LEAVE IT TO PEEVER
The truth will set you free.
— Bumper sticker of
the week: IÕm against the death penalty. Look what happened to Jesus.
— Quotes of the week:
ÒI got my first full-time job, but itÕs weird. I could swear I was making more
money in college, working for my parents as their daughter.Ó Melanie Reno
ÒWhen weÕre unemployed, weÕre called lazy. When the whites
are unemployed, itÕs called a depression.Ó Jesse Jackson
— You canÕt be all
that you can be if youÕre dead. War kills young men and woman and ends the
dream.
— Decency: I learned
about decency from my father. Respect everyone. Hold the door for anyone older
than yourself. Pay attention to character, not color. Try to help people out.
Keep your head up and say hello to everyone. While I ended up being much more
liberal than he, and definitely have walked a different road, I feel good about
having learned some of the basics about being a human being from my father.
— My first
post-election skirmish: It was on a casual shopping trip in downtown Hot
Springs, Arkansas. A lady who owned one of the shops was talking to a guy out
on the sidewalk. She was saying how terrible it was that the Democrats won
everything, and how the liberals were going to let all the child molesters out
of prison. So much for my pledge to stay calm and not rub in our victory. I
said, Lady, if youÕre going to talk about politics and liberals and Democrats,
at least make sense. I reminded her that the last time we had let a child
molester out of prison, he turned Republican, got elected to Congress, and
molested the White House pages. Somehow, I donÕt think I made her day.
— What is Òthe
truthÓ: More and more IÕm thinking that Òthe truthÓ is nothing more than our
minds trying to find some certainty in this uncertain world. ÒThe truthÓ never
transfers very easily from one person to the next. It usually takes a little
persuading, often by force, some stretching of the facts, and countless
repetition of the story, to establish a Òtruth.Ó Still, there are some things
that are hard to refute:
¥ You wake up in the
morning, youÕre eventually going to take a dump.
¥ If two men are talking,
sex will eventually enter the conversation.
¥ You cannot make a profit
without cheating someone.
¥ A politician will never
answer a question directly.
¥ Anyone claiming to know
Òthe truthÓ is probably selling something.
¥ ÒThe truth is plain to
seeÓ was the motto of Neanderthal man.
¥ Truth is not in the eye
of the beholder, itÕs in his or her mind.
¥ ÒThe truth will set you
freeÓ has resulted in a lot of dead people.
— I should have been
a city manger. I could have easily done nothing for $110,000, plus benefits. In
fact, IÕm pretty sure I would have been really good at it.
— For all the good
leadership weÕre led to believe we have, Galesburg and Knox County are in one
hell of a mess. SomeoneÕs pulling someoneÕs leg.
— The Democratic
agenda:
¥ Get out of Iraq and
Afghanistan.
¥ Establish some level of
universal health-care.
¥ Do not renew tax cuts for
the rich.
¥ Raise the minimum wage.
It has not been raised for ten years. Congress has raised their salary seven
times in those ten years.
¥ Equal access to
education. You make the grades, you go to college, guaranteed.
¥ End lobbyist influence
and dramatically lower the allowable contributions by individuals, lobbyists,
special interest groups, etc., to say $100 per year.
¥ Work on a balanced budget
and reducing the national debt.
¥ Make it hard and
unattractive for big business to ship all our jobs overseas.
¥ Promote and finance
alternative energy sources.
¥ Undue everything Bush has
done.
—Happy Thanksgiving.
Republicans and turkeys have not fared very well this year. Oh well.