mjh's blog

News Flash: Rod Adair is still an Idiot

Rod Adair gets caught driving like a madman –118MPH – and says, “I did what many thousands of New Mexicans do.” That’s a defense? He should be thrown out of the New Mexico Legislature for his crime and for setting such a horrible example of public behavior and personal responsibility. Rod Adair is an ass.

ABQJOURNAL NEWS/STATE: Senator Cited for Driving 118 Mph

"I did what many thousands of New Mexicans do," Adair said.

    When asked why he was going so fast, he said he did not want to go into details.

    Adair, a four-term senator who represents parts of Lincoln and Chaves counties, has faced a handful of speeding charges since 1999.

    Most recently, he was arrested in June 2006 in Roswell on a bench warrant for failing to pay a speeding ticket. He had been cited by State Police in April of that year for driving 85 mph in a 55-mph zone.

    Adair also pleaded no contest in 2004 for a speeding citation in Reserve, where he was nabbed for driving more than 35 mph above the speed limit.
    Three previous speeding citations — two in 1999 and one in 2002 — were dismissed. [mjh: Because he has clout. The worst assholes always have clout.]

ABQJOURNAL NEWS/STATE: Senator Cited for Driving 118 Mph

mjh’s blog — In Which Adair Makes an Ass of Himself (Sat 11/18/06 at 1:51 pm)

Most of us have come to expect arrogance from Republican leaders, as well as some disconnect from reality. Rod Adair seldom disappoints on both counts. In his latest column for the Journal, Adair explains that everything good is and always has been Republican and everything shifty and immoral is and always has been Democrat. [read on at the link]

mjh’s blog — In Which Adair Makes an Ass of Himself

Wolfman Mark

“Even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers by night
can become a wolf, when the wolfbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright.” (from the first Wolfman movie)

I can’t remember when I became a werewolf. Looking back, I see a few staggered steps, like tracks in the snow, lurching from man to wolf and back again. There is no cause and effect, merely history, which can be told so many different ways.

When I was a child, I had a dream. It began with me willing myself to fly. I soared over my neighborhood with delight. Soon, the force of will necessary to fly drained me and I began to descend, despite my will. In the slow descent, I flew lower into a dark woods and, at the moment of greatest fear of what lurked within, I awoke. This dream recurred many times until I was past 10 years of age. I think the dream portended changes to come.

In my teens, I found my pack. We stalked the streets and parks of Northern Virginia. To varying degrees, we found and created ourselves, as the pack and as individuals. They must have been the first to see my wolf nature emerge. I watched werewolf movies. I read Steppenwolf – auf deutsch sogar. I identified with the man uneasily on the edge of his society. At times, I lost my hold on humanity, which was a terrible sight, I know, and yet, my friends kept me in the pack, for which I’m grateful still. Eventually, the notion that “Mark is a werewolf” didn’t seem the least bit absurd – simply a statement of fact known to those who needed to know.

It was the pack that brought home my eventual mate, twenty-eight years ago tonight, the night before Halloween, 1981. Merri Rudd stepped into our den with wise shyness. She sniffed the air and told me she had been a dog in a former life. (I don’t recall when I first told her I’d been a wolf in the current one.) I followed her into uncharted territory, a land with its own wolves. In a few days, we’ll howl at the full moon for what could be the 364th time – a year of full moons.

At times, I think the wolf within crawled out from under my skin to become my totem, my animus, my daemon, if you will. The old man still snaps but his teeth are loose and dull. As much as ever, I linger on the doorstep of a large community, not sure I dare step over into the firelight, no matter how welcome I would be. But, from the edge, it looks lovely.

There is no god

You may know the horrible, gruesome details of a recent rape in California. It’s time for every man and woman in the world to say, “never again.” Never again should any human being be so horribly treated by another.

The President of the United States needs to speak out. Never again. The Governor of California needs to speak out. Never again. Each and every one of us needs to speak out: Never again. We will not tolerate such brutality and inhumanity.

If the perpetrators are caught and fairly convicted, I support public flogging, physical castration, and death, in that order. Since some men fail to see women as human beings, those men forfeit their right to continue to live. Let it be known: Some things are unforgiveable.

This Week’s “Well, WTF?!”

Since Oct. 20, the Republican National Committee’s Facebook page has had a picture of President Obama with a caption reading “Miscegenation is a crime against American values. Repeal Loving v. Virginia.”

[mjh: That’s right: repeal the ruling that allowed an interracial couple to marry. Rather reminiscent of the judge down south who recently said he wouldn’t marry an interracial couple because it’s bad for the kids. Tell it to Obama, jackass.]

As Raw Story notes, the RNC finally took the photo down today, after readers at Democratic Underground first began discussing it on Sunday. While it’s likely that the RNC “wasn’t aware the racist photo was on their page and it wasn’t produced or posted by anyone at the RNC,” the group had attacked MoveOn.org for a similar incident in 2004. As Chris Harris at Media Matters Action Network notes, when “a web user posted a self-produced web video that compared President Bush to Hitler as part of a MoveOn.org video contest, the RNC acted as if the video had been produced by MoveOn itself.” According to the National Journal:

“This [Bush as Hitler] is the worst and most vile form of political hate speech,” Republican National Committee spokesman Ed Gillespie proclaimed. “MoveOn.org should apologize.”

Boyd did just that, expressing “deep regret” that the ads made it through MoveOn’s filtering process, and promising to scrutinize such material in the future. Pariser emphasized that MoveOn had not produced the ads, not aired them, not endorsed them in the voting, and had removed them from the Web site –adding that the RNC had put them on its Web site to score points. Still, the damage had been done.

Will the RNC now issue a public apology?

Think Progress » Will the RNC apologize for racist Facebook photo?

Fall Alignment

It happens every fall, this week, probably this day. I see it coming, even months ahead. As the day nears, I watch each morning – how soon? This morning, I first woke at 6am. I wanted to get up then. Lucky made me a morning person, against all odds, but cold, like the grave, is stronger than either of us. I looked at the clock again at 7:46am. When 7:47am clicked over, I got up and stepped out into the hall at the perfect moment, the moment of alignment.

How many times a day do we fail to see these moments when light strikes a mundane spot, turning it into an altar? I observe this special moment each fall, a week before Halloween, and again, each spring, about a week after Valentine’s Day.

Nature’s part in this display exceeds the other parts, but a sequence of steps brought this together. The house built with a door facing east, like half the houses on the block. The niche for a telephone and a laughably thin phone book. The door, added later, with a narrow window at just the right height, just the right shape. The glass pane with two blue spots, a gift from a bridesmaid, added years later to cover that narrow window. And the chaotic clutter I contribute, the little treasures I handle daily and the older stuff I can’t let go of. Made sacred by 30 seconds of light twice a year. I’m grateful to bear witness.

For the first time, the circle is notched in the upper-left by one of the bars on our new security door, the latest addition to the layers. The gap marks the inevitability of change and loss.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/tags/niche/

Updated 10/29/09: See the change 4 days later: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/4055208123/

Poll: GOP Favorability Falters – Surprise?

Poll: GOP Favorability Falters – The Page by Mark Halperin – TIME.com 

Latest CNN/ORC survey puts Republican approval at two-year low.

Dips to 36% for only the second time in a decade according to CNN/USA Today/Gallup Trends.

Poll: GOP Favorability Falters – The Page by Mark Halperin – TIME.com

Details: CNN/ORC Poll on Party Favorability – The Page by Mark Halperin – TIME.com 

From CNN:

Republicans: 36% favorable, 54% unfavorable

Democrats: 53% favorable, 41% unfavorable

Congress: 29% approve, 69% disapprove

Congressional Democrats: 38% approve, 59% disapprove

Congressional Republicans: 33% approve, 66% disapprove

Conducted Oct. 16-18, error margin +/- 3 points.

Details: CNN/ORC Poll on Party Favorability – The Page by Mark Halperin – TIME.com

Congress performs the worst in this poll.

When Buchanan Calls You an Idiot, You’ve Been Seriously Dissed (Bucky Knows His Nixon)

 Think Progress » Buchanan on GOP and Fox linking Obama to Nixon: ‘It is the most idiotic comparison I’ve ever seen.’

Taking cues from their communications shop over at Fox News, GOP Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) yesterday attacked the White House’s campaign against Fox’s unethical journalistic practices by comparing President Obama to President Nixon. “Let’s not start calling people out and compiling an enemies list,” Alexander said, touting his days as a junior staffer in the Nixon White House as credentials for his charge. Gregg said he was “fascinated” by Alexander’s criticism and wondered if Obama is “Nixon-fying” the White House. But yesterday on MSNBC, top Nixon aide Pat Buchanan dismissed out-of-hand any comparison of Obama to Nixon:

BUCHANAN: It is the most idiotic comparison I’ve ever seen. Barack Obama won 95 percent of Washington DC, he comes in with both houses Congress behind him, the media love him, the country loves him. Nixon came in with both houses of Congress against him, he probably got 8 percent of the vote in Washington DC, the media loathed him. … I don’t see any comparison between Obama and Nixon whatsoever. … [T]here’s no comparison. Barack Obama’s got enormous press support, he’s got problems with Fox News but for heaven’s sakes there is no comparison here.

Think Progress » Buchanan on GOP and Fox linking Obama to Nixon: ‘It is the most idiotic comparison I’ve ever seen.’

Lucky Timing

I go to Chaco Canyon every year (except for this one). In 2008, I also traveled to a couple of outliers west of Chaco. The road into Kin Bineola (“where the wind whirls,” Navajo) crosses a dirt dam. I had never seen any water on either side of that dam before, but on this trip in May, there was a small pond near the dam, well below the road. I saw something circle over the pond. I stopped on the dam to consider taking a picture. The two adult avocets were cute enough – and seemed out of place enough – to warrant a photo. I just got lucky that the babies flew in just as I clicked. I respect photographic skill, experience, and equipment, but lucky timing is the most valuable asset a photographer can’t buy. I never expected to photograph shorebirds in the desert.

www.flickr.com <><> <></> </> <><></> </> </> More of mjhinton’s stuff tagged with chacocanyon

This Week’s WTF?!

You probably thought the “joke” about gunning-down liberal democrats was this week’s WTF?! But, no, we have a last-minute winner, from the drooling maw of the Big Mouth of the Republican Party (sorry, Lush, take another Oxy), Glenn Blech:

 Think Progress » Beck says ‘progressives’ are descended from ‘tyrants’ and ‘slave owners.’

On his Fox News show today, Glenn Beck said that “in the last couple of years” he’s been “trying to read a different Founding Father all the time,” offering that his latest interest is in Samuel Adams. According to Beck, Samuel Adams would have hated modern day progressives. “We call them progressives now, but back in Samuel Adams’ day, they used to call them tyrants,” said Beck. “A little later, I think they were also called slave owners.” Watch it:

It’s kind of odd that Beck deifies the Founding Fathers while attacking progressives as “slave owners,” considering that some of the most famous Founding Fathers owned slaves.

Think Progress » Beck says ‘progressives’ are descended from ‘tyrants’ and ‘slave owners.’

Think Progress declines to note that the tattered remnants of Conservatism resemble nothing so much as the end of the Confederacy (slave holders, if you’ve forgotten). I can’t wait until Blech finishes with the Founders and moves on to the Civil War. Was that war about progressive slave holders in the South? Wouldn’t that make the North the good guys? But wasn’t the War of Northern Aggression between an overbearing Federal government (Sam Adams says, “boo, hiss”) versus freedom-loving (for some) States’ Righters (or Tenthers, as they call themselves today)? Of course, as in the Republican party, the Confederacy consisted of rich people rallying poor people to their defense. The people who have everything use people who have nothing to fight people who want something for everyone. Who needs slaves anymore? Turns out, you have to feed slaves, but you don’t have to feed poor people – let them join the military.

Gun Safety Tip #47: When you shoot yourself in the foot, be sure your foot isn’t in your mouth already

I had thought the “penny-pinching” remark would be the best example of Conservatives digging a deeper hole just by being themselves. Then along comes this gem from a Deep Thinker in the Party of Ideas. (Those self-assigned labels for Conservatives and Republicans seems so far from the truth they aren’t even ironic anymore, just completely irrelevant.)

Think Progress » GOP Rep. from district where civil rights workers were lynched talks about shooting ‘tree-hugging Democrats.’ 

In a new interview with Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS), Politico asks the congressman what the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus does. Harper’s response:

We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition.

Harper represents Mississippi’s 3rd congressional district, which contains Neshoba County — the place of one of the most infamous race-related crimes in American history. In 1964, white supremacists lynched three civil rights workers.

Think Progress » GOP Rep. from district where civil rights workers were lynched talks about shooting ‘tree-hugging Democrats.’

Of course a joke about killing people can be funny, unless it comes from people who have the means and inclination and feel they are so cornered they must “resist.” But the petty “waste of good ammo” truly reveals an ugly mindset. My advice: Shoot yourself between the eyes, not in the foot. That solves our mutual problems with the least amount of good ammo.

Update: Politico’s Glenn Thrush reports that Harper is unrepentant about his remarks. Harper’s spokesman said the remarks were "supposed to be fun. … It’s having a good time."

Har. Har.

The Builder

I watched this robin gather grass for nesting material in our small sideyard a few years ago. It was a windy day and the robin kept dropping what it already had in its beak as it tried for more. (Called to mind Aesop.) After numerous attempts, the robin gathered up a good bundle. It took off from the grass and paused just long enough in a gap in the fence. Click. Thank you. With all the wind, I didn’t expect this photo to be in focus.

Robins love to bathe, perhaps moreso than any other birds I’ve seen in our yard.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/tags/robins

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/tags/birds

[From the Photo Archive is an irregular series of photos I’ve taken some time ago but want to revisit.]

www.flickr.com <><> <></> </> <><></> </> </> mjhinton’s Birds (Random) photoset

Because the Bible Isn’t Conservative Enough…

Get ready for conservative Bible – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com 

So we may soon have ourselves a conservative Bible. Besides Fox News, I mean.

This new Bible is from Conservapedia, a website that bills itself as a conservative alternative to the perceived liberal bias of Wikipedia, the user-edited online reference.

You may judge Conservapedia’s own bias by reading its definition of liberal: “someone who rejects logical and biblical standards, often for self-centered reasons. There are no coherent liberal standards; often a liberal is merely someone who craves attention, and who uses many words to say nothing.”

For the record, Wikipedia defines conservative as a word referring “to various political and social philosophies that support tradition and the status quo, or that call for a return to the values and society of an earlier age. . . .”

Now, having protected unwary Americans from — ahem — Wikipedia’s bias, Conservapedia founder Andrew Schlafly (son of Phyllis) tackles perceived bias in the Good Book. He proposes to correct the Bible by creating a new translation based upon 10 principles, including: concision (as opposed to “liberal wordiness”); an emphasis on “free market parables” and the exclusion of “liberal passages” he says were inserted into the original text.

Get ready for conservative Bible – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

It would appear the nut hasn’t fallen far from the tree in the case of Andy Schlafly and his mommy.

Why, Indeed.

Think Progress » ThinkFast: October 16, 2009

At a town hall event in New Orleans yesterday, 9-year old Tyren Scott asked President Obama, “Why do people hate you? They supposed to love you. God is love.” Obama responded, “If you were watching TV lately, it seems like everybody’s just getting mad all the time. And you know, I think that you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt. Some of it is just what’s called politics.” Watch the video here.

Think Progress » ThinkFast: October 16, 2009

Degrees of Lunacy: Mostly to Dangerously

ABQJOURNAL UPFRONT: Rotten Tomatoes for Political Theater, by Winthrop Quigley

Tea Baggers don’t mention that as a percentage of national wealth, tax collections in the United States are lower than any developed country except Korea, Mexico and Turkey, which suggests that instead of being taxed enough already, Americans could afford higher taxes and still remain competitive in the global economy.
    Such nuance can’t be put on a protest sign, but it might form the basis of discussion of and even solutions to public problems.

ABQJOURNAL UPFRONT: Rotten Tomatoes for Political Theater

Eugene Robinson – Obama’s Peace Prize Won’t Reset His Agenda – washingtonpost.com 

Let the rejectionists fulminate and sputter until they wear their vocal cords out. Politically, they’re only bashing themselves. As Republican leaders — except RNC Chairman Michael Steele — are beginning to realize, "I’m With the Taliban Against America" is not likely to be a winning slogan.

Eugene Robinson – Obama’s Peace Prize Won’t Reset His Agenda – washingtonpost.com

Think Progress » Teabaggers Try To ‘Flush’ Graham Out Of GOP; Graham Responds: ‘If You Don’t Like’ Moderates, ‘You Can Leave’ 

One attendee of the event asked the senator, “when are you going to announce that you are switching parties?” The question drew loud applause from the crowd. Graham defended himself, and denounced the influence of Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) on the Republican party:

GRAHAM: I’m going to grow this party, I’m not going to let it get [inaudible], I’m not going to let it be hijacked by Ron Paul. [...] I’m going to find people in Maine, Delaware, Illinois, other places–

AUDIENCE: Move there!

GRAHAM: That can win as Republicans, and I’m going to go up, and we’re going to move this party, and this country forward, and if you don’t like it, you can leave.

Think Progress » Teabaggers Try To ‘Flush’ Graham Out Of GOP; Graham Responds: ‘If You Don’t Like’ Moderates, ‘You Can Leave’

 Think Progress » Bar Owner With Racist Anti-Obama Sign: Obama’s A ‘Half-Breed’

The Georgia Peach Museum and Restaurant — which boasts that it is “the original Klan bar” on its website — caused a media firestorm last week when it put up a sign that read, “Obama’s plan for health care – [n-word] rig it.” The restaurant’s owner, Patrick Lanzo, told a local paper that his sign is “strictly about free speech,” and noted that he has in the past been a member of the NAACP and has marched on behalf of gay rights. …

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution interviewed Lanzo inside his restaurant last week. They took this picture of him, where a “Whites Only” swimming pool sign sits underneath a portrait of Barack Obama.

Think Progress » Bar Owner With Racist Anti-Obama Sign: Obama’s A ‘Half-Breed’

Think Progress » Federal authorities investigating anti-Obama Nazi message on Massachusetts golf course. 

The U.S. Secret Service and the FBI are investigating an incident at a Lakeville, Massachusetts golf course, in which vandals etched “I” above a swastika and “Obama” on the green. The Boston Herald reports that vandals used the heels of their shoes or cleats to scrape the message into the grass:

“We investigate these cases thoroughly,” said Steven Ricciardi, special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Boston office. Authorities say the incident “likely constitutes a hate crime, whether the culprits meant it as a prank or not.”

Think Progress » Federal authorities investigating anti-Obama Nazi message on Massachusetts golf course.