bracken's Comments (56)

“And what's that got to do with the price of health care and the greed of the for-profit insurance corporations, exactly? We will stipulate that you personally have a heart of gold.”

“Wow, nice way to divert the whole discussion into something you would rather complain about--FEMA. And you blithely assume that folks who disagree with you wouldn't help the homeless like you and your husband did. You sounded halfway intelligent in your first post, but I hear a certain CW twang in your later ones.”

“I hate to tell you this, but both women and men lie like anything to get the wedding ring. I know women who decided they wanted to "live as friends" with their husband after they got what they wanted: a child born in wedlock. That is, no sex. No sex, and no adultery either. I know of three marriages that ended because of that. I know a woman who divorced her husband after her child was born, because that was all she wanted.

And I've heard more than a few of my women friends explain why they married him "even though I didn't really love him." It was for material goods, societal acceptance, and children viewed as legitimate--and none was any less important than the other. The husband was just a vehicle.”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Children have been raised in apartments, in cities, in less than enriching environments, and somehow managed to grow up and contribute. Too much of what parents say is needed "for the kids" is actually for themselves.”

“Could agree more. Too many people think they're capable parents just because they ARE parents. It's kind of a racket, like Smedley Butler said of war. Group think, group protectionism.”

“Yes--when Sarah Palin is caught in a lie, the response is, "Lie, lie--all politicians lie. That's what politics is all about, lying." If you talk about her quitting halfway through her term, it's "Quit, quit--all politicians quit. Nixon quit. What's the big deal?" "Corrupt, corrupt, all politicians are corrupt. All politicans fail to keep promises." "Dumb, dumb, define 'dumb.'"”

“See, now the discussion will revolve, not around the lies of Sarah Palin or the ignorance of her followers, but around whether the girl was 13 or 17, and was this poor child a RAPE victim? I heard she was 17. I heard she was 13. I heard she was raped, and that this woman attacked her for being raped or something. That's how the great game of punditry telephone plays. The whole things just bounces in like that ping-pong ball in a room full of mousetraps and sets off competing noise.”

“Speaking of which, how about the scene in the latest Star Trek movie, one that shows a ten-year-old stealing a car and driving recklessly? I'm sure that's a completely harmless thing to glamorize. (It's okay, because the kid turns out good years and years later. Actually saves lives. When you come right down to it, we MUST socialize young men in exactly this way, otherwise they'll become sissies and we'll all be doomed!)”

“Meant to say "your not."”

“Well, gosh, Jesus dudn't expeck us to be PERFECT, nossir, ain't nobody PERFECT. Not gonna sell what I have. Not gonna give to the poor.But I'm FORGIVEN. And you're not. See the differnce?”

“If Mike Wooten were to die in a tragic, though mysterious, car accident, I think all those people would fade into the woodwork, never to be heard from again. In fact, if Sarah Palin really wanted to be in power, she'd do just that. The GOP doesn't have a problem with Wellstoning per se--it's just that they're not sure they want it used by or on behalf of Palin. Still, she's a Saddam Hussein: a bastard, but "our bastard." They may expect to neatly remove Palin if she becomes less tool than loose cannon. But until then, let the little girl dance.”

“I think Sarah Palin will not be empowered in the way you think. Give her some more rope--she has nowhere to go but down. At the end of her fall, however protracted, her career will be abruptly over.

The more important and "empowered" she feels, the more likely she is to do or say something really ignorant and offensive and turn off an even greater percentage of voters. I'm reminded of George Wallace and how powerful he seemed. Something ridiculous like a topple off her high heels could put her down like Christopher Reeve, for that matter. She's spinning like a top and not careful of her path.”

“I think there is a difference between the natural human propensity for violent means to an end and what we have today. What is different about the last 100 years or so is the omnipresence of mass media in the forms of film, radio, and television, with stories and rationalizations ("Only one way to solve this--a gun.") that are reiterated and replayed all over the world, in thousands of different environments. We have cheered on violence done to "enemies" of the horror film, the gangster film, the murder film. Lately it has to be a particular imaginative or grisly death--one that provokes laughter as well as shudders. That's how jaded we've become. And somehow pirated DVDs are easier to get than clean water in some parts of the world.”

“Couldn't agree more. Mania, aggression, rage reaction, anxiety, sleeplessness, suicidal thoughts, hyperkinesia--these are all on the label for anyone to read. It should be one of the first questions asked, not the one that is almost never asked.”

“I tried, I really tried, to give a listen to Rush. But hours of whining, whining, and more whining, interspersed with Rush's advertisements for mattresses and male-enhancement vitamins, is impossible for anyone with more brain cells than whine glasses..”

“Yes, and women wish men would step up to the plate and clean the ranks! It's always been "the love of a good woman" that's supposed to make everything all right with the Y chromosome. Men haven't been asked to use their leverage on other men. No, you put it all on the shoulders of women--women as mothers, as teachers, as girlfriends, as wives. We're heartily sick of carrying your emotional water for you and sick of trying to get men to shape up.

Men behave the way they do because other men condone, ignore, accept, encourage, and abet it.”

“Yes, but some men would prefer a woman who's obsessed with Nine West and a Japanese press and the perfect set of nails--to the exclusion of concerns or topics about which SHE might know more than HE does. That could get uncomfortable. No--much better to date an airhead with a shopping addiction. That way the guy can always settle smugly back and revel in how much smarter he is than this stupid-but-hot chick he's dating. And anyway, most of the time they're just out to impress other guys with this or that babelicious dingbat, and if you can express a cavalier cockhound scorn because she's an airhead, that's even better. So they WANT a clotheshorse who talks about nothing but her colorist. No challenges, no problems, you're always The Smart One.”

“Schuler's claim that the vodka bottle was kept in the camper or van may be true. It's also a good place for an alcoholic to keep a bottle to drink from and replenish.”

“No mention of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, also known as Prozac, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, et al.? We have a whole twisted relationship with those drugs, not to mention the industrial-strength knock-em-out-with-one-blow psych drugs meant to "deal with" ADD, OCD, BPD, SAD, PMS, ODD, and the whole DMV alphabet soup to nuts.”

“To expand on my point a little, as a professional musician and songwriter I am often baffled by the different way that people who aren't musicians themselves react to music. It isn't that it's unsophisticated, it's that their response to music is emotional first--and they see no need to grapple with how it's put together, whether there are musical references to other forms, unusual chord progressions, a particularly ironic lyric--all of which are meat and potatoes to me and almost completely immaterial to them.

One may rapturously quote what to her is a particularly trenchant contemporary lyric--which to me was already sung forty years ago, or a hundred. It doesn't matter. THIS lyric matters NOW, while she's in her time, in her space, and in her groove.

This is further illustrated by people who say, "I used to love that song until I understood what the lyrics were!"

I think there's at least some argument for not forcing people to listen hard or apply sophisticated tastes to what they, like, like. That dog won't hunt. Sampled-up rhythmic pap pop sells because it addresses the physical and emotional needs without asking for any more engagement from the listener. And if it's pretty to look at, all the better.”

“Vaccines--and Prozac, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Ativan, Valium, Ambien, Luvox, Celexa, Lexapro, ad infinitum. SSRIs are known to have side effects that include increased suicidal ideation, irritability, insomnia, nausea, akathisia intolerable restlessness), paranoia, hostility, aggression, nervousness . . . such that young adults (like soldiers) are advised NOT to take them.

And yet THIS is the best treatment we say we can give returning soldiers. We give them these things practically by the handful, don't do any followup, and send signals that say Take these and suck it up.

I say that's what's killing them. And I think the continued deaths of returning Iraq/Afghanistan soldiers is an overall positive for CheneyCo. They're no good to him anymore, so "hurry up and die and help decrease the excess population!"”

“That Bakken oil formation has been known about since the 20s. If it wasn't feasible to try to dig out what is 75% oil SHALE, not light sweet crude, at $30, $50, $75, $100, or $125 a barrel, it isn't feasible, period.

You have to use machines (powered by oil at TODAY'S prices, remember) to dig up the shale, to crush it, and then heat it to get something LIKE oil out of it. And transport it.

All that takes petroleum, machinery, skilled labor we don't have, time we don't have. The energy return on energy invested in oil shale isn't economically feasible.

That Bakken oil shale formation is mostly a scam. Besides, we'd have to dig up some halfway decent farmland and use WATER WE DON'T HAVE to mine it.

And it's not like it's YOUR oil or MY oil. It ain't going in American gas tanks if someone else in the world has better credit and more cash.

Nah, the oil companies do much better to sit on whatever oil's in the ground. Oil in the ground is money in the bank.”

“As in, "McCain can't be THAT bad--Rush Limbaugh hates him!"”

“I understand that as well as playing the big shot as TX guv, he played a lot of Freecell while sitting at his desk in Austin.”

“Why in the hell is scott taking all this crap while the real problem gets ignored.

----

Maybe that's the idea. Who knows what's going on while we fret over McClellan? Maybe he's just a patsy. Maybe this "tell-all" book is really a "tell-some-to-distract-the-masses" lightning-rod effort that is every bit as politically motivated as anything he did while on the job. Maybe he's not counting on selling this book as much as being paid off for it.”