Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiLame Ducks on Thursday's Menu
Well, it's that time again. It's time to pause and think of all the things for which we are truly grateful.
I would be remiss if I did not state, no matter how obvious, that for which I feel particularly thankful this year. And though I'm opposed to these as a rule, I'm willing to make an exception. Yes, that's right, this year I'm off-the-charts grateful for term limits!
I could go one step further and say that I wish everyone who had served in Congress over the last eight years and voted for the mess we find ourselves in was going to be gone, too, but it's Thanksgiving and I don't want to be grabby. I'll settle for being a glutton the traditional way. I'll just eat way too much.
Which reminds me of another thing for which I'm grateful; I can buy my own food. Now that may sound like a silly little thing - or even something that I should just expect to be able to do. But this year, even more so than past years, way too many Americans will be going to their local food pantry for their turkey and fixings because they suffer from "food insecurity."
"Food insecure" is the politically correct way in which we identify our fellow countrymen and women - and let us not forget their children - who are too poor to buy their own food. But this year, thanks to record drops in virtually every financial index, foreclosures and bank collapses, the shriveling of our reserves, record unemployment and underemployment in this country - it's all gotten a whole lot worse.
According to the 2008 Murrow Award-winning WTOP in Washington D.C., "Calls to the Capital Area Food Bank's Hunger Lifeline, an emergency food referral system in Washington D.C., increased 248 percent in the past six months."
Good gravy, that's right in the government's backyard!
I've got an idea: How about if our members of Congress and the entire White House staff take a hungry family in off the streets this holiday. And I'll make it really safe for them - in case they are worried that the poor can't be trusted - they only have to take veterans and families of veterans.
According to National Public Radio, "Veterans make up almost a quarter of the homeless population in the United States." And while the report did not state how many vets are just a few paychecks away from joining them, it did say that many of these veterans "have sacrificed their physical and mental well-being to serve their country. Today, they spend Veterans Day struggling to secure food and housing."
So how about it, lame ducks? Why not open your homes to those who have served in the hell of war while you served in the comfort of the White House?
Another thing for which I am infinitely grateful: Google. If it weren't for Google, I might not know what the fancy folks who run our country will be having for dinner on Thursday or which corporate felons our president pardoned on Monday. In fact, thanks to the marvels of the Internet, I can direct you to the drug dealers and government swindlers that the president spared (ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/081124/world/bushpardons) as easily as I can share the recipe for the first lady's Spicy Mashed Sweet Potatoes (whitehouse.gov/firstlady/recipes)
Well anyway, today's my birthday, so as usual, I'm grateful for another year. My kids will be with me and I can't describe how thankful that makes me feel.
Still, I can't help but swing back around to our veterans and their sacrifices. After all, if not for our soldiers, I might not have the freedom to criticize our government without being taken behind some building and shot.
I guess that's why bad government irks me so.
Soldiers loved in time of war, who get abandoned upon their return, reflect a fundamental flaw in our national character. Mercy shown to convicted felons while vets beg for shelter is despicable.
No soldier should ever fight, kill or die in an unjust war. So let's give thanks that this administration will be gone soon. They can't even honor the folks who fight for them.
9 Comments so far
Show AllPat LaMarche: "Food insecure" is not "politically correct", unless you mean political. The government substituted "food insecurity" as a category, instead of using "hungry" or "hunger" to minimize poverty/hunger in the U.S. in government studies. The term "politically correct" was a label invented by conservatives a decade or so ago, to demean people who didn't like being called what others were labeling them as well as terminology that was less hurtful. Political conservatives made decent language out to be a "bad" thing, i.e. calling it "political correctness". The stupid phrase stuck.
Sioux Rose
What I find most striking in the analogy brought forward by Ms. LaMarche is that the statistics on "food insecurity" are rising just when the bankers are partying with the windfall our foolish congress has essentially handed over to them. If you believe in angels, or just wish to consider the notion allegorical, imagine their view of America today... ALLOWING so many to starve and go homeless, while a banquet of yet more unearned/undeserved riches are reserved for those who need it least.
How many of all Vets,myself included,have been "almost there"?
A TEAR COMES
A TEAR COMES FROM THOSE WHO KNOW AND REMEMBER HEARTS AND SOULS
PUT BEFORE GOD.
THAT WHAT IS THERE FOR ALL HAS BEEN GIVEN US BY SOME WHOSE SACRIFICE,
IN MIND AND BODY, GAVE MUCH UNDER THE ROD.
A TEAR COMES FOR THE LOVED ONES SENT TO WAR WITH DANGERS UNKNOWN
BEARING A COMMITMENT TO PROTECT AN IDEAL.
FOR OVER 200 YEARS HAS THIS BEEN THE AIM AND PURPOSE OF THE MANY
WHO WORE THE UNIFORM WITH FREEDOMS SEAL.
A TEAR COMES BRINGING TO MIND ALL SOULS KNOWN ONLY TO GOD WITH NOT
ANOTHER SOUL TO KNOW THEIR COMING OR GOING.
THESE GIVE AS MUCH FROM A HEART AS DEEP TO THE MANY WITH ONLY BUDDIES
AND AN ALL LOVING CREATOR KNOWING.
A TEAR COMES FOR HEARTS AND BODIES TORN BY STRIFE AT A PLACE PROTECTED
BY AMERICANS NOT RACES.
LET US GIVE THE LOVE AND THE THANKS TO ALL THAT HAVE GIVEN THE ULTIMATE
AND TO THOSE AMONG THE MANY FACES.
A TEAR COMES FOR ALL WHO FOLLOWED THE STANDARD,FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE AND
THOSE WHO WENT OR STAYED,IT IS ALL ONE PART.
ALL HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THE CALLING MAY COME AND SO CARRY A TEAR IN THAT
SECRET PLACE OF THE HEART.
TO ALL VETERANS PAST AND PRESENT. Tony
Mustbefree/Tony: Many people are one paycheck away from disaster. Most people support the veterans past and present. My dad was a disabled/deceased WWII vet. Thanks for the "comment".
Yes, that's right, this year I'm off-the-charts grateful for term limits!
If George Wanker Bush could have run for a third term, I'm certain he would have done it and no one could have talked him out of it. After spending millions in bribes to secure the nomination, he would have been electorally Wiped Out and it would have been truly glorious to see him stamp his feet and demand a recount, sending a legion of puto shyster lawyers to the Supreme Court demanding 2000 redux. He would not have conceded to Obama and called the election a travesty of democracy and justice engineered by William Ayers and Obama's "Dark Auxiliaries", a term employed by Hitler to describe Jesse Owens and other black American athletes in the 1936 Olympic Games. The more the MSM told The Wanker to shut his whiskeyhole and get lost, the more he would have traveled around the country with Alberto Gonzales, James Dobson, Anne Coulter and Sean Hannity, invoking the Wrath of God and claiming that dictatorship was staring us in the face. You're saying to yourself it would never have happened. But consider this: George Wanker Bush is a weakling and a loser who absolutely revels in his weakness and failure. It's all he has in this world. Without them, he'd probably drink himself to death or blow his brains out with a large caliber handgun. And once the well-paid whistle blowers start spilling the really nasty beans about all the hardcore totalitarian shit he had in store for us and when one of his cohorts is arrested in Europe for crimes against humanity and waging aggressive war and is not returned to this country, he may very well do that. I'll drink to that and Happy Thanksgiving, fellow CD'ers.
MS:Mayor Bloomberg found a way around term limits.
Yes, there was a Democrat running for Congress in the Tampa area whose main platform was taking care of homeless veterans, of which there were several thousand around Tampa, most of them women. Unfortunately, he lost by a large margin. I wonder, what goes through conservatives' minds when they are all gun-ho for war, so proud of our troops, etc., then destroy the programs and cut off the funding needed to take care of them. Any ideas?
I wonder, what goes through conservatives' minds when they are all gun-ho for war, so proud of our troops, etc., then destroy the programs and cut off the funding needed to take care of them. Any ideas?
Stated as simply as possible, they are the Fucking Scum of the Earth, All the Galaxies and Universes in Creation.
Hehe, that works.