We Love You Lucy

Thank you for all your 18 years!
We know you had a good life with family that loved you
and the best people/cat mama there is!

ah, more light reading....by Paul Krugman

November 10, 2010, 1:43 PM
The Conscience of a Liberal
From the New York Time Opinion Page

Unserious People
OK, let’s say goodbye to the deficit commission. If you’re sincerely worried about the US fiscal future — and there’s good reason to be — you don’t propose a plan that involves large cuts in income taxes. Even if those cuts are offset by supposed elimination of tax breaks elsewhere, balancing the budget is hard enough without giving out a lot of goodies — goodies that fairly obviously, even without having the details, would go largely to the very affluent.

I mean, what’s this about? There is no — zero — evidence that income taxes at current rates are an important drag on growth.

Oh, and they’re talking about raising the retirement age, because people live longer — except that the people who really depend on Social Security, those in the bottom half of the distribution, aren’t living much longer. So you’re going to tell janitors to work until they’re 70 because lawyers are living longer than ever.

Still, I guess this is what it takes to get compromise, if by compromise you mean something the center-right and the hard right can agree on.
Paul Krugman

My One Problem with the New and Improved Jon Stewart...

...and an example of why I don't feel I "malign" the other side...
(you have to click off a bunch of adds to get to the video!)

... because for the most part
I think there's no substance or consistency in a majority of their arguments. A lie is a lie. And sheep are sheep. There aren't two sides to every story, there is one truth and many perspectives. It's hard to value the standard right perspective when it is so out of whack.
If anyone wants to have a nationwide conversation about reality, I am there. But I refuse to sit at the table and try to reason with birthers, those who don't believe in climate change, those who think unions are all bad and corporations are all good, those who will never vote for anything that increases taxes one cent, those who think that if the government is involved its bad, those who think democrats are socialists etc etc.
Bill Maher, A COMEDIAN not a newscaster, has some good examples of why its hard to play nice with the other side and give their point of view consideration when it's
often illogical, backward, hyperbolic, ill-informed, under-vetted propaganda.
The right has fed its base endless untruths... Obama taking away guns... Obama killing jobs in the private sector with tax increases...health care will hurt grandma etc etc etc How do you argue with lies? I know there are people who come at the issues from a different philosophical perspective than mine. What I am hearing is not that.
It seems that they have decided to lie or manipulate the truth because it works, time and again. How else do you get the masses to believe that it is in their best interest to defund the EPA and public education and instead put their hopes in the crap shoot that is the charter school system. (Why not work on fixing the public school system to incorporate charter school principles??...that's the kinda debate I'm talking about...) How do you get Americans to vote against people who are fighting for health care for all? or those who want to make college affordable? Jeez. Instead they've somehow convinced many Americans that their freedoms are in jeopardy, that their #1 priority is lowering the deficit and taxes. Always taxes. The very most a middle class American could save in the tax breaks Republicans want couldn't pay for half of the services they will lose.
Truly, the only way they get these folks to vote for them is by scrapping the truth and letting them all connect their not-so-subtle-dots that lead to our country to the fear-fact.... America will completely fall apart. Come on. Nothing Obama is doing is leading to that.
And I'd like to see how very different 2 years of Mc Cain would have been. Even with a completely different economic plan, I can't imagine two years looking that much brighter. No one could. I remember the republicans talking about realistic expectations for the economy in 2008 when they were imagining John Mc Cain winning. They were definitely cautious.
But that's politics right? Wrong.
Right now the most outrageous and contentious and relentless misrepresentations come from the right.
I do not approve when it comes from the left either, by the way. (GOP is not trying to dismantle social security, or is it?, and the deficit has risen considerably since 2008 and Obama does want to lift the taxes on the rich to where they were under Bush Sr. True True True.) I am also sure there are many more misrepresentations, especially during elections. I hate it.

I still assert that most of the maligning seems to be coming squarely from the other side. And our side has to waste valuable time in news hours (to compete and counteract...), in lawsuits (check out the new investigations targeting Obama, reminicent of the Clinton years), in selling and re-selling ideas that people voted on but have been continually encouraged to question (healthcare reform, the existance of climate change, Obama's birthplace etc). Anyway, this video snippet is pretty much how I feel. I am not, however, fond of fat jokes.






NUTMEG

After 3 months of missing Zarina today we were finally ready to look for another kitten.
We are happy to introduce our newest Dreyer kitty.
Nutmeg.
She is very tiny and a bit younger than we wanted. But the dude we got her from just couldn't keep her. So Emmett made her a felt pouch and Mac carries her all over the house.
She cries when Mac leaves the room. She is only just starting to play and is a bit wobbly.
Isn't she cute!

This one from Mom!

Signs

I woulda went with..."socialism: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

But here are some others. Pretty funny. And yes, I realize there are a lot of people out there who are truly suffering and THAT is nothing to laugh about. But tomorrow the democrats are about to lose badly, I fear, and I am sad about it and in the mood to laugh.

San Diego Halloween 2010

Our across-the-street neighbors have the coolest pumpkin window every single year!
Here are ours!




With the Halloween Ball, school and trick-or-treating, the dress-up chest got a work-out.
This year we had a crow girl, deaths bride, jimi hendrix, a flight attendant, a lecherous pilot, a mummy, a skeleton, a rocker, a bobby soxer, a greaser, a nerd and, most hilarious, "gods gift to women" !!






...and the spookiest house on our block! They ripped out their grass to put in a garden
in spring....but in the meantime, a perfect graveyard! (and Sean as a Hawaiin guy too!)

Two Things...

Mac has finally convinced me to rent Glee. She was the only one who hadn't seen it yet. Well, we finished the first 4 episodes and we are hooked, of course.
All that dancing and singing and without anybody getting voted off. Awesome.
I can't even believe I am singing along to Journey and I Want to Sex You Up.
Jeez. It kinda reminds me of a parody of modern day John Hughes movie/musical but even kookier. Really can't believe this one hooked me.


AND...........





Check out Chester. My friend Darrin
has a new puppy and he's fricken adorable.
This is the kind of dog Matt has always
wanted and I never did.
Chester may have changed my mind.
Really. This dog is just ridiculous, is he not?!!!

I hope people VOTE.

(Late night political blogging. Always a mistake, but I can't help it.)
Just saw Obama on Jon Stewart. That man can actually answer a direct question.
God I hope everyone who voted for him votes on Nov. 2nd because the alternative is completely backward and insane. Maybe he's just so well spoken and candid that he has again bewitched me...or maybe I am reminded when he speaks that he is a man who is not only really smart, but is working really hard and getting as much done as he can in every possible direction and is actually accomplishing a lot more than many of us liberals give him credit for. Yes we'd all love a Zinn or Chomsky-like president but the truth is that those kind of men don't want the job and never get elected...nor do those kinds of men have it in them to get the job done because they would refuse to compromise with all the greedy fools, and it would be all-or-nothing and we'd most likely end up with nothing...

Anyway, I think we will be much better off in 2 more years than we ever anticipated 2 years ago. And I just hope that it will be enough to re-elect him in 2012. I would definitely be interested to see what 8 years of Obama would mean for this country. And I think it would take at least that long to undo some of the serious damage caused during the previous presidency.

Check out the article below.

Gene Lyons article from Salon.

good for NY. spread the word.

and check out the working families party website.

Feeling Halloweenie

This kid has always had a kinda
loosey-goosey-kooky-
cool-and-wooly-wildness about him.
He's a bit of a rock star.
And this is his first costume of choice,
worn to the Pre-School Halloween Ball.

Life.

My son isn't a morning person. Actually none of the men in the house are particularly cheerful for a good hour after waking...actively trying to start fights with anyone who crosses their path. It sucks. I don't wake cheery but I am friendly. I am also very busy and, at my worst, if things aren't going my way, I am quiet. But when pushed I am BOSSY and LECTURING. My very worst qualities.
Yes, mornings around here are tough and often start me off feeling like I want to cry. By the time the kids are finally walking out the door to their carpool, I sometimes feel like we are leaving eachother after a fight. I don't like it at all.
But today, Caroline asked "How are you this morning?" and I said "Sucky" and rolled my eyes towards the kids. She laughed and said, "ah, life's rich tapestry." I don't know why but those words just hit me the right way at the perfect moment. Step-back-and-look-around words.
Then she said that it reminded her of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE when the banister knob keeps falling off every time Jimmy Stewart runs down the stairs. I love it that she's an optimist...and I know I am too.
Yes, this life if full of banister knobs falling off right onto your big toe.
But then there are always Zuzu's petals!!
Thank you Caroline!

Atheism and this Article which leads to this book.

Interesting. Haven't read any of the other books of his.
Have heard many things, good and bad about him, but I am all for keeping religion far far away from politics.
check it out the article here.

OK, there has never been a better 4th Birthday Greeting than this...

.....and the ending is SWEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!!

Silas says "Thank you Finley I love you." then to me, " I thank them and love them."
and then "Please could we do BEE-BOP again!"
And then, "That Craigy is always playing that saxophone. He never leaves his cat alone."
Then, "Hey, where's Murray?"

We love you so much East Coasties. You are the coolest of the cool!

Day and Night

It used to be pokemon cards and paper-invented "video games" and comic books and chess and football stats and greek myths and inventions and on and on....
Now it is all about the guitar.
DAY AND NIGHT.
(and a little about football stats;)

Happy Birthday to Our 4 Year Old Boy!!!!

.

one , two , three, and FOUR!




We Love Love Love YOU Silas Loyal Dreyer!!!!




Birthday Quote:
"When I go to preschool they should call me OLD SILAS!"

Get out the tissue! Beautiful!

Someone is almost 4!

And it's not me!!

Check out the SDCCS garden blog

HERE!!<----------