Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

Drowning In Dismissal and Derision

While the east coast faces the gargantuan task of even beginning to contemplate where to begin to clean up, dig out, and recover from the wrath of Sandy, some politicians spin on, safe in their dry havens far, far west of the disaster...

Out in Iowa where the corn and asshats grow tall, Republican Steve King decided to hold forth on the subject of aid to those in need. 

"I want to get them the resources that are necessary to lift them out of this water and the sand and the ashes and the death that's over there in the East Coast and especially in the Northeast," King said during a Tuesday evening debate in Mason City, Iowa.

"But not one big shot to just open up the checkbook, because they spent it on Gucci bags and massage parlors and everything you can think of in addition to what was necessary," he said later, referring to Hurricane Katrina.

I see.

Gucci bags and massage parlors.

Yes, that's definitely what those still awaiting rescue are thinking about.  As they sit on their roofs, or wait trapped in apartments surrounded by four feet of water; as they mourn relatives lost when trees crashed into their homes or when debris hit them outside; as they try to process their entire neighborhood having been torched to the ground or their homes moved completely from their foundations - they console themselves with visions of Gucci bags and yank jobs dancing in their heads.

Asshole.

It is stunning to me that this horrific set of natural events which have decimated lives, destroyed dreams, and left entire states reeling is being played off as some money making scheme to be thwarted.

I have news for you Steven - when our lives were ripped from under us by Hurricane Iniki, and we faced the future not knowing how we would meet it, our thoughts were about a crib for our baby, not a Gucci bag for me.  We were worried about underwear, not the gratification of what was under it. 

WE. LOST. EVERYTHING.

That is not hyperbole, that is not exaggeration to make a point.  That is truth.  We had each other and a 3 month old baby.  We had the destroyed remnant of a house.  We had carpet ripped from the foundation.

We had our lives RIPPED FROM THE FOUNDATION.

Our FEMA loan literally got us back on our feet.  We were able to find an apartment, buy a crib, a bed to sleep in, clothing, diapers, bottles.

At no point were we shopping in Neiman Marcus for our clothes or some high end baby store for Culley.  Her crib was a white rectangle.  Nothing flashy, no hardwood stained a deep cherry.  Designer labels?  That's a laugh.  Think Walmart, JC Penney, outlet stores.

Are there those who will misuse funds they may receive?  Of course.  There are bad apples in every pie, Steven.  Hell, look around you, in your state.  Seems my tax dollars subsidize an awful lot of unnecessary corn, and worse, pay farmers to NOT grow certain things.  Are you checking on them to insure they are not sporting designer overalls or visiting Miss Yankywank down at the local Happy Ending?

No, you're not.

The money we received from FEMA came through an application process, and we HAVE TO PAY IT BACK.  Yes, at a low interest rate, and yes, over the course of many, many years.  But it was not free money.  And I still maintain a record of every receipt for every dime of that money spent.

People are hurting, Mr. King.  People do not even know which way is up this morning, let alone when they will be able to flush a toilet or turn on a lightswitch (if they even have those things left standing).

They need our help.  They need our compassion.  They need our generosity.  And they need the programs, like FEMA, which are thankfully in place to help Americans HELP AMERICANS.

You want to crack down on misuse of funds, Steve?  Sweep your own doorstep, as my mother always says.  Your state is a prime example of people content to suck at the teat of government.

And YOU represent THEM.

(For the record, we did get back on our feet, and through hard work, family sacrifice, and dedication are now able to breathe easy.  And while I could afford to tag myself with Coach, Hermes, and Gucci, I still carry a $10 purse from TARGET, and I am still thankful every day for FEMA being there when the winds blew our lives off course.)

Respect Your Elders

This is just, well, AWESOME.

Mother Nature: The Equal Opportunity Destroyer

Frightening.  Destructive.  Intense.  Nerve rattling.  Humbling.

Most of all, that last one.

It is not a stretch to say the world was watching as the aptly named "Frankenstorm" charged up and onto the east coast over the past 36 hours.  While Sandy is no longer a hurricane, her destructive power travels on further inland affecting states as far west as Indiana and Michigan.  Fierce winds still blow from Georgia up to Canada.

A natural event of such magnitude - when so many individually disruptive facets come together - is rare.  And all one can do is get out of the way.

Yes, prayer is very helpful in that it may provide a sense of peace, but do it while insuring you are as far out of harm's way as possible.  Because prayer cannot keep the waters from climbing the stairs of your house, the 100 year old tree from falling through it, or the tides from sweeping you away while you asshattedly decide to take a picture up close.  GoOd doesn't send the hurricane or the tree branch that crashed down and ended the life a little boy yesterday.  Exercise your greatest gifts - free will and common sense - to help yourself and those around you whose lives you can impact with your love and aid.

Watching the reports all day and into the night yesterday, and then matching them up with the FB posts of DGMSers, friends, and family in the line of fire made for a restless day and night.  Winds, power outages, torrential rains - all being updated in real time - I hope you all know how the hearts, minds, love, and prayers of this blogmunity were, and are, with you.

As the light began to come up today, the full level of damage, destruction, and yes, death are beginning to be quantified.  

7 million without power and heat.  Subways flooded four feet deep in NYC.  An estimated 80 homes simply gone after a fire swept through in New Jersey.  Thousands in danger as a dam/levee broke in New Jersey, forcing many to their roofs to await rescue.  NYU Medical Center lost power and their backup failed, threatening the lives of 200 patients, including the infants in the NICU - several on respirators that failed, leading heroic nurses to use manual pumps to keep them alive and breathing.  Flood damage so widespread that the dollar estimate cannot even be fathomed right now.  And sadly, 29 deaths currently being reported. 

A state by state rundown of currently known damage and death may be found HERE.

In reading through it, two things come through loud and clear - many are hurting today, and Mother Nature does not discriminate.  She is an equal opportunity destroyer.

To that end - regardless of your political affiliation, regardless of what your yard sign said before it was swept away, regardless of how you may feel about the government - I encourage you all, if your life has been swept asunder by this storm and FEMA aid is made available to you, avail yourselves of it.

It doesn't make you weak.  It doesn't mean you are suddenly part of some bullshit notion of a "nanny state."  It doesn't mean you suddenly like the man in the White House. 

It simply means there is a mechanism in place to HELP YOU.

Rudy and I have been there.  In fact, we are STILL there.  We still make our monthly payment on our FEMA loan from when a hurricane swept everything from our lives and we had to start all over with only the clothes on our back and the infant in our arms.  I am grateful everyday that there is a system in place that allowed us to borrow money at a miniscule interest rate so we could begin moving forward to rebuild our lives.

The danger is not over.  The water is still deep.  The rains are still coming down.  The power lines lay, or float, in the streets.

Please, all our friends and DGMS family members whose lives have been affected, stay safe, stay in touch, and know we are all here holding you close (and dry) in our hearts.

Mother Nature: The Equal Opportunity Destroyer

Frightening.  Destructive.  Intense.  Nerve rattling.  Humbling.

Most of all, that last one.

It is not a stretch to say the world was watching as the aptly named "Frankenstorm" charged up and onto the east coast over the past 36 hours.  While Sandy is no longer a hurricane, her destructive power travels on further inland affecting states as far west as Indiana and Michigan.  Fierce winds still blow from Georgia up to Canada.

A natural event of such magnitude - when so many individually disruptive facets come together - is rare.  And all one can do is get out of the way.

Yes, prayer is helpful in that it may provide a sense of peace, but do it while insuring you are as far out of harm's way as possible.  Because prayer cannot keep the waters from climbing the stairs of your house, the 100 year old tree from falling through it, or the tides from sweeping you away while you asshattedly decide to take a picture up close.

Watching the reports all day and into the night yesterday, and then matching them up with the FB posts of DGMSers, friends, and family in the line of fire made for a restless day and night.  Winds, power outages, torrential rains - all being updated in real time - I hope you all know how the hearts, minds, love, and prayers of this blogmunity were, and are, with you.

As the light began to come up today, the full level of damage, destruction, and yes, death are beginning to be quantified.  

7 million without power and heat.  Subways flooded four feet deep in NYC.  An estimated 50 homes simply gone after a fire swept through in New Jersey.  Thousands in danger as a dam/levee broke in New Jersey, forcing many to their roofs to await rescue.  NYU Medical Center lost power and their backup failed, threatening the lives of 200 patients, including the infants in the NICU - several on respirators that failed, leading heroic nurses to use manual pumps to keep them alive and breathing.  Flood damage so widespread that the dollar estimate cannot even be fathomed right now.  And sadly, 16 deaths currently being reported. 

A state by state rundown of currently known damage and death may be found HERE.

In reading through it, two things come through loud and clear - many are hurting today, and Mother Nature does not discriminate.  She is an equal opportunity destroyer.

To that end - regardless of your political affiliation, regardless of what your yard sign said before it was swept away, regardless of how you may feel about the government - I encourage you all, if your life has been swept asunder by this storm and FEMA aid is made available to you, avail yourselves of it.

It doesn't make you weak.  It doesn't mean you are suddenly part of some bullshit notion of a "nanny state."  It doesn't mean you suddenly like the man in the White House. 

It simply means there is a mechanism in place to HELP YOU.

Rudy and I have been there.  In fact, we are STILL there.  We still make our monthly payment on our FEMA loan from when a hurricane swept everything from our lives and we had to start all over with only the clothes on our back and the infant in our arms.  I am grateful everyday that there is a system in place that allowed us to borrow money at a miniscule interest rate so we could begin moving forward to rebuild our lives.

The danger is not over.  The water is still deep.  The rains are still coming down.  The power lines lay, or float, in the streets.

Please, all our friends and DGMS family members whose lives have been affected, stay safe, stay in touch, and know we are all here holding you close (and dry) in our hearts.

Honor Is Stronger Than A Hurricane

While the east coast hunkers down to ride out the winds, rain, potential snow, power outages, and flooding, there are some who will quietly go about their business, unwillingly to be bested by a set of natural forces.

The Honor Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

24 hours a day, 365 days a year - rain, snow, sleet, hail, or beautiful sunny day - they are there, honoring those who represent sacrifice for country.

Keep them in your thoughts as they illustrate to all that while honor may be tested, it cannot be bested by Mother Nature.

It's Lisa's Day, Too!

Birthday Greetings For Audrey!

Meatloaf: It's What's For Dinner (If You Want To Barf)

It's Tracy D's Day!

M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-IDIOT

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

Obviously some people have never gotten that memo.

Meet Janis Lane, president of the Mississippi Tea Party.

Janis is an oldish woman, at least according to the bright red lipstick and hair helmet she is wearing.  And that's a spiffy little cardigan, too.

But in every other way, she is a neanderthal.  A candidate for knuckle dragging throwback or Tealiban grand poobah.

In an interview she gave last week, the conversation turned to women and voting.  It was then that she dropped this wonderful little butt nugget:

"Our country might have been better off if it was still just men voting. There is nothing worse than a bunch of mean, hateful women. They are diabolical in how they can skewer a person."

Let that marinate in your cerebellic crock pot for a moment. 

Janis, I know something worse than a bunch of "mean, hateful women."  Ignorance.  And as evidenced in your astro turf movement and its crabgrass big brother, the GOP,  it comes in singles, packs of six, convenient travel sizes, and grosses.

The offensive nature of your statement is hard to begin to explain.  But we could start with the suffragettes who fought for your right to vote.

Perhaps, Janis, stupidity being en vogue in your movement and all, you are unfamiliar with the "Night of Terror," November 14, 1917?  Here's an overview:

Forty-four club-wielding men beat, kicked, dragged and choked their charges, which included at least one 73-year-old woman. Women were lifted into the air and flung to the ground. One was stabbed between the eyes with the broken staff of her banner. Lucy Burns was handcuffed to the bars of her cell in a torturous position. Women were dragged by guards twisting their arms and hurled into concrete “punishment cells.”

All because they dared to stand up and demand an equal say in their government.  They were not hateful or mean.  I'd say those descriptors are owned by the men who treated them with such disdain, dismissal, and on that night, such brutality. 

All because women then knew what women, well most women, know today - we are smart.  Just as smart as men.  We are worthy.  Just as worthy as men.  We are citizens of this country.  Just as much as any male born or legalized here. 

Let's also look at your word: diabolical.

Definition: of, relating to, or characteristic of the devil

Can women be sneaky?  Snarky?  Defensive?  Aggressive?  Absolutely.  But take a look around, Janis.  "Diabolical" is a descriptor that fits HUMAN BEINGS, not just one gender.  Warmongers, Al Quada, 9/11 attackers, the Unibomber, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, Jim Jones, Son of Sam, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Mao Tse-tung, Joseph Goebbels, Kim Jong-il, Hitler, Stalin, Atilla the Hun, Genghis Khan, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, the list of famed diabolical male figures is long and stained red with the blood of their victims. 

But one does not need to go famous to find diabolical behavior among the male gender.  Male rapists ring a bell?  How about the dad who took a hatchet to his sons and then set his house ablaze a few months back?  The deranged divorced man who cannot let go, instead choosing to terrorize the woman who simply wants OUT?  The boyfriend who beats the one year old of the girlfriend?  The stalker who imprisons a woman in a vault of constant fear?  The sociopath who grabs a barrista on her way to work?  The man who throws his wife agsinst the wall because his shirt isn't pressed just-so or his dinner is overcooked?  Or how about the legislators looking to crawl into my womb and strip all decision making power from me? 

They aren't diabolical?

Here's the bottom line, Janis.  You're an idiot.  Plain and simple.  No bells and whistles.  No sugar coating it, or shaking my head and writing you off with, "Bless your heart."  (southern code for "You're an idiot.") You are a personal affront to all women who know their history, know their worth, and know that you and your likeminded companions are all full of shit and on the wrong side of history.

Oh, and I already voted.  So kiss my liberated, hateful, mean, diabolical ass.