention to anything.......those young people who are now involved are 80-90% Barack Obama people. That is why they are involved. Obama is paying attention
They, like me.....are tired of people serving us shit on a platter and telling us it is chocolate.
Two hours before George Bush dissed Obama in front of the Knesset as a naive lunatic for advocating talks with Iran......Bush's own Secretary of Defense gave an interview with the Washington Post where he advocated......having direct talks with Iran without preconditions.
Hillary Clinton and her clone/drones have been all over the media talking about how she is the popular choice and has won the majority of the popular vote.....and Obama is dis-enfranchising the people of Florida by his arrogant, elitist, legalistic cant.
Well, this only works if she dis-enfranchises all of the people in the caucus states, ignores the 200,000 Republican votes from Operation Chaos in Texas and Ohio......and reneges on her own agreements to disregard Michigan and Ohio.
I have gagged down some shitty stuff in my time......but that ain't Valrhona. In my limited world, there is no difference between this "chocolate" and the WMD thing, and the tax breaks for the rich thing, and the "high gas prices are because we can't drill in ANWAR thing"......
Or Hillary and McCain promoting a gas tax holiday for the summer...........
And John McCain skipping out on voting for the New GI Bill.....because it is too expensive (about two month's of Iraq war cost....spread out over 2o years). Or John McCain voting against his own campaign finance reform bill.....and pretending to continue to be the reformer while packing his staff with lobbyists.
I don't care what your politics are.....at some point people just want to be acknowledged as not being complete fucking idiots......American Idol notwithstanding.
All we ask is one simple thing: "Don't lie to me......"
So......what are we? Democrats or Republicans?
Valrhona or shit?
Forget Obama......I am a Gavin Newsome Republicrat.......
Moscow Maggie would be right there with me.....
posted by Txacoli at 10:57 PM
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