Sold exclusively to Tennesseans

How much y'all wanna bet at least one of my relatives will buy this contraption the very second they learn about it? After all, one always needs a shotgun in arms reach of one's bed. There's a terrorist homosexual communist home invader around every corner.

Thanks to Prince Gomolvilas for the tip.

Sometimes mockery creates itself

So I was reading this little gem about this young gay boy who was buddies with Barbara Bush the Younger and used to get invited to party with Shrub the Younger after Barbara the Younger decided not to put her college education to use for a good number of years. He does the obligatory mention of how all his other homo friends thought he was an idiot for accepting so many invitations from the would-be murderer of all notions of civil rights, and frankly I think his friends should've knocked him over the head a few times. I'm all for being civil with those whom I disagree, but I will not tolerate their dogs' farts.

Shocker of shockers, this boy starts to question his country's leadership after 9/11, Iraq, the roughshod dismantling of the Constitution, etc. And, his little veil of being a poor working boy who just happened to graduate from Yale is of course blown by the fact that his parents are disappointed that he has failed to join the country club. I find it impossible to believe that his net worth ever existed solely in the cup holder of his beaten up Jeep. (And, etiquette note here: if you are invited to the White House and your car is literally falling apart, please dear lord either rent one or show up on foot).

Anyway, in spite of this boy's semi-cuteness yet blatant idiocy, I submit the following observation of why he's a yutz who gets no sympathy from me: he's a homo boy wearing too many dark colors for one outfit, a button-down collar, and pleated forest green pants. Fashion fail.

See, I told you I'd get back to blogging about things I know. :)

Hat tip: Wonkette.

And Sidebar: I'm exceptionally happy that Tennessee Democrats are savvier than their national counterparts. Way to play the game.

Homage to my hometown by LIFE magazine

I stumbled upon this archive of LIFE magazine photos today, and so typed in my lovely hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee. And what did I find?

Of the four pages of images, one of them consisted entirely of photos of George Wallace (from his inglorious presidential campaign days) in my fair city.

If that doesn't help explain some of the hurdles I had to jump through in my youth, I don't know what does.

My hat goes off to these guys

I just stumbled upon Rednecks for Obama, a group founded by a couple of older gentlemen down in Missouri. All I can say is, good work.

Sometimes we (self included) kid ourselves by thinking of the predominantly white inhabitants of the rural South as being backward, gun-toting, God-fearing, died in the blood Republicans. Here is excellent evidence that they're neither backward nor Republicans (though certainly the middle two probably still apply). So for those of you who have a picture of some Southern monolithic populus in your head, think again.

Check out their guestbook to see the thoughts of folks from around the country. It's inspiring, really.

And gentlemen, should you feel the need to pass through Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, I'm sure I can dig up some relatives to fix you somethin' good to eat.

With that, I think I'll order a t-shirt. After all, I've gotta head to TN myself soon.

Hat tip: Princess Sparkle Pony

Silly southern states... and I learned something

I was catching up on my blog/news reading today, and saw where the State of Georgia is working on legislation to redefine part of its northern border with Tennessee as a backhanded attempt at getting access to Tennessee's more abundant water resources. This in itself is a sad, yet bizarrely amusing development (as evidenced by the reaction to the news in Nashville). Yet I figured that since I grew up in the area in question, I would blog about a funny little bit of related history that only a local would know.

See, the section of border in question falls along the northern line of Dade County, Georgia, which is the state's most northwestern county. The old legend about "the State of Dade" is that at the beginning of the Civil War, residents of the county were pissed about the whole thing, and seceded from both Georgia and the Union. Some say this is because Georgia didn't secede fast enough (not really plausible given the Western half of the Southern Appalachians pro-Union tendencies), and others say (much more plausibly) that the county wanted to stay in the Union, and the only way it could think to do so was to secede from Georgia. Nobody would really notice the county being gone anyway, as there wasn't a road that connected it with the rest of Georgia until 1939 (you had to go through Tennessee or Alabama). In an elaborate ceremony in 1945, Dade County officially rejoined both the Union and Georgia -- allegedly Harry Truman even placed a phone call to the county to welcome them back. This was such a humorously big deal, that an article about it even ran in the New York Times.

So today while I was poking around the net looking for an actual link to point you to about all this hilarity, I learned that I was wrong. Dade County never did secede, and was indeed very pro-Union, like most poor mountain areas in the Tennessee River basin. Next time you and yours visit my old stomping grounds at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, enjoy debunking one of the few old guides who might still tell the story of Dade County's secession (it always gets a fun reaction).

And now for me to stake out my ground in the current controversy: It'll be a cold day in hell before Tennessee shares part of its river with Georgians. It's bad enough that through a fault of geography, we have to share it with Alabamans.

No Tennesseans for president, please

What's that you say? A Tennessean advocating that people not vote for someone from Tennessee? Let me put this in perspective, by sharing with you some brief stories about the three gentleman Tennessee has already sent to the White House.

1. Andrew Jackson (Seventh President, 1829-1837). Jackson greatly promoted the idea of giving friends government jobs. He also opposed having a central bank, and then ordered the removal of Native Americans from their land and sent them to Oklahoma instead. In memory of this greatness, his visage is on your $20 bill. After all, who needs a monetary policy, and wasn't this country claimed for god or England or something back in 1607?
   
2. James K. Polk (Eleventh President, 1845-1849). Polk was an imperialist dude, who annexed Texas, bought what is now the Pacific Northwest, and scammed Mexico into giving up all but a tiny bit of what is now Arizona after a brief and effective, yet totally unnecessary war of aggression aimed at increasing America's resource wealth. That probably all sounds familiar, except for the "winning" part. But again, he gave us Texas, the state that killed Kennedy and sent us a few too many Bushes. At least Polk started and ended his war within one term, and then retired, having had his fun. He promptly died.
   
3. Andrew Johnson (Seventeenth President, 1865-1869). Johnson replaced Lincoln, and proceeded to piss off virtually everyone he came in contact with. He also opposed civil rights legislation on more than one occasion. His own cabinet hated him, so Congress forbid him from firing anyone. In a gesture of conciliation, he of course fired the Secretary of War. Congress then impeached his ass on 11 counts, but he was acquitted by one vote. Having managed to somehow not be a member of any political party, nobody nominated him for re-election, so he decided to piss off President-elect Ulysses S. Grant by unilaterally and unconditionally giving amnesty all remaining Confederate soldiers and civilian officials that had failed to swear allegiance to the United States.

Now why do you need this history lesson? Because people keep talking about Al Gore and Fred Thompson running for president. Both of them are from Tennessee. In an even greater irony, Thompson was elected to fill the Senate vacancy created by Al Gore after he became vice-president.

What would a Tennessean do if elected? Why, he would steal your land, kill your relatives, invade a country for no real reason (though he might do that well), piss everybody off, and then screw the country for a century or two. Think of it like you're given a choice between electing one Bush or another, and then think about how much worse the country would be as a result.

There's a reason no one from my state has run the country in over 100 years. Just think about that.

In which I temporarily become a 60 year old man

I played tourist tonight, and hit the Tidal Basin for some sunset cherry blossom excitement (pics to come). I did the usual bit -- walking down the mall, around the TB towards the Jefferson Memorial, and continued on. It wasn't too terribly crowded, though it was hairy in a few spots. It was starting to get dark by the time I got to the FDR Memorial, which, being one of my two favorite memorials in town, I perused again -- from the beginning, not the end, like a good person. The quotes and stones and water features tell a story, and you can't really read it backwards. After snapping a few shots of some of the fountains and falls, and taking a moment to sort of sink into the gravity of the end of the Second World War and the weight of the Four Freedoms engraved in the wall, I continued on my way. I decided then to visit the Korean War Memorial, my other favorite. Both my grandfather's were in the military during that conflict, one in the Navy and one in the Army. Fortunately, they never actually got deployed to Korea proper (though the one in the Navy did patrol the East China Sea a lot). In their honor, I wrote my senior thesis in college about the ceasefire negotiations during that war. The best compliment I ever got from anyone was when the two of them agreed, "that's pretty much how we remember it."

Anyway, my point...

By the time I got to the Korean War Memorial, I had encountered the hordes of middle school spring break trip groups. Near the pool near the top of the memorial, I saw a park ranger sit down and look sullen. He was probably about 60 or so, and just looked down. Indeed, one lady even asked if he was OK. I sat on the same bench for awhile, staring in a different direction, losing myself in thought. The kids were atrocious. One group was being led by a teacher with a toy light saber. "The statues are creepy!" The photos etched on the wall "look like ghosts."

Of course they look like ghosts. The people in those pictures (though slightly altered) represent the service members who died in that war. The statues of soldiers marching up the hill look scared because war is scary. It's not all pressed uniforms and shiny medals and big planes. It's people slogging through mud and dust killing and getting killed. It's the worst of humanity. Too often these days, wars are fought by children, and the dead are civilians, not soldiers. Just when we thought we'd hit our lowest point, we keep going lower.

And these kids don't get it. I fear they never will. Hell, my own generation doesn't get it, and some of us are being sent to fight and die for a ludicrous cause as we speak. But it doesn't touch us, really. Sure, the price of gas has gone up, but most of my friends don't have cars, so that doesn't really have much effect either. In a way, it's good that young people in America don't know what war is like. Not the huge, commit the country to the fight kind of wars of years past. But these privileged, sheltered kids don't get it. They're running around, trampling over things, screaming, yelling obscenities, and are completely untouched by trouble. For the most part, the kids tonight were white, looked relatively affluent, and probably suburban. It's not so much bothersome that they've never been touched by war, it's that they don't seem to know hardship at all.

I saw a book at the bookstore the other day entitled The "Me" Generation. I don't want to be a part of that. My grandparents grew up in the Depression in rural Tennessee. They had nothing. Literally nothing. Food was grown in the backyard, and what you couldn't grow or raise yourself, you couldn't have. While my childhood was leaps and bounds beyond that, there was still struggle involved. As a teenager, I worked after school and on weekends, and my single mother worked two jobs. We still had trouble making ends meet. If not for a scholarship, I wouldn't have gone to college. And yet in spite of that, the notion was still pounded into my head, primarily by my grandparents, that I needed to serve. There's a world out there bigger than me or anybody else, and I need to do my part, even if it's something small.

When Tom Brokaw released his book, The Greatest Generation, I was pretty incensed. I was young, idealistic, etc, (OK, I'm still those things), and thought perhaps it was premature to proclaim the greatest generation. But maybe it wasn't. Maybe it's time for the "Me" generation. Maybe there was a time when the country came together to do something big and with broad perspective, and maybe that just won't happen again. But I hope not.

More on the recent but brief growth of Shrubbery in Tennessee

Sometimes the world is just a little bizarre. President Bush's main event yesterday, after scaring the elderly and infirm at a local hospital, was to engage in a roundtable discussion on health care with Governor Phil Bredeson, who is, at last check, a Democrat. However, Bredeson also notes that he's unconvinced about changing the tax code and is especially unenthusiastic about the potential cuts to federal reimbursements for charity care. Additionally, the Community Research Council in Chattanooga has reported that few local residents would actually benefit from the Bush plan.

Meanwhile, outside the convention center, there was a group of Bush supporters and a smaller group of protesters, as I mentioned previously. While the supporters were allowed to stand outside the convention center, the detractors were sent to another side of the building. Apparently free speech zones are now limited to particular types of free speech. Tennessee Guerrilla Women have a few other tidbits about the protest.

A full rundown of the day's events is here. Some slightly better coverage, including links to video and audio, are available via the Chattanooga Times Free Press. The video is especially funny. All photos of the visit, though, seem to be especially obsessed with Air Force One. Probably because most people are surprised that such a big plane could land at such a little airport without running over a few houses along the way.

There's hope for my home town!

This afternoon, our beloved President visited Chattanooga to speechify about his plan to give poor people health care by cutting the taxes they're already too poor to have to pay. I don't know what all he said yet, but I do know that a daring gang of lefties in Chattavegas risked stoning and other forms of punishment that the city unleashes upon suspected liberals and protested across the street from the convention center where he was speaking.

As someone who spent a couple years peacefully counter-gay-bashing people on the Scenic City's streets by making out with men across from street preachers, I wholly condone today's act, and am really pleased to see greater left wing activism in that area.

The organizers of today's event claimed that they didn't expect their presence to change policy on health care or on the war in Iraq. Rather, they wanted to demonstrate that Tennessee can't be taken for granted as solid Bush territory. According to the Tennessee Independent Media Center, over 100 Tennesseans have died in the Iraq war. Additionally, there are over 800,000 uninsured residents in the sate.

For pictures, click here. Stay tuned for additional coverage of this incredibly pleasing event.

Post-election wrap up

I'm not gonna bother posting links in this one, cuz all of America (except, ya know, all the stupid ones) already know all this stuff already.

So the Dems took the House and later, the Senate. Bully for them then. Now they just have to make the president cooperate with them, and vice versa. This will be a fascinating two years.

The best news today, though, was Rumsfeld's resignation. This news was so good that it (almost) made me recover from my general ire with the state of Tennessee.

Now I'm generally used to all manner of crap Tennessee can pull. But this election really kinda yanks my chain. I expected the gay marriage ban to pass, and I kinda expected Corker to win. But that doesn't make me happy about it. This is primarily due to the way the results for the marriage amendment turned out: 80.4% for and 19.6% against.

Generally, people who study such things say that in any given population, somewhere between 10-20% will be LGBTQ people. You know what this means for Tennessee?

Only gay people voted against the amendment.

Disturbing, much?

The only thing that gives me any comfort is this odd feeling that someday, legislating a particular this brand of morality is gonna come back and bite some people in the ass. ;)

No further comment.

PSA for Tennessee Voters

I realize that this campaign season has been bizarre, but hear me out.

Tennesseans: Please ignore advertisements that suggest that Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. has supported the "radical homsexual agenda 80% of the time."

Why should you ignore these ads? Because, I hate to break it to you, there is no gay agenda. We don't have one. Period. Even if you find a spoof of one on the internet, it's not real.

You hear me? It is physically impossible for any lawmaker of any ilk to support the "radical homosexual agenda." We don't have one. It doesn't exist.

(And if we do have one, then the religious right has thus far failed to share our agenda with us, though we thank them for taking the time to write it on our behalf. After all, straight white Christian men have been making decisions for other people for centuries, and think they're pretty good at it.)

Trust me on this.

Also, vote NO on Amendment 1.

Randomness generally pertaining to politics

I took this quiz just now that tests on civics profiency. I got 52/54, which ain't bad. The test is targeted to baby boomers, but I feel like basically everyone should know this stuff.

I continue to be amused by the Tennessee Senate race. For one, things in Tennessee don't usually garner a lot of attention. Secondly, an ad run by the RNC (or RSCC - I forget which) declared that Rep. Harold Ford, the Dem candidate, attended a Super Bowl party at the Playboy Mansion, and the ad was rounded out by some alleged porn star saying "call me, Harold." What amuses me more though is Ford's response: "I like women, and I like football, so yes, I went to the party." A remarkable amount of candor for a politician these days. You can find the goodness either on YouTube or Wonkette.

Also, election day is coming up. I get to revel in voting for non-voting people. Ah, the joys of District of Columbia living. Of all the democracies and pseudo-democracies on earth, DC is the only capital of such that is not represented in the national legislature. Nonetheless, there is an opportunity to get a better Congress out of this contest, though I'm not terribly hopeful. Notice I said "better" rather than "Democratic." It'll take a lot more than getting to see Speaker Botox sworn in to make Congress better.

And yet, Chester Crocker expressed last week that Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf would probably be a better head of state of the U.S. than our current POTUS, while said EJS was speaking at Georgetown. This is particularly funny coming from a man who was an assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration. On the whole though, not a bad idea.
Sorry for not putting in more links. Too lazy. :)

EDIT: Mother Jones' blog is now claiming that the above mentioned basically racist ad was pulled because the Canadians protested over a derogatory line pertaining to their country, rather than, ya know, just being racist.