Emperor Augustus (63 BCE – 14 CE). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There is no question that the marriages have been around since one could recall the beginning of time. However, it was under Emperor Augustus when marriage became more of a… ” legal institution”. 

Restoring Truthiness

Restoring Truthiness

TV2-teamet med Nils Gunnar Lie (Photo credit: aktivioslo)

1. For the Love of Everything Holy, Stop Telling Me How to Make Bombs

Stop telling me how easy it is to make a bomb. I spent the afternoon of the Boston Marathon bombing in L.A. traffic, screaming at my radio as they told me just how easily I could make my very own explosive or incendiary device.

“From what we are understanding, the bomb was a simple device made from everyday items you might find in your own kitchen.  All you need is ____________, ___________ and a little ____________. The instructions for it can be found very easily with a simple Google search of ____________.”

All you have to say is, “The bomb was made with household materials–frightening, right guys?” You don’t need to break it down for me. While you’re telling me this, some bearded lunatic is in his underwear, covered in Nutella, running around his trailer while talking to a volleyball–”Honey, where’s a pen!? NPR is givin’ recipes!”

2. If You Don’t Know What’s Happening, Shut Up

Helpful Information: Two bombs detonated at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Two fatalities reported; at least two dozen injured.

Less Helpful: Terrorists probably exploded a bomb in Boston; at least two dead, it could be 100, who knows. Also, JFK Library probably got blown up. Reports coming in of Osama Bin Laden’s ghost shoplifting at a South Boston grocery store. He reportedly paid for several items but ate several string cheeses while shopping and shoved the wrappers in his ghost pocket without paying for them. BREAKING NEWS: John King reports that the FBI has Osama Bin Laden’s ghost in custody and it was seven string cheeses.

3. Don’t Tell Me the Name of the Person Who Did it, and Stop Calling Him a Lone Wolf  

“There is a good chance that this is a lone wolf we are dealing with” -CNN. Lone wolf? What is he, a fuckin’ superhero? Some asshole who owns a pressure cooker isn’t an X-man, he’s a douche bag.

Also, I have a limited amount of space in my brain and I like to pack that space with valuable things like the time I was 10 years old and went to a sleepover where they were watching the movie Porky’s and I started crying, called my mom and asked her to pick me up because the movie they were watching wasn’t appropriate for me. I also like to keep my brain filled with the fantasy I have of my mom calling me a punk ass bitch and hanging up the phone. These are important things to keep in my brain.

But once they capture or identify the person who shoots up an elementary school or blows up a federal building or kills spectators at a public event, I don’t want to know his name– ever. I want him or her to be forgotten forever. I want the history books scrubbed of their disease and I certainly do not want one single inch of psychic real estate occupied by a coward’s legacy. And finally…

4. Instead of Telling Me About People Who Went On Killing Sprees, Try Telling Me About People Who Go On Living Sprees

I would love to have my regularly scheduled programming interrupted with “BREAKING NEWS: At 9 PM EST, 33-year-old Kenneth Jordan of Jacksonville, Florida was making brownies when he realized he just wanted the batter, so in an unprecedented action, he sat in his living room in his pajamas and ate brownie batter out of a mixing bowl with a big wooden spoon and watched Annie Hall. According to reports, the man then decided to call his estranged father just to tell him he loved him. Finally, the man walked into his front yard, laid down in the grass and spent two hours staring at the stars and inventing his own constellations. Reports are still sketchy, but we have at least three of the constellation’s names: Ken’s Big Ol’ Soup Ladle, Jimi Hendrix and Ken’s Dick.

From what we are understanding, the brownie batter was a simple recipe made from everyday items you might find in your own kitchen.”

Bill Dixon is a comedy writer residing in Los Angeles. You can follow him on Twitter @BillDixonish

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• 10 Boston Marathon Bombing Rumors That Need to Be Stopped Immediately(thestir.cafemom.com)

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• ‘Castle’ Bomb-Themed Episode Rescheduled Due to Boston Marathon Tragedy(buddytv.com)

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Restoring Truthiness

There is so much news from the LGBT community these days.  But first, the news you don’t hear about. The the war between Gays and Queers.  It’s kinda like the war between Vampires and Lycans. It’s going on underneath the surface but you’d never know.  And since there’s no Q in LGBT, I guess that means they’ve lost this round.

Oh, and Anne Hathaway can sing! Not so good that someone would book Carnegie Hall and lend their grammy winning voice for a tribute concert but still, she can sing.  So how about this — James Franco, who gave one of the most memorable on-screen kisses as Harvey Milk’s lover, in that it was the first kiss by straight men playing gay men on the silver screen since gay men played straight men ( and taught them how to talk the pillow talk) and Anne Hathaway together in a sequel to Oz the Great and Powerful.  That’s right, Anne as  Dorothy! That would seal her in the hearts of gay men forever. As number two, but still, it would be forever!

Hmm, what else. Oh, the cover of Time magazine is two men kissing. And, let’s see. Everyone in America now loves Will and Grace and believes William Truman is adorable. It’s almost like Eric McCormack has done for gays what Sidney Portier did for African Americans in that he’s just so sweet and caring that it’s hard to imagine him having sexual relations with someone in your family. I mean there was no way America would lynch Sydney Portier, just like there’s no way America would put Eric McCormack in jail like Michael Hardwick and  John Lawrence.

Hmm.  I’m forgetting something. OMG! SCOTUS! The Supreme Court of the United States.  They held a hearing on marriage rights for gay couples. And they said silly things like, “gay marriage is newer than cell phones,” and “why is taking this case now, the answer?” (I mean if you consider that the messenger boys for the Greek generals were kind of like the first cell phones .. I mean they did send text messages … then it’s kind of a chicken and egg question. ) But I think they’re reasoning goes like this.  In 1960, every state in the union had “anti sodomy” laws.  (Hey, we didn’t want God to do to us what we could do to ourselves with our own nuclear weapons.)  And the Stonewall riot that President Obama mentioned in his State of the Union message, well that happened in 1969 when police still felt it was their civid duty to bash gays with actual clubs and jail them.

So the court was wondering if things are moving too fast. You see, some court observers believe that perhaps the Supreme Court moved too quickly in Hardwic v Bowers when Justice Byron White asked ,  “whether the Federal Constitution confers a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy.”  Which is a lot different than asking if they have the right to be left alone in the privacy of their bedrooms.  And Justice Lewis Powell at the time said that he didn’t know any gay people because he didn’t know his own court clerk was gay. (It’s like those robes affect their gaydar or something.) Powell later regretted his decision, and the court simply Dreds, (great Scott, my spelling), I mean dreads a bad decision.

The Court may reason this, “Hey, just because the first (openly) Black President gives a shout out  in his inaugural address to the Stonewall  in the same sentence with Selma doesn’t mean we have to break with the traditions that made it once acceptable to bash Black or Gay heads because they were, well, Black or Gay. Think of it this way, Loving v Virginia, that struck down interracial marriages, wasn’t decided until 1967, years after Barack Obama’s parent’s were married.  For all we know, one of the children of same sex couples in California might become the first President, before, before the Supreme Court agrees that the child’s parents have a right to be a married.

If the court strikes down California’s retroactive ban on same sex marriages before the first child of gay parents to become president is born, that would put them ahead of the curve so to speak. When you get ahead of the curve, you risk a strike or a foul. The court likes to wait until it so obvious to everyone else that it would be deemed political if they didn’t go along. In other words, the worst they could do is ground out to first and go through the motions of running to the base to get tagged out. It’s not like the court is gonna knock one out of the park.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowers_v._Hardwick http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/supreme_court_dispatches/2012/10/the_supreme_court_s_terrible_decision_in_bowers_v_hardwick_was_a_product.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas

Restoring Truthiness

Jeff Rense, conspiracy theorist and Aqua Net stockholder

If you can’t face them, tweet about them. That seems to be motto of the liberal superPAC Progress Kentucky. For months, Progress Kentucky has been attacking McConnell and holding demonstrations at his offices and home, according to NPR member station WFPL. And when that didn’t work, they dug deep in to the freakish hellscape of Paula Dean’s illegitimate son’s online conspiracy rantings.

Jeff Rense, a dead ringer for a Geraldo Rivera/Paula Dean “If They Mated”, is an American conspiracy theorist and radio talk-show host of the Jeff Rense Program. He believes that McConnell’s wife, former Labor Secretary under George W. Bush, is a public enemy and that she has discriminated against American workers during her tenure.

Why does he say this? Because she said the following in a Parade Magazine interview back in 2007:

“American employees must be punctual, dress appropriately and have good personal hygiene… They need anger-management and conflict-resolution skills, and they have to be able to accept direction. Too many young people bristle when a supervisor asks them to do something.”

First… WTF, Chao?

Second, it’s easy to be punctual when you live in an “apartment” that’s just a hop, skip, and jump-off-the-eighth-floor-into-security-net distance away from your workstation.

But I digress.

So people say stupid things during interviews. Really stupid things. And when they do, they should be taken to task for their remarks.

But Progress Kentucky looked past all that twisted logic of hers and looked directly at her heritage.

In one tweet, Progress Kentucky stated:

“This woman has the ear of (Sen. McConnell)—she’s his wife. May explain why your job moved to China!”

The tweet included a link to the page on Rense’s website with Chao’s comments above and the serious allegation that Chao is a public enemy.

Progress Kentucky claims the tweets are not official statements and that they are just tweets. So no biggie. You know, Twitter is just an international venue for disseminating information to masses of people. Why would anyone care what was said about them on Twitter?

Progress Kentucky claims that these tweets are meant to show how Chinese interests influence McConnell’s decision-making.

The superPAC questions McConnell’s patriotism in part due to the fact that the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao publicly thanked James Chao, Elaine’s father and Jiabao’s former college buddy, for “Chao’s continuous efforts over years on supporting the Chinese shipbuilding industry as well as the Chinese shipping industry.”

Chao and his family also gave $80,000 to the Kentucky Republican Party, which is, of course, a direct implication that McConnell is a communist who has been seduced to do China’s bidding by the vixen Chao. Right? Or did I read that one wrong?

In a blog post on their website, Shawn Reilly, executive director of Progress Kentucky, stated:

“When the Premier of China publicly thanks an industrialist for his role in developing Chinese industry, then that industrialist and his family contribute $80,000 to the Kentucky Republican Party, it is fair to question whether McConnell is selling out the middle class of America.”

They also link to a Kentucky.com article that says that McConnell “has received more than $200,000 from Chinese-Americans outside Kentucky, not all of it legal,” and claims that “most of it originat(es) with Chao’s connections.”

Illegal campaign contributions?! Say it ain’t so!

Look, Progress Kentucky, if you want to make allegations that McConnell is a pawn for the Chinese government (which could be entirely possible), then present FACTS that are not merely a guilt-by-association/six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon type argument. Sensible people will see right through it and you just make yourself look like an ass (no pun intended).

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• Liberal Kentucky Super PAC Attacks Mitch McConnell’s ‘Chinese’ Wife(nationalreview.com)

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• Liberal PAC Attacks Sen. Mitch McConnell’s Asian Wife: ‘May Explain Why Your Job Moved To China!’(mediaite.com)

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Restoring Truthiness

The government is here for you. They are asking for your trust regarding the sharing of your personal cyber information. You know, they want you to stand in front of them, cross your arms, close your eyes, and fall backwards. They will totally catch you.

Okay, maybe they’re not “asking” but rather “forcing” you to comply with their new Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). So in essence they are asking you to stand in front of them, cross your arms, close your eyes and fall backwards while they argue over who’s going to mop up your remains after you hit the floor. How could you not be for this?

Why wouldn’t you trust the same politicians that find fracking fluid to be a wonderful after dinner drink? Or that find gathering at a former slave plantation to discuss their minority outreach efforts to be completely reasonable. Or that find Mother Nature only destroys communities that aren’t, you know, theirs.

They are soooo smart and, therefore, they would make for great protectors of our privacy rights! Come now, all they want to do is “investigate cyber threats and ensure the security of networks against cyberattack”. What could go wrong?

All Congressman Mike Rogers (R-MI) proposes is a bill that “contains too few limits on how and when the government may monitor a private individual’s Internet browsing information”. That sounds fantastic, right?

And the House Select Committee on Intelligence just wants a legal framework to create “new powers [that] could be used to spy on the general public rather than to pursue malicious hackers”. No biggie.

The bill explicitly states that it is designed “To provide for the sharing of certain cyber threat intelligence and cyber threat information between the intelligence community and cybersecurity entities, and for other purposes.”

Yeah, for other purposes. Like… um… maybe… oh, I don’t know… “other purposes”. Yeah whatever, right? Who cares if they don’t explicitly define what “other purposes” mean? ‘Cause, you know, they’re only going to use this info for like… um… maybe… oh, I don’t know… “other purposes”. [Competitive Enterprise Institute]

And really, why would over eight hundred private companies including Verizon, Google and Facebook (who are known for their stances on privacy) support such a bill? It’s obvious they trust their politicians. Why shouldn’t we?

Gosh, maybe I’ve drunk way too much fracking fluid, but this CISPA bill sounds like a winner.

NOTE: Are you wondering what a trust fall is? Check out this video:

Video: Top 8 trust falls turned epic fall fails

Restoring Truthiness

Annie woke up one morning with a start, a sense of foreboding, downright dread. She realized she was in danger. She had been living without “protection.” We are of course talking about her constitutionally enshrined right to “protection.”

I mean really, every woman should have a right to “protection,” right? What would she do if a man entered? An unwanted man, maybe one who seemed nice at the bar door, but once “in the house” decided he owned it, if you know what I mean. And he was going to make himself at home or else rearrange the “furniture” to his liking.

Maybe he seemed nice at dinner, but after watching him with a steak knife, well, it’s enough to make you go vegan.

So she made her mind up, she was gonna get some protection. And ain’t that her right? I mean, we’re not talking about some theoretical “right to privacy.” There’s no actual amendment that says the government doesn’t have any business in your business, but when it comes to protection, it’s right there in it’s own Second Amendment. Okay, maybe it don’t say “protection”. Potato, po-tah-to.

So she went on down to the local shop thinkin’ she could walk away with some protection. But they told her, “Maybe you want to think about this, you might change your mind.”

“You know,” they continued, “you might cock block a man with that kind of protection.”

“That’s exactly why I want it!” she replied. “It’s ’cause you can cock block a man with this protection that I want it, even from a hundred paces if yer good.”

“How the hell???” thought the merchant.

“Are you sure you know how to use these things? Maybe we should look into your ‘background’ or make sure you’re ‘well trained’ as the saying goes,” they told her.

“This is such a big decision,” they explained. “If you use that protection, someone might not be alive afterwards.”

Annie looked ‘em square in the eye and said, “I believe I still have the personal right in these free United States to make that decision.”

Annie had had enough of these yokels who were standing in the way of her ability to protect herself. So she stormed out the shop and headed straight to the one place where she was certain to find the protection she needed. The local “protection” show.

So in the end, Annie road off into the sunset with her “protection” in hand thanks to that good ole Constitution. If only that Constitution could guarantee our rights to a few more things, Annie wouldn’t have to deal with morons anymore.

–Hank (Rootin’ Tootin’) Griffin

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Restoring Truthiness

GOP: The Road Not Taken

Many people are quite familiar with the poem, The Road Not Taken, written by the great Robert Frost. I myself have heard it quoted many times.

Yet many only truly know the last lines, which read “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference.”

Now many of you whom are reading this article are already wondering, now what in the heck are you giving me a poetry lesson about a poem that has only three good sentences(uhh …Really ??…anyway), get back to politics…To that I say bear with me for a moment I have a conjoining point.

Still reading? Great (my temperamental friend); if you examine the poem a little more closely or moreover read the whole thing yourself (don’t worry it’s not that long). You will discover the phrase prior to the last three, where Frost states, “I shall tell you with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence.” (I hear you yelling…something about again what the heck and politics…pipe down my red faced friend from Butcher Holler, KY).

How does this apply to politics today you say…(well did you? Dont worry I’ll wait… ok never mind I will say it)…I most recently read a Politico article entitled the Behind Closed Doors, the GOP Tries to Find Its Way. This got me to thinking of the aforementioned poem (ahhhh some of you are getting it, although some of you are still looking at the page with great vexation…uhhh, think a little harder, come on you can do it).

The Funny thing is as many times as I have heard the last lines of The Road Not Taken, repeated it was not until lately that I had actually gone out and bothered to read the whole thing (shhhh, let’s keep that on the low) what makes the difference in the interpretation is the lines prior to the last three. Many people who re quote that section often do so with a happy vocal tone; but under further examination you will notice that Frost never truly implied whether or not his choice bore positive fruit. Frost only states that his choice made a difference (using the word all the difference, as if to say that it was great in magnitude to how his life turned out.)

Now how does this apply to the journey that the GOP has now unwillingly undertaken? The GOP has taken a road less traveled by; their constant agenda is simple to oppose whatever the President does and/ or tries to do. This  “road” if you will had not more or less promise than the other one which was traveled a little more often than not ( to work, agree to disagree, and come together to create a better solution for our economic upsets).

In-other- words the GOP has taken the road less traveled and it has made all of the difference…but the question is was this choice a good one? And are they locked into this cycle of doom and gloom because they have traveled to far and too long to turn back now?

We will have to wait and see…I leave you with these words from my late grandmother, she said, “ My dear, you have made a bad choice to turn what could have been a friend into a foe and that has changed your life forever…the good news is, you have the intelligent to admit it, humble yourself, and make amends!” Good one grams!

Restoring Truthiness

 Well, the election is over and everyone has moved on. The Republicans are evaluating their election strategy while learning to accept they will have to negotiate with the President in order to accomplish the nation’s business.  Feminist writer Naomi Wolf has a new biography … of sorts.  It’s not so much about her as about her (OK look, we’re all grown ups here, I can’t write this article without saying it) vagina. Her Vagina, A New Biography is a tragic story of a loss and ultimate (and I do mean ultimate) redemption of a vagina and the woman who’s brain it is connected to. Naomi was inspired to write this book when she stopped having “technicolor orgasms,” and began a journey into the medical and spiritual reasons for her condition.

Of course, I was amazed to learn this because, based on what I see women reading in the cafes, their orgasms came in fifty shades of gray. I would hold up my copy of Vagina and say with a wink, “You know, that can all happen in technicolor,” usually to the reply, “creep.”

First, an explanation. When Naomi speaks of the vagina, she means the whole shebang (Oh double entendre, how often have you had to throw a drink in my face to remind me of your presence?),  from the labia, clitoris, introitus, and to the mouth of the cervix. I’m just a guy, and I didn’t know what half of these things were.  It’s all a bit simpler for me.  Two thirds of my parts seem to have no use at all, except perhaps as an antidote for a drunken stupor and whatever it was I said that caused such an accurate and swift knee-jerk reaction.

Naomi says that “your brain is connected to your vagina,” in fact, she coined the term “vagina-brain connection” (which makes me wonder what’s on that coin that’s supposed to cure the deficit). I think she means a woman’s brain but I find that mine is similarly connected.  In a man, there is definitely a brain-penis connection, or rather, a penis-brain connection — the nerves run in the other direction.  Naomi has made me hopeful that these connections can lead to a ‘meeting of the minds,’ as it were.

Author Naomi Wolf contemplating the mind-vagina connection. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Wolf notes that she’s focusing primarily on the “exploration of heterosexual women’s physical and emotional interactions with men,” and suggests that “the physiology of lesbian and bisexual eros” and the “lesbian and bisexual mind-body connection” deserve “books of their own.” I’m wondering if those will also be biography’s or perhaps fantasy or science fiction.

What Naomi discovered from an extensive examination is that a nerve in her pelvis was pinched. Her brain-vagina connection was nearly severed! She elected to have a 14 inch plate inserted in her back. After recuperating, redemption!  She finds “delight” with herself once more, colors are “heightened,” “connections” reverberate, and her postcoital chattiness is back.

Naomi concludes that “a woman is her vagina,” which is what I’ve been saying for years, but often in slang terms. It’s such a beautiful story, but it leaves me with trepidation.  I asked my love recently, … “Honey, was it in “technicolor?”  Did you see “showers of stars?” No?

Well, I pleaded, maybe it’s not me. Perhaps you need a 14 inch steel plate inserted into your back, that’s what one woman did. In her revulsion, she didn’t wait to let me explain –wait, it’s all right here in Vagina! Even so, the book has inspired me to write a biography of my own. I’m working on the title:

• Penis Wars – If you only knew the power of the force … I must obey
• The Penis Monologues, Just shut up while I do the talking
• Moby Penis, Obsessive Search for a Whale

Restoring Truthiness

This was written before President Obama released his list of “executive actions” on gun control to be approved by Congress.  Now that we know the vitriolic reaction to that, we can add to the list, “Refusing to recognize the authority of the central government!

The cartoon is one “The Huffington Post” refused to run, because heaven forbid they host a real discussion.

Restoring Truthiness