Paraphrased Quote of the Week

“You are the Marilyn Munster in the sitcom of your life.”

–David E. Farré, about me

Calling Madison Avenue

I just thought of a great slogan for “Extreme Makeover.”

Extreme Makeover: We take ordinary women, and turn them into beautiful drag queens!

Funniest sentence ever printed on CNN.com

“Fawcett, 40, was the ‘indispensable’ royal aide said to have regularly squeezed the Prince of Wales’s toothpaste.”

-from a CNN.com story on the incipient royal scandal in Britain, still unreported directly in the British press, where Prince Charles is alleged to have had some special services performed by his valet

Wonderful and amazing

I’ve been pretty down lately. The crappy weather, the lack of work coinciding with my utter lack of enthusiasm for work, and the continuing mess in this country’s head have all contributed. Still, there are aspects of my life that are going amazingly well. One thing I’ve learned is, you should seek out the people and situations that make you smile. That helps a lot. (Those of you out there who do this for me, you know who you are. And thank you.)

So if you’re feeling down, or even if you’re not, one suggestion I have is to bookmark Margaret Cho’s site and return often. She is an amazing writer, but even more importantly, she has a sense of hard-won optimism that is breathtaking. (Another must-read is her “Letter to Todd.”) And boy do we (I) need that right now.

Jeb Bush: Asshat

I hate to use a term that’s probably already trademarked by insane right-wing weblogs, but hey, what’s good for the goose…

Clueless quote of the week

“Is there anybody still in the closet? What is there to be in the closet about any more?”

-Oprah, on a show about “family secrets”

Just as I was writing the previous post, my good friend Becky sent me a link to Nicholas Kristof’s piece in the New York Times, “Hold the Vitriol.” (reg required, sorry) It’s basically about how the left shouldn’t become as strident as the right was during Clinton.

Well, I guess I’ve had a little too much du Toit lately, because I fired off this response to Becky:

Nice thoughts, on the surface. But I don’t agree that the left needs to be less angry. If anything, we need more anger. We’ve always been the ones to back down, the ones to say, “let’s consider all sides.” Well, look where that got us. When the insane right is out of power, we can afford to be sweet and hug everyone. Until then, well…this is war, and we have to fight it or be snuffed out. Do you know that on weblogs like Dean Esmay’s, they’re talking about what will happen eventually when the Democratic Party doesn’t exist? The left isn’t who made this country polarized – it was the right pushing and pushing and pushing, because they saw they could.

And if he’s saying the left needs to be more religious, that’s bunk. If anything, we should be talking about how religious agnostics are better for religion in general, because we want everyone to be able to practice whatever they want, and we’re not trying to shove the Ten Commandments down other people’s throats.

I probably was too harsh in the moment, but I stand by every word I said there.

UPDATE: I was being mild. Atrios’ comment on the Kristof piece: “Hey, Nick Kristof – blow me.”

A serious question

Does anyone know any right-wing weblogs that aren’t the online equivalent of poison? My usual diet of Dean Esmay, Andrea Harris, and Kim and Connie du Toit has left me nauseated of late, especially swimming though the backwash of Kim’s latest rant. I need to take an indeterminate break from these people.

I’d actually like to read someone thoughtful on the other side of the spectrum who doesn’t make me want to urp. Any suggestions would be welcome.

George Soros, Hero (via Smirking Chimp)

The best line comes right at the end:

Asked whether he would trade his $US7 billion fortune to unseat the President, Mr Soros opened his mouth. Then he closed it. He wrinkled his brow. The proposal hung in the air: Would he become poor to beat Mr Bush?

“If someone guaranteed it,” he said.

Questions I would love to ask the right-wingers, if by some miracle they would listen to me:

How much should we control the creation of the new Iraqi government? Should we only allow it if it’s the kind of government *we* want there? What if the populace would vote for, say, a fundamentalist Muslim theocracy? Do we stamp that out and tell them to try again?

For better or worse, we’re in charge in Iraq. So we have to answer these (and many more) questions. Right about now, please.