The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks!

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There was a time when kids looked forward to the four most important days of the year - Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July, and Halloween. Conservative bucketheads didn’t kvetch about people stealing Christmas right out from under their holier than thou noses. Everyone, regardless of religion, enjoyed a nice secular Easter egg hunt and joyfully biting the ears off a chocolate bunny. Citizens and immigrants, legal or illegal, enjoyed some fireworks and a hot dog. And finally, Halloween was never an occasion for a nutcase to stop burning Harry Potter books long enough to condemn Halloween as some communist, satanic soirée.

Oh, the times - how they’ve changed.

I lived in a neighborhood where 8 and 9-year old kids could wander around in the dark, unattended, wearing dark costumes soaked in toxins and impregnated with highly flammable materials. There was no Halloween Superstore because there was no mall to put it in. If you didn’t buy your costume at Woolworth’s, you wore a DIY affair. Sheets with jagged eye-holes were popular, as were hobos - happier, better-fed versions of today’s homeless. Back then, hoboism was a lifestyle choice, not a crushing social disease.

No Animatronic Ghouls, Thanks
In those days, the extent of Halloween decoration was a crude jack-o-lantern carved by Mom and a butter knife and costing about a buck if you got rooked at Al’s Market. There were no animatronic ghouls, Las Vegas lighting displays, or professional pumpkin carvers with templates and Henckles’ professional pumpkin knives carving amazing likenesses of Dick Cheney on unlucky gourds. Hell, we even made pumpkin pie out of the innards when we were done.

School day Halloweens were exquisitely lengthy and bereft of any actual learning. They were filled with candy-fueled daydreams and orange and chocolate cupcakes from the school cafeteria. The bell rang and the kids took off like a brace of quail flying in front of an old Republican’s face on a Cheney hunting trip.

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Whether the next person to occupy the White House is woman, minority, or old white man, they’ll face one of the greatest challenges of any President - healing this divided nation.

To be sure, there are immense tactical problems. How do we end Iraq? How do we place ourselves back in a place of honor and respect at the head of the world community? How do we return ourselves to a society that balances security needs and essential individual freedoms rationally and appropriately? Good questions, but it’s the central strategic problem that will be infinitely harder. Our strategic problem will be the foundation for fixing all the others.

How do we get some semblance of true cooperative bipartisanship again?

After all, Iraq and our myriad other problems may be tough, but there are solutions that can work - albeit not spectacularly. But, we’ve become so fractured and stuck to our ideological orbits that little free thought and cooperation exists anymore. Political dogma viciously squashes it at every opportunity. Despite all the jack-jawing, there are precious few leaders who have the courage to take these problems on and lead, but damnably many who prefer to toss problems around for purely personal or political reasons. We live with a wormy apple of a Congress that can’t be trusted to handle the simplest tasks. We’re saddled by a President who is clearly divorced from reality. And, we have an electorate that is functionally illiterate in the processes and workings of government much less the having the intellectual capacity to elect people to do the difficult jobs at hand.

For most of my voting life candidates have been a pretty pitiful lot. I’ve held my nose tightly or loosely - depending on the stench they raise as a group - and picked the lesser of infinite evils. Certainly not the preferred method to choose someone to fill a job so important, but the best I could do with what I had to choose from. In years past, this method worked after a fashion. Many of the Stinkweed Presidential Generation were bad, but not so bad as to push the nation to the verge of collapse. That’s no longer true.

It seems our current crop of candidates is glaringly sub-par to even their piss-poor competitors from earlier generations. Not a single one of them has the intelligence, courage to lead, or absence of hubris it will take to make this country work again. It’s enough to make one long for a Warren G. Harding to come along. He may have sucked hind-tit as a leader, but at least he provided a little comic relief as he tip-toed around Teapot Dome.

I suppose the republic will survive. It always has before. How many countries could weather both a revolution and a Civil War and still be as successful? How many other countries could enter and lead two World Wars and not only prevail, but help the entire world emerge from those awful shadows? We are a nation that’s been very fortunate to have had extraordinarily talented and respected leaders in our history - though clearly not lately. Their determination and creativity is what cemented the successes we still enjoy, but the time has come where we can no longer ride their revered coattails. It’s time we stood up for ourselves, rolled up our sleeves, and tried to pull ourselves through the mess we’re in. I take comfort in the fact we’ve pulled off those types of miracles before, but I’m infinitely confident that we don’t have any Washingtons, Jeffersons, or Lincolns among the Rudies, Hillaries, Baraks, and Freds.

Where is a true leader when you need one?

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Yeah? Well, Women Aren’t So Hot Either - But now that I think about it, it might just be a little true.

Locomotive Whimsy - It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a bike! WTF?!

Oooo! Sexy! - Sometimes a moose just has to do what a moose has to do.

He’s No Harry - Are you sure this wasn’t a dunce cap?

Lose 35 Lbs. in 12 Hours.! - This must be some sort of Elvis diet.

Chef Boy-ar-dee He Ain’t - It’s made with handmade pasta noodles and a delightful tomato sauce.

There’s Nothing Like a Quiet Stroll in the Country - I think the Japanese have confused hiking with rock climbing.

Big Dicks Rising All Over - I hear this is perfect for preparing old Republican campaign donor meat. If you use it, it hardly tastes gamy at all.

Ones That Didn’t Get Away - OK honey, you can go, but I’m not cleaning the damn things when you get them home.

So Soft and Silky - The soy sauce makes all the difference.

Sunday Sermon - It’s only funny when Baptists tell it.

Hah! Take That You Mackerel Snapper! - Next year, he’s going for the Nathan’s hot dog eating crown.

Swiffer Makes the Whole Thing Easier - The Chinese introduce their newest cleanliness technology.

Now All They Need is the Blue Dress - Illuminating the Lewinsky/Clinton affair.

As Freddie Mercury Turns in His Grave - Waxing rhapsodic down at the frat house.

I Love the 80s! - Wait until VH1 gets a look at this.

Compact, Hands-Free, and . . . Let’s Just Say, “Effective” - Sign up now to participate in the beta test. (H/T to Tits McGee)

We Report, You Decide - Personally, I thought they all looked like Britney Spears.

They’re So Colorful and Sexy! - How come they don’t market them like this in the US of A?

“Ah Pity Da Poor Fool” - I could see the Mr. T/Giuliani resemblance immediately.

Ouch! - Followers of Emperor God Dubya show their devotion.

Rocky and Not Bullwinkle - This guy’s always horsing around like he’s Fearless Leader.

 

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