Archive for March, 2011

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We The People

In which I am sucked right down the rabbit hole and discover what the catterpillar has been smoking.
 
    "Well listen honey- have you ever heard of George Soros?" she asked me.
     Oh dear God! I thought

   She had appeared at my framing counter while I was helping another guest- a tiny woman who could barely see over it when she sat in her chair-walker. She plopped some frames on the counter and some folded parchament-y copies of the Declaration of Independence, Gettsyburg Address, etc. and wanted help framing them. She was sunny and sweet, and obstinate, and really cheap.

    She wanted those documents in frames right off the wall- no mats, no art paper underneath. She had seen frames here once that fit each one perfectly and needed me to find them for her. Surely, if we looked, they would turn up.

   In addition to being very small, she walked with a pronounced limp, (hence the walker-sitter thingy) so rather than have her trying to push her walker and carry heavy frames, I was soon fetching and carrying for her.Back and forth, this and that. She seemed not to grasp the concept that what she wanted did not exist at my store.
   You had some frames that fit them exactly" she said for the 4th or 5th time.
    "That page there is 21 1/2 inches long" I pointed out. "We have never carried a frame 21 1/2 inches long"
   " Well then we'll have to use this frame, but in that other size" she said.
   "Yes Ma'am" I said with a sigh, and went off to look again.

 
     After about 20 minutes of back and forth and me apologizing for my inability to produce from thin air what she wanted (Well can't I just order the size I need?  Yes, it's called custom framing. Oh goodness no, we'll have to keep looking) we came to a compromise and got frames that she decided would work after all.
   Of course she then wanted to put them inside the frames on my counter, because it would be just too difficult for her to do them at home- she would have to call someone over to help her!  So I got my tools and said I"d do it, because really, it would take less time to do it myself than to explain why I'm not allowed to do it. And for all her obstinance, she was a very  nice lady. And she was tiny. Did I mention she was crippled?

   It was as I was opening the frames she purchased and taking out the paper inside that she began to talk about why she was framing these documents– because, she said, they are the foundation of our country and well, she was worried about what some horrible people are trying to do to it.

    I had a bad feeling then, like footsteps over my grave. So I said,
    "Well, you know, the Constitution is a very flexible document- it has to be, because times have changed so much since it was written. And some of us want to flex it one way and some another, but really, I think we're all just trying to do what we think is best. Some just see the best path differently than others."
    Which is total BS– oh some people do just have a different view, but I think there are also lots of cynical, greedy people who are just out to increase their wealth and power and don't give a damn what havoc they wreck on their way to getting it. But I wasn't going to go down that road with a customer. I was going to be nice and concilliatory. Don't laugh- I know how to be nice!!
 
    "Oh I don't know about that" she said, shaking her head. "Listen- honey" she tried to lean closer, " have you ever heard of George Soros?"
 
   Oh dear God I thought She listens to Glenn Beck!! And now she's going to  get out a chalk board and tell me about the world according to lunatic boy!
 
    And so she did. (minus the chalk board)
    I gritted my teeth. Several times I dropped tools behind the counter and stooped so I could roll my eyes and grimace down there. I changed the subject 3 or 4 times. You know me- you can imagine how hard this was.
     "Michelle Obama wants to force us all to feed our children the way she wants us to!" she was saying.
     "Force? Really?  She has not proposed a single law that would "force" anyone to do anything" I said with a smile as I mounted the preamble to the Constitution on a piece of beige art paper. "She just wants people to have the information to make healthy choices. Oh yes, this frame looks nice, don't you think?"
     But I wasn't getting off that easy.

    "Oh you'd better look it up- she's forcing people-"
     "I have looked it up" I jumped in, then took a deep breath and made my voice light. "No one is suggesting any laws."
     She seemed startled that I might hold this incredible opinion.  "Huh. Well… what business is it of hers anyway? What right does she have to tell us what to do?"

     "Again, no regulations or laws have been proposed" I said through gritted teeth. "…unlike in several states" I heard my mouth saying, " where, for instance, they want to make it a law that any time a woman has a miscarriage, the police have to investigate, to make sure it wasn't on purpose- have them go ask all her friends, 'Did she ever say anything about wishing she wasn't pregnant?' etc.
     "Can you imagine having to go through that?" I met her startled gaze. "After such a tragedy, and suddenly the police are asking questions? What business is it of theirs?"
     "Oh my. Well no, no- are… you sure about this?"
     "Absolutely. So, now what were we doing with this page here?"
 
   I managed to distract her, but only for a minute. Next she told me how we were attacked, and so of course we had to go to war in Iraq.
     "…except we weren't attacked by Iraq" I said breezily, working as fast as my fingers could fly. Oh Lord, if you hear me…
     "Oh yes yes, they had proof that Sadaam sent suicide bombers…"
     "George Bush eventually admitted on television that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11" But she knew the way around that inconvenient little fact.
     "Well Sadaam Hussein was murdering his own people!" she tried.
     "With weapons we gave him" I agreed. "Hand me that screwdriver, would you?" (Speaking of weapons, maybe I can job out my ear drums with this!)
     She had the bit between her teeth again and was not going to be distracted this time.  
     "Well sure we're not perfect, but the United States only works for good! We have to intervene when someone is killing innocent people."
     "…unless the people they are killing are innocent people that we don't agree with" I said.
     "What in the world do you mean by that?"
 
I stood up, looked her straight in the eye.
     "Google 'United Fruit' " I said quietly, knowing it was a wasted effort, but really wanting her to understand. "Look up the Sandinistas and Oliver north. Google Patrice Lamumba, or Salvadore Allende. The United States assisted in overthrowing the democratically elected president of Iran and put the Shah on the throne in his place, who proceeded to murder thousands of his own people. And we thought that was just hunky-dorey, so they were forced to rise up on their own in revolt."
    I sighed, and returned to my task, which was almost complete, thank God.
    "We take out left-wing murders, and put right-wing murderers in their place, but the people are still just as dead." I muttered.
 
   She digested this for a minute.
   "Where did you hear about all this stuff?"  she asked. I shrugged.
   "I read. I learned a lot of it in college, in history classes."  I was gathering up my supplies now- the finish line was SO close!!
    "Huh." ~pause~ "What college did you go to?"
 
    Oh right- because you figure I must have gone to one of those hippie colleges that teaches about free love and how to be a communist  I thought.
    And of course I did go to a left-wing hippie college, but that doesn't make what I learned in my "U.S. in World Afffairs" class any less true.
     I debated saying "Harvard- like President Bush did" but right- a Harvard grad behind the framing counter? Maybe "Miami of Ohio"- not too many free-love hippies attend there.
    "Ohio University" I admitted.
    "What was your major?"
    "Music therapy"
Her face brightened.
   "Oh- I was a voice major in college!"
 
   Halle-fucking-julah! We totally bonded again, while I wrapped up her gorgeous (not, but what do you want for about $30 each?) framing and carried it to her car. When I straightened up from putting it in her back seat she gave me a huge hug, thanked me profusely for my generous help (no kidding: that was probably $50 in free labor you got!) and promised to come back with some paintings she wanted to get framed.
 

    She really was a very sweet woman, but I had better get to work right now thinking of subjects to talk to her about. Because I'm afraid next time she's gonna start to talk about Barack Obama's birth certificate, and I"m gonna explode!

Posted by Tracy on Mar 25th 2011 | Filed in The Daily Rant | Comments (0)

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

For the dragon-wranglers at the Fukushima reactor complex, and the children of Japan, who are drinking radioactive milk today.
 
We build our homes in the mouths of sleeping dragons
because it is so easy to keep warm in there.
We use the massive teeth as our foundation stones
plant flowers to mask the sulfur smell in the air
and ignore the way the ground occasionally rumbles beneath our feet.

At first the dragon probably didn't even notice our presence but soon
convinced of our own cleverness
awed by the seemingly inexhaustable supply of room there,
we built larger, dug deeper,
pushed and pushed, until the dragon grew restless.

Was there ever a time when we understood the need for balance
and the cost of taking too much?
A thousand years ago the greatest of civilizations was broken
abandoned to the creeping disrespect of the forest,
chattering monkeys allowed to overrun streets once bustling with the commerce
of their advanced intellect,
because they lacked even the instinctual wisdom of a herd of wildebeast
which moves on when a plain has become over-grazed
to allow the grass to grow again.
Today we study their crumbling architecture,
puzzle over shards of pottery
oblivious to the message scrawled on every ruined temple:
they lived in the mouth of a dragon.

A millenium later we know how to journey to the moon,
have explored the surface of Mars
and yet we continue to run with scissors,
play with matches in rooms full of dynamite,
vacation on the slopes of volcanoes.
We sow our pastures of plenty with salt
wash the oceans in oil
and insist that the dragon will never wake.
We tell ourselves that, thanks to our superior intellect,
 the dragon does our bidding, it wears a collar with tags that say
"Property of the Human Race"
and we know all the beat lullabies
but the truth is, we know almost nothing about the physiology of dragons.
The dragon holds our children and their children
cradled between its jagged teeth
we bathe them in its acid venom
while it rolls its red-jeweled eyes in dubious regard for our efforts.

And when, on occasion the dragon yawns, coughs….
and swallows,
as dragons are wont to do
we tremble and wail,
horrified by the unpredictable nature of the tragedy
that has destroyed so many fruits of our labor
and with laudable tenaciousness and predicable stupidity,
vow to rebuild from the ashes.
Why would we ever want to build somewhere else?
That would be admitting defeat,
allowing that dragon to win when it should be our bitch!
We are mankind, created in the image of God, after all.
We straddle mountains and blow the tops off  of them if we want to
and besides, it’s so much easier to keep warm
inside the mouth of the dragon.

Posted by Tracy on Mar 20th 2011 | Filed in Poetry,The Daily Rant | Comments (0)

Shock and Awe

   I read an article recently at Raw Story entitled "10 Shocking Budget Cuts the Republicans Voted For".

      Which first of all is ridiculous, because these things are only shocking if you have been asleep since the days of Newt Gingrich's "Contract on America "when they served notice on the poor, the ill and the different that they were no longer considered part of the American Dream.
     But still the whining liberals are shocked.  Boo hoo! Well since Glenn Beck is too busy with his latest chalkboard acid trip and Rush is all out of Oxycontin right now and so not at the top of his game, I will undertake to address these budget cuts that have liberals so horrified.

   ~The National Weather Service. Typical of big-government liberals to totally not get the danger posed by the government "nanny state" telling hard-working Americans to stay away from tsunamis and hurricanes. First they want to take away our freedom to let our kids develop diabetes by age 15 on a diet of Twinkies and Big Macs- and now this!
    I'll tell you what- the founding fathers didn't need any weather service! If it snowed, they got a coat and if it rained, they wore a three-corner hat! If it was good enough for them, it's good enough for us. Cut the funds!
    Besides, the name sounds too much like "National Public Radio" and we all know what those guys are up to!

   ~Emergency Oil Reserves  There won't be any emergencies if we just drill, baby drill! And if some other country tries to cut off our supply- we'll just invade 'em.

    ~Assistance for Firefighters/ Communication for Emergency Responders– Yeah, figures those union-huggers would get upset about this. What part of the protests in Madison left you with the impression that firemen are good guys? They are robbing tax money from the pockets of hard-working millionaires, just like those greedy kindergarten teachers. (Imagine thinking that a lifetime of sweat and service entitles you to a good pension!)  Anyway, firefighters are big, strapping guys- they can just yell real loud when they want to communicate. The money is totally unnecessary.

   ~Oversight of Financial Markets– Please. "Oversight" is just a liberal code word for "regulation". What part of the last decade would make anyone think that we need more of that? Sure there have been some, er, blips in the economy, but I am here to tell you that they were caused by too much intrusive government regulation! Ponzi schemes, junk bonds, over-speculation and bank failures… they're nothing that a good dose of the free-market, free from burdensome regulation couldn't cure!
     That and a tax cut.

   ~Prosecution of Financial Crimes.  What financial crimes? The only crimes I see are liberals trying to stifle the free market. Cut it!

   ~Helping Women Escape from Domestic  Abuse. D?! A woman at the emergency room with a black eye and a spiral fracture is not an assault victim- she's just an "assault  alleger". Anyway, women belong in the home. If you let them escape, they'll just go off and take men's jobs and have abortions.

   ~Helping Teens Avoid Unwanted Pregnancy–   "Just Say No" there. Problem solved. Didn't cost a cent. Damn, this budget stuff is easy!  Next!

    ~Helping Young People get Jobs.  How is it the responsibility of the Republican party to reduce unemployment? Jeeze, you'd think we had campaigned on a platform of creating jobs or something!

   ~Helping International Children survive into Adulthood.  Seriously? Shooting this one down will be like shooting fish in a barrel.
    "International" children. Why should we spend our money on foreign kids? A lot of those kids would just grow up to be terrorists anyway. Or communists. Or communist terrorists! I mean its too bad if the babies women have overseas (in part because we refused to fund family planning to prevent over-population) die before the age of 3 from malnutrition and preventable diseases. But really, why should this be important to "pro-life" Republicans?
 

   I"m so tired of liberals thinking we can fund every single picayune cause that comes down the pike, like college tuition for low income people, or cancer screenings, or help for homeless vets. If those guys hadn't left the military, they would have a good home with Uncle Sam, am I right?
   Seriously, folks, there is a crisis here. Millionaires are feeling cramped and oppressed by their taxes! And if we have to rob from the poor to give to the rich, if we have to steal from the teachers' pensions to buy a few more bombers or provide another golden parachute for a greedy CEO… well a true American would stop complaining and pony up!
   Now all you liberals should get back to work…. assuming you hippies even have a job.

Posted by Tracy on Mar 14th 2011 | Filed in The Daily Rant | Comments (0)

First Flight

It seemed so easy at first.
Like two young birds just out of the nest, teetering on a branch
we suddenly tumbled forward
and discovered what our wings were for.
We were not a perfect couple, but we were a perfect couplet:
our hearts just seemed to rhyme,
as our wings beat in the same rhythms of desire and delight
and the ride was intoxicating.

It felt easy, so effortless,
probably because we had no concept then of how hard anything could be,
or  the true heaviness of thunder.
We just dove head-first into the wind
plunged into the welcoming air together,
flying a wings breadth above the trees
but oh, we thought we soared so high.
We heard the song of the warm nights echoed in our own singing blood.
we knew it felt right, assumed it would always would
believed that the air would always hold us up
and never considered the kind of storms,
bruise- purple, roiling on the horizon
that can turn any song to a scream.

Though in truth, it took no terrible storm,
just the day-after-day turbulence created when the cool reality
of different friends, disconnecting schedules and unrelated dreams
slides beneath the warm, soft air of fantasy.
The rhythm of our wing-strokes began to syncopate,
then contradict
and really, we were just flapping aimlessly by the time consequences
and the rush of air from careless words
sent us tumbling in different directions
finding ourselves, at last, lonely and confused,
on opposite sides of the great divide.

Now we know that nothing, really, is easy,
but we were young then, untried, directionless.
And perhaps the thrill of flight was all we really shared,
and we never could have made it over the mountains together.
But sometimes I can sense it
trembling on the edge of vision:
that future we thought we’d be living.
It lingers, wanders fretfully through my dreams
the ghost of a displaced reality
that doesn’t understand that it is dead,
that it was finished before it could ever begin.

The skies are clear around me as I circle toward my own horizon
and I rarely pause now to wonder where your wings have taken you,
but occasionally, if I close my eyes
I can still hear the rush of air across your feathers.

Posted by Tracy on Mar 12th 2011 | Filed in Poetry | Comments (0)

3-Ring Circus

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends!
We're so glad you could attend! Come inside, come inside.

      Ladies and gentlemen and citizens of all ages, step right up and welcome, yes welcome to the 112th Congressional 3-Ring circus, Constitutional Carnival and Peep show! Leave your inhibitions- and your moral scruples- at the door!
     Come right in folks, the cost of admission  will be explained to you on your way out.
     There is something here for everyone! We cater to all tastes but the rational. No matter your problems, prejudices or illogical preconceptions you will find an act here sure to pander to your peculiarities.

     On your right, stretching all the way from sun-crazed Florida to the land where you can see Russia from your house, we bring you the Grand Old Corporation, also known as the Flying Republican Party and their smoke-and-mirror show!
     Watch their incredible magic tricks, as they shrink government until it is small enough to fit inside the panties of every woman in America!
     Marvel as they pull a huge surplus from behind Bill Clinton's ear and- ~abra cadabra~ turn it into as massive deficit, which they cleverly tuck into Obama's pocket!
     Thrill to the interactive portion of the show  where they send you out on the  economic high wire without a social safety net!
     And capping off the show: the Family Values parade! It is truly inspiring- a dazzling monochromatic spectacle of  one color, one religion and one creed!
     But watch out for over-crowding: it's a very small tent where the Republicans perform.

     And on the left, which  used to be the center before the whole show moved to the right, —  from Buffy and Biff's compound on the Vineyard to the land of the Hollywood liberal elites we have the Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight, the Wacky Congressional dems!
     You'll laugh as they take aim at the broad side of a barn- and miss!- only to shoot themselves in the foot! Silly democrats- that's what happens when you're not devoted to guns-guns-guns!
     Laugh as they get chased by their own barking blue dogs!
     Watch them perform that time-honored comedy classic of the zany liberal who goes to Washington with a majority to buy jobs and medicine and comes home with nothing but a handful of bi-partisan beans!

     And high above it all, the incredible President on the Flying Trapeze! He swings to the left, then swoops far to the right, soaring and flipping- and all without even having a birth certificate!

     And ladies and gentlemen, while you are here please be sure to spend time in the Tea Party Fun House where nothing is as it appears to be. When you gaze into their amazing mirrors you will believe that a tall man is short, a fat man thin, that it is "pro-life" to kill pregnant women and Noah rode a dinosaur onto the ark!
     Be sure to grab yourself a replica musket and powered wig at the gift shop so you can join the fun as they take us all backward into our glorious future and re-enact that inspiring moment in history when George Washington ended slavery and got a high-five from Jesus.

     Oh yes, magic is in the air today, folks!
     Watch the Supreme Court turn a frat boy into a president and an off-shore corporation into a person!
     You won't believe your eyes when millions of good-paying American jobs are transformed into Chinese and Indian jobs!
     You'll laugh yourself silly at the hilarious Clowns of Fiscal Responsibility as they try to balance an aircraft carrier on the back of a school lunch lady.
        And funny old Haley Barbour wants to run for president but that pesky white hood keeps getting in the way.

     Please don't miss our incredible political Freak Show but I warn you- it is not for the faint of heart!
     You'll shiver with fear at Michelle Bachmann and her crazy eyes and scream with delight as Newt the Amphibian attempts to boink his way to the White House.
    We have Tom "The Hammer" DeLay, Rick "Man-on-Dog" Santorum and the worlds only human-mandarin orange hybrid.
    And forget mere sword-swallowing, folks- we have Glenn Beck's audience,  and you won't believe the stuff they can swallow!!!

     There is something here  for everyone and games of every level of skill. Stop by the Minute-Man Mexican shooting gallery where you can also take aim at gays, atheists, environmentalists and of course, Muslims.
     In our newest attraction, the  Wax Museum you will see incredibly lifelike depictions of things from America's past, like the Passenger pigeon, the bi-partisan compromise and the middle class factory worker.

     If you get hungry, grab a snack at Mamma Grizzly's House of Smores
where nutrition- and liberal- is a dirty word. Yum! Just don't ask why the bottled water- is that funny color after all environmental regulations just stifle small business, right?

     Ladies and gentlemen, should you over-indulge in race-baiting or injure yourself on the Second Amendment Kiddie Ride, the first aid station is…er… huh! It seems to have disappeared! Guess you're on your own for health care!
     And whatever you do, don't leave without getting some fun toys and souvenirs for the kids. Now if Junior's hands turn green or he begins to bleed from the ears tomorrow, don't worry.  That's just the lead, arsenic and other toxic chemicals in our cheap, foreign-made trinkets. We know that matters most is that they are cheap, so you can buy so much more! 'Cause isn't that what the show is all about?

     Folks, there is something for everyone– by which we mean nothing for anyone rational or civil-minded– at the Congressional Circus: all crazy, all the time!

 

Posted by Tracy on Mar 12th 2011 | Filed in The Daily Rant | Comments (1)