The George W. Bush Presidential Librarium
This is beautifully drawn, and absolutely hilarious. By the creators of the book, “Goodnight Bush.” Click here to go to the site, and be sure to then click on the illustration to view close-ups!!
‘Politics’ Category
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Presidential Librarium
July 8, 2009
Category Art, Politics | Tags: | No Comments
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A big boy
July 5, 2009
Jamie’s moving right along in the business of growing up.
For some time now, he’s been able to roll over from front to back and back to front, and he now uses that skill liberally as a means of getting where he wants to go. He’ll roll over and over and over to get somewhere. Yesterday he rolled right off the guest bed onto the floor when I looked away for like two seconds. It’s only a 12″ drop because the mattress is just on the floor, but it still scared him and he started crying.
He’s now able to get up on his hands and knees, and rock back and forth. He gets so excited! He can get from his back to his belly to the crawl position, and from there to sitting up. And he can use all these moves in combination! It’s clear to me that he realizes the implications of this… you can almost see the wheels turning in his little head. Just in the past couple of days he’s occasionally done something like putting one knee forward or one hand forward, probably accidentally. The crawling is coming, and it’s coming soon!
In preparation for this stage, we’ve built a play area for him in the living room, consisting of a big puzzle-piece mat, some baby corral fencing, and a bunch of toys. We also bought some things that you stick in unused electrical outlets, and we have some furniture straps to secure bookshelves to walls. As he gets closer to mobility, we’ll need to crawl around taking baby’s-eye-view of things and put up temptations, secure cabinet doors, lock down toilet seats, etc.
The other cool thing he’s doing now is making “Da” and “Ta” sounds very clearly. It’s so fun to have a little “dadada” conversation with him, because it is almost like having an actual conversation. He’ll say something, and we’ll imitate him, and he’ll smile and imitate back, and so on. I suspect his first real word will be “dada.” Maybe “mama” will follow closely behind.
This afternoon I discovered that a laundry basket is a GREAT way to keep a baby contained and entertained! He wasn’t satisfied in his bouncer, and I needed to be on the floor of the kitchen cleaning and sorting out my spice cabinet. So I stuck him in an empty laundry basket with some books and toys, and presto! Super happy baby for about an hour.
A few nights ago, we watched “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” I’d forgotten what a good movie that was, probably because I haven’t seen it since I was 11 or 12, sitting in the dark in Suzanne Plunkett’s living room at a sleepover. I think we scared ourselves into not being able to sleep. Jonathan Pryce was fantastic as Mr. Dark, and he looks so different with a beard that we actually didn’t recognize him as Sam from Brazil until afterwards!
Today we watched (repeatedly, for Jamie’s and our own amusement) a classic Disney short called “Funny Little Bunnies” from 1934. I highly recommend it!
Hey, did you hear that Michael Jackson died? You did? SO DID I. Now could the news stations PLEASE move on to actual news? Like Sarah Palin’s resignation as governor of Alaska? Maureen Dowd wrote a fantastic column about it in today’s New York Times:
What looked like a secret wedding turned out to be a public unraveling as the G.O.P. implosion continued: Sarah wanted everyone to know that she’s not having fun and people are being mean to her and she doesn’t feel like finishing her first term as governor.
That’s about all for the moment. I’m sure there’s a lot I’ve left out, but I think two posts within a week is pretty good for me. :)
Category Baby, Entertainment, Jamieson, My Boring Life, Politics | Tags: | 3 Comments
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Dawn of a new era
January 20, 2009
Thank you, Mr. President.
Category Politics | Tags: | 1 Comment
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Finally, proud to be an American
November 5, 2008
We did it.
WE DID IT!
I saw the words “BARACK OBAMA ELECTED PRESIDENT” on the television last night at 10:15. I stared at the screen for a long time and then cried for a few minutes, mostly out of relief but also because the historical significance of the victory had hit me.
I haven’t had too much doubt that Obama could, WOULD, win the presidency… once the initial Palin Effect started wearing off, that is. It got a little scary there for a while, but she had plenty of rope to hang herself with, and she was very obliging about taking McCain down with her.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think McCain’s an evil guy or anything. I think he’s performed great service to his country and really has had some “mavericky” ideas, but got taken over by the Republican Machine and was told what to say, think, and do in order to win the election at any cost.
Palin’s a different story though. I think she’s as sneaky, lying and manipulative as Dick “Montgomery Burns” Cheney. She scares me.
So I guess that I haven’t really let myself think too much about the outcome of the election, one way or the other. A McCain win would have been just beyond depressing, but it seemed like if I hoped and wished too hard for an Obama victory, I would jinx it. (As if I had that power, right?) And if I didn’t get my hopes too high in the first place, then the disappointment at a McCain win would be easier to take. So I guess seeing those words on the screen last night let me pour out some of that emotion that I’ve been blocking for so many months.
It was incredibly moving to see a black man win the highest office in our country (something I didn’t think I would ever see in my lifetime and I am only 36 and how sad is that), but I honestly don’t think this election was about race. I think that this man won on the basis of his message of hope and change, AND on the fact that he has good solid realistic policy ideas about how to bring America out of the cesspool that Bush and his administration have put us in.
It’s an enormous insult to the American public to propose that the election outcome was based on race. So please, let’s not even go there.
Some people are saying that it was inevitable that Obama would win because this country is at the lowest of lows, and Americans were ready for any sort of change, that Obama was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time; as if his win had nothing to do with his ideas and plans, but was just some inevitable product of the fact that we ain’t got nowhere to go but up anyway. I would say to you that at this point, after what Bush & Co. have done to this country over the past 8 years, it’s pretty much a level playing field for ANY candidate who might have chosen to run. Don’t call it an easy win based on THAT.
And while I’m all about unity and bipartisan cooperation, for one day I have let myself think: Suck it, GOP.
Actually, I don’t really have it in me to gloat like that for long. It’s not like a nyah-nyah, we won and you lost kind of thing. It’s more like, OK, finally we have someone who can really help us out of this mess. I’m ready for all Americans, regardless of party or gender or race or class or any other dividing line, to get down to business and work together to bring about the changes that Obama has promised. Like he said in his victory speech last night, the changes that we need require everyone’s help.
Now let’s get started.
Category Politics | Tags: | 2 Comments
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Tired and befuddled
October 2, 2008
Sorry for the posting hiatus, but I have been very tired and busy lately. My energy levels have plummeted over the past week or so, even with the extra iron supplements I’ve taken.
Aquaman is more active than ever; I can feel him moving strongly a lot of the time. Doc and I have been having a lot of fun talking to him with our hands on my belly, and feeling him do acrobatics in there. His “kick counts” have been hovering right around 5 minutes — sometimes less — for 10 movements.
I look forward to the times when I can lie down quietly and feel him moving around. It is fascinating and it never gets old.
I worry that I’m not going to be a good mom, though. I have no idea what I’m doing, and I don’t feel particularly maternal. Last night I dreamed that he was born and he came out a kitten. Kittens, I know. Babies, I don’t.
Doc has been working very hard to get his studio consolidated, pared down, and moved into the other room. He also has rearranged the garage a bit and put some additional shelving in there for storage. By this weekend we might be ready to steam clean the carpets in the baby’s room, and start preparing it for painting. Our pile of stuff to put on eBay or otherwise sell or discard has grown exponentially. Know anyone in the market for pro audio gear, slightly out-of-date computers, or older computer software and games?
Next Monday night we have our first childbirth preparation class. I have no idea what to expect. Also on Monday is our 32 week doctor’s appointment. I can’t believe there’s just 8-1/2 weeks to go. Everything’s happening really fast now.
Congratulations to Bonnie and Tracy on the birth of their daughter last week, Josephine Theresa. She’s a cutie, and already wearing a tiara in her baby photos. Whatever direction life takes her, she’s going to be one brilliant kiddo with parents like that.
Also, happy birthday last Sunday to Doc, yesterday to Nate, and Monday to Joel! There’s just birthdays all over the place these days.
I’d like to go into a political rant, what with everything that’s going on these past couple of weeks with the presidential and vice presidential debates, the massive domino-effect bank failures, the unbelievable bailout package that’s being considered in Congress (why are these banks’ profits private, yet their debts are public?), etc. etc…. but I just don’t have the energy to come up with something to say about it all. I’m angry and nervous and disgusted and hopeful, but in all honesty I think that my pregnancy hormones are preventing me from forming coherent sentences these days. That’s not an excuse or anything; I really feel generally befuddled a large percentage of the time. I think it’s my brain doing what it needs to do to keep my stress levels lowered.
A few days ago in yoga class, something “clicked” in my head, and I suddenly came to the realization that it is now time for me to begin slowing down. Time for me to begin letting people help me more and do things for me. It was like a self-preservation mode turned on. I took it easy in yoga and didn’t test my limits, and then when I came home I did almost nothing that evening. If I am slower and befuddled now, so be it. My body’s doing this to me for a reason; I’m not going to fight it too hard.
Category Politics, Pregnancy | Tags: | 2 Comments
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Who wants to go polar bear huntin’?
September 7, 2008
Category Politics | Tags: | No Comments
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Stop overloading my lady-brain!
September 1, 2008
Sigh… I am not even going to get into the whole Sarah Palin GOP VP pick thing, how one woman is apparently just as good as another.
Must… control… self…. AIIIIIIGHHHHHHHHH!
For now, just enjoy Samantha Bee’s report on last Friday’s episode of The Daily Show.
Category Politics, Pregnancy | Tags: | 1 Comment
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Get your supporter kit
August 31, 2008
Hey,
I just made a donation to support the Obama campaign before the August fundraising deadline.
Make a donation now and receive a first edition Obama-Biden supporter kit:
https://donate.barackobama.com/collection2008Thanks!
Category Politics | Tags: | No Comments
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Please don’t vote for McCain.
June 9, 2008
I just read a great article in the Boston Globe written by Susan Jhirad, a professor of English at North Shore Community College, about the hard-line feminist Clinton supporters who threatened to vote for McCain in the general election if Clinton didn’t get the nomination. Some of them even now are so angry that they are claiming that that is what they will damn well do.
Perhaps I’m just being naïve, but I have a hard time believing that the majority of them will follow through with it. Some of them may choose to not vote at all, but I have enough faith in the intelligence of my fellow Democrats (though perhaps I really shouldn’t) that they will realize that they cannot do anything about Clinton not winning the nomination, and since their only options now are McCain and Obama, Obama is BY FAR the better choice.
I support Barack Obama for president. It’s OK that you have supported Hillary Clinton. I get it, I really do. What I don’t get, can’t get, is seeing some of you riled up Clinton supporters threatening to vote for McCain.
Let me get this straight; you consider yourself a Democrat and a feminist. Yet rather than vote for a man who supports a woman’s right to choose, children’s healthcare, and an end to the war in Iraq, you would vote for a man who voted against all of these things.
You would vote for a man who is promising to nominate far-right activists for the Supreme Court, a man who votes consistently against choice, affirmative action, and workers’ rights.
You would vote for a man who supports President Bush on most major issues vs. a man whose positions are quite similar to Clinton’s.
I just don’t get it.
Read the rest of the article; it is superbly written and puts into words what I’ve been feeling for months now.
Category Politics | Tags: | 2 Comments
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Change… part one
June 4, 2008
Congratulations on securing the nomination, Mr. Obama! I am proud to say that you have my vote and as much financial support as I can scrounge together.
Category Politics | Tags: | No Comments
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The gasoline "crisis"
May 29, 2008
So yeah. Gas is nearing $4 a gallon. In many parts of the country, it’s topped $4 already. There’s no sign of prices going back down.
And I don’t care.
Well, scratch that. I DO sorta care (when I fill up and it’s $40), but I’m actually happy about it, despite the blow my bank account is taking. The fact that we drive a Prius as our main car helps (48MPG! Love you, Aluminum Falcon!) but I’ve always thought that higher gas prices would mean more companies and consumers investing in new technologies — hybrids, plug-in cars, etc. — as well as utilizing and expanding public transportation. More demand for these products and services will lead to more supply. And the world will be a less polluted place.
Tom Friedman of the New York Times thinks so, too. He proposes:
…. a “price floor” for gasoline: $4 a gallon for regular unleaded, which is still half the going rate in Europe today. Washington would declare that it would never let the price fall below that level. If it does, it would increase the federal gasoline tax on a monthly basis to make up the difference between the pump price and the market price.
To ease the burden on the less well-off, “anyone earning under $80,000 a year would be compensated with a reduction in the payroll taxes,” said Verleger. Or, he suggested, the government could use the gasoline tax to buy back gas guzzlers from the public and “crush them.”
But the message going forward to every car buyer and carmaker would be this: The price of gasoline is never going back down. Therefore, if you buy a big gas guzzler today, you are locking yourself into perpetually high gasoline bills. You are buying a pig that will eat you out of house and home. At the same time, if you, a manufacturer, continue building fleets of nonhybrid gas guzzlers, you are condemning yourself, your employees and shareholders to oblivion.
What do you think?
Category Politics | Tags: | 5 Comments
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Michelle Obama on The Colbert Report
April 16, 2008
I think I have a little crush on Michelle Obama now, much like I do on Barack! I really want this woman to be First Lady. She seems like she doesn’t take crap from anybody.Category Politics | Tags: | 1 Comment
