The Rake Magazine

As soon as I get my teeth back in I'm gonna tell you all what you can do with your pansy anti-war act

The papers and TV are all abuzz today with the startling revelation that cussing (as we used to call it where I grew up) is becoming more and more pervasive.

I became aware of that when my son, who was then three years old, came home from day care one day and greeted me with "Fuck you, Daddy" while I was just innocently sitting there reading the newspaper.

Luckily, I was able to overcome my initial surprise and ignore it. He soon repeated it, "Fuck YOU, Daddy." I ignored it again.

He tried again, with different emphasis, "FUCK you, Daddy." I ignored him again.

He didn't repeat it again within my earshot until we got into an argument about 16 years later.

He's not a stranger to it though. When he was a Senate intern he got to witness Dick Cheney's famous suggestion to Senator Pat Leahy that he "Go fuck yourself."

I guess if one can talk like that on the floor of the "World's Foremost Deliberative Body," one shouldn't be surprised at what the boy learned at day care.

I long for the day when I can meet Mr. Cheney in person. I don't think I'll have quite as much restraint as my son and Senator Leahy displayed.

Yet another in a long line of DFL hacks

I've said it before here, but I am disappointed more each day that Klobuchar isn't clearly differentiating herself from Mark Kennedy in the Senate race. If you want to look at what she said in a recent Strib article about Iraq and find the clear distinction between her and Mr. Evil, you are welcome to try. (You'll have to find the Strib article yourself. For some stupid reason, they gave it a non permanent URL...just another in a long line of Strib on the web idiocies.)

As for me, I'm going to write in Molly Ivins for president. She makes a great case for tossing out the old Dems, specifically Hillary. Substitute Amy for Hillary in Molly's piece and you get the picture. Amy's only idea of how to run for senator was locking up the party money early rather than actually staking out any coherent positions. If you want those, you'll have to vote for Ford Bell. He doesn't have the DFL machine behind him...but then he wouldn't because he actually stands for something other than just being a senator.

Anyway, see Molly's latest common sense here. Read it, then go pull out your hair because nobody's listening.

I've looked through the various Strib stories on the murder in Uptown last week and didn't find a description of the shooters.

Not here.

Not here.

Not here.

Not here.

Not here.

Here.

Molly, once a month with you is not enough

I came across an internal memo from the Star Tribune today. It may show up in their Reader's Rep column...or it may not. A reader of the Strib went to the trouble of counting the syndicated columnists that have run on the Strib's Op-Ed page the past 6 weeks. Here's the count:

Lefties
Steve Chapman, 8
E.J. Dionne, 2
Molly Ivins, 1
Garrison Keillor, 5 (he hardly counts, in my opinion)
Paul Krugman, 3
Total Lefties: 19

Righties (which doesn't really sound right unless you're talking about baseball pitchers)
David Brooks, 5
Mona Charon, 3
Jonah Goldberg, 4
Clifford D. May, 1
James Pinkerton, 1
Debra J. Saunders, 6
John Tierney, 3
George Will, 10
Total righties: 33

So, next time someone's bitching about Nick Coleman, whip this out on them. Personally, I think the above numbers would provide a great excuse for getting rid of Katherine Kersten. The Strib is tilting right without her help, thank you.

Perhaps they figure they need her, just like Bush needs the right wing Christians. They can't stand her, but they need the votes.

Tom Turkey

Tim Turkey

It was amusing to hear Governor Pawlenty's State of the State message today start off with a discussion of turkey droppings and end with the biggest gobbler gunk of all: "And let's make sure that courts can't throw out our defense of marriage laws in Minnesota, like they have in other states. Let's define marriage in our Constitution as being between a man and a woman."

Aside from all the rhetoric about strengthening education, (when he allows tuition at the U to rise 50 percent during his tenure,) or health care, (when there are 77,000 fewer Minnesotans covered now than there were when he took office,) or holding the line on taxes (when local property taxes have had to take up the slack for the state's abrogation of its educational responsibilities,) the anti-gay marriage amendment was the true turd in the state's punch bowl.

Here's the truth on the anti gay marriage amendment: the Republicans want it on the ballot, not because they believe in it, but because it's what brings the one issue religious right-wingers to the polls. And when those people vote, we get a Republican majority that's beholden to them. And when that happens, we all get a good pranging, gay or not.

Here's what the real marriage amendment ought to look like: "Whereas the state is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution from respecting an establishment of religion, the state hereby renounces all statutes regarding Marriage, and establishes the institution of Civil Union, which can be between any two adults. Such Civil Union shall have the force of law in all regards currently ascribed to Marriage."

Perhaps the best idea the founders' ever had was keeping the government free from religion. (Read the First Amendment, if you don't believe me.) I say we start now and tell Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann and the rest of their ilk that we'd prefer to see them work on uniting us, instead of pursuing their cynical strategy of divide and conquer. Until then, we're not buying the stuff they're shoveling.