Days of Whine and Roses

I'm just really content this spring/summer to not watch news or politics - roses and honeysuckle bloomed, the purple Clematis. Azaleas grown a foot already. Have picked a few garden tomatoes for a salad - this early. The pepper plants look a bit puny but the season is young.

BP, latest anti-planet evil-doer, has not aggravated me. Mother Nature has seen worse spills and survived. The usual pundits claiming the usual cause for the Horizon Deepwater disaster - greed and capitalism. Although I fail to see how greediness is helping their bottom line now, stock falling 15% - as of today a 70+ billion dollar whuppin' . Not to mention future lawsuits and cleanup, and heads rolling. Valdez didn't ruin Exxon .... And never fear, top cop Eric Holder will launch tax payer paid loooong criminal investigations and for millions of dollars we get to see someone at BP smacked on the buns as they tap dance off stage to a well-paid job (probably government employment in a new department with an oily title). Only makes sense, as with each natural or manmade disaster we get another agency to create new legislation promising to protect us from the next dilemma - never does, but maybe that's where "hope" is supposed to come in. You know, hoping that doing the same old thing will produce different results. Or, sometimes as happens, a honcho or two will commit suicide and/or have a heart attack. Case closed. Open for business. Stop whining.

Let's see... what else has been in the news... oh yes, those awful Israeli (Jews) are at it again. IDF killing innocent foreign activists on a flotilla to Gaza in international waters, leaving 3 to 16 dead, depending on who you read, unarmed activists or armed, again depending on who you read. Both sides claim the other side's actions are deplorable. Aid ships have been allowed previously but for a couple of years now, since the blockade/offensive against Hamas rulers, IDF has said no flotillas. I wouldn't be surprised if you told me the activists planned and wanted this "bloody raid." After all, they knew they would not be granted passage as Israeli, told them: "The Israeli government had urged the flotilla not to try to breach the blockade before the ships set sail from waters off Cyprus on Sunday and offered to take some aid in for them." But who you gonna believe - Israel with its bad rep or Euro-activists who have no problems to whine about in their own countries?

Al and Tipper Gore separating after 40 years of marriage. Kinda late for a mid-life crisis don't you think? Maybe the inconvenient truth is it was too politically inconvenient to quit sooner. I'll never understand how you can put up with someone 40 years and then part company. Geeeeze. I'm still mentally scrubbing the image of the Gores liplock during the 2004 election. The only kiss worse was Michael Jackson and that Presley woman.

Obama Obama. Ho-hum. Read a rant somewhere this a.m. about Glenn "Goofus Grubworm" Beck picking on and making fun of the Obama children. I think it was HuffPost I read that on. Something about a radio show and Beck pretending to be Malia talking to Daddy about stopping the oil spill. I'm not sure what Beck's point was, unless illustrating that Obama's kids think their dad can work miracles, plug leaks and part the waters or something. But all little girls with good dads think that. I know for a fact the sun rose and set with my mom and dad. Beck will do an episode apologizing for it. I can't remember the last time I had to apologize for something I said - don't folks think before they speak? Guess not, too many seem to think if it comes from their brain and across their lips it must be great - no weighing of words - just throw it out there, until the junkyard pundit dogs jump on it. When was the last time you heard an apology from a public figure that sounded sincere? Expedient, practical, well-written, but sincere? They claim to misspeak, regrettably, while defenders shout and whine it was taken out of context.

What else, what else. The repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." The House of Representatives voted by a 234-194 margin last Thursday to repeal the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward gays in the military. A vote to repeal the ban on gays serving in the military is on the horizon. President Obama said in a statement that he was "pleased" by the House vote. Yeeehar. With 0.75% of military personnel being gay, maybe more will rush to enlist when this is repealed. Does this cover the transgendered, transvestites, cross-dressers, bisexuals? Are those redundant? What kind of sentences will be handed out to those jarheads who slug the gay guy? After all, the progressives tell us our troops rape and mistreat their fellow female soldiers, so when they beat the crap out of a gay soldier, will that be a hate crime? While the younger generation is more acceptable of homosexuality, will it stop large numbers of straight men from enlisting? Seems to me repealing the policy is begging for trouble. My granddaughter has a good friend who is gay and joined the Army 4 years ago after high school graduation. He's doing well and plans to re-up. For the life of me though he is so obviously gay you wouldn't have to ask to tell.

And, I'm not keeping up with the celebrity perverts and addicts and citizen baby killers, other than the occasional sound byte or two from Nancy "Ain't I The Most Caring Person On Earth" Grace and her former panelist Jane "Loudmouth Lesbian and Former Drunkard" Velez-Mitchell - both rolling in the dough of following other people's tragedies, and still, when opportune, dredging up their own lives to milk it for popularity. Can't we find anyone who has led a somewhat typical mundane life anymore to host anything? Do they all have to be former something-or-other, previous victim, past addict, snot-nose minority of some sort, blinking and glistening tears on cue?

Time to go out and smell the roses. I'm so laaaazy I don't even want to provide links...