Kissing Pancakes & Flipping Babies

[shereads]

Re: Re: Re: pancake breakfasts

As for hot dog induced clogged arteries, maybe it would do us some good if they dropped dead after two years thus limiting the amount of time they had to destroy that which we hold so dear.

That's an interesting approach to term limits, E.
Extreme, but interesting.

 

[Guest]

Sheep herded regularly over the Golden Gate bridge - I'd love to see that. There are sheep in Sonoma county (a friend used to literally scare his to death; finally gave up raising them), and I'm sure elsewhere over there. Must look into this.

Perdita

 

[oggbashan]

A more interesting challenge might be to herd whales UNDER the Golden Gate bridge by swimming with them and persuading them by rhetoric that this is the way to go.

Any candidate who is effective at that task might stand some chance of persuading the elected representatives to think before voting.

Og

 

[OldnotDead]

SR,

You come up with the best ideas for threads. Allow me to submit my credentials to post on Pancakes (US Style) .

Certified by all offspring, nieces and nephews as the Best Breakfast Maker, particularly in regard to Pancakes, with the exception of those found at Walker Brother's Original Pancake House http://www.roadfood.com/Reviews/Writeup.aspx?ReviewID=11&RefID=11

Coach of Little League Baseball team with most pancake breakfast tickets sold three years in a row.

Major Sponsor of Breakfast with Santa - fundraiser for music department.

Knows how to make crepes and would never confuse them for pancakes

NOT a resident of Iowa, so without agenda . . . well, at least in regard to your subject

To answer your first question, "Why . . ." someone else already has. MONEY! Pancake breakfasts are good local fundraisers and often used on weekends as a way to help pay for local civic organisations. They can also be held on weekdays before everyone heads off to work. Want to boost the attendance? Get a celebrity.

We've used Santa for years. But since Iowa foolishly has their fundraisers after the holidays, so they have to settle for someone else. Presidential hopefuls, are in my opinion, a poor second to someone like, say, . . . Paris Hilton, but I guess she was busy elsewhere, so Iowa has to take what it can get.

As for alternatives? Let's see . . .
Lox and Bagels? In IOWA?! Don't think so.
Drinking contests? Not in the morning . . . Now if it were LUNCH - no sweat, we're talking politicians. There is a reason the booze tax is the lowest in the country in DC. (Yeah, I know the current resident of the Whitehouse would not partake, but they say the exception proves the rule )
I'm not sure about that hot dog eating contest. I've seen a few of those and winning has to do with speed of chewing and ability to swallow large objects without choking. I think the VOTERS have more experience than the politicos.
As for the Sheep Herding idea . . . THAT one I like. As a proud owner of a herding dog, I admire the skill of a well trained animal (not mine!). The keen ability to move groups of sheep with a combination of looks, an occasional bark and a fair amount of running is quite impressive. My own assessment of how the top four would have done . . .

Gephart - would have done better. Of course he would have to be handicapped for bringing in all the union help since he would not have violated their rules that there be at least two herders for every sheep.
Dean - would have been the clear loser, even worse than yesterday. Barks too much. Sheep do not respond well to anger. Certainly would have made any other 'assistant' dogs more likely to bite him than the sheep.
Edwards - Probably would have done remarkably better. Soft spoken, thoughtful, careful to watch the group and rounding up any strays that might have joined another herd. His welcoming in of other frightened strays from Dean's herd would have also earned him some extra points.
Kerry - Probably would have blown away the competition. Flown in on the Heinz jet the best Border Collies or Shelties available and no one would notice the low lying dogs while they all watched his hair bounce seven feet off the road surface.

So I'm not sure the results would have been much different.

Now New Hampshire opens up all sorts of fun possibilities. Can you say "Climb Mount Washington" ?

PS - Didn't vote on your categories. Couldn't find what I think is an Iowan's answer , "Best way to make a serious politician look foolish when I over/under grease the griddle and make it too hot/cold."

 

[Icingsugar]

A more interesting challenge might be to herd whales UNDER the Golden Gate bridge by swimming with them and persuading them by rhetoric that this is the way to go.

Pfft. What's the point in that? Herd the whales OVER the bridge, now there's a challence.

/Ice

 

[Boxlicker101]

A more interesting challenge might be to herd whales UNDER the Golden Gate bridge by swimming with them and persuading them by rhetoric that this is the way to go.

Any candidate who is effective at that task might stand some chance of persuading the elected representatives to think before voting.

Og

This would certainly be better than herding sheep across the bridge, but why not have the candidates herd SHARKS under the bridge? Most politicians would lack the courage to do so, thereby branding themselves as cowards, which would be political suicide. Those who did so would probably be eaten, thus eliminating them also. In one swoop, we would rid ourselves of a whole slew of politicians, certainly a great benefit to the nation and to the world, especially if they are lawyers also.

 

[whispering_surrender]

In one swoop, we would rid ourselves of a whole slew of politicians, certainly a great benefit to the nation and to the world, especially if they are lawyers also.

*sigh* This is a really old joke, and I can't believe I'm about to say this, but......

Sharks won't eat lawyers.

They don't eat their own kind.

Whisp *ducks thrown produce*

 

[shereads]

This would certainly be better than herding sheep across the bridge, but why not have the candidates herd SHARKS under the bridge? Most politicians would lack the courage to do so, thereby branding themselves as cowards, which would be political suicide.

It's okay to be a coward as long as you're not unpatriotic...Put another way, being brave doesn't protect a politician's reputation when cowards with rich campaign chests go on the attack. Remember Max Cleland? Disabled Vietnam veteran and former Senator from Georgia until he failed to be fully supportive of the President's Iraq resolution and was compared to Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in his Republican opponent's TV commercials. It worked. Max Cleland became understandably depressed and disillusioned, but this story from Washington Post has an upbeat ending.

Political Veteran
By Peter Carlson
The Washington Post

Thursday 03 July 2003

Max Cleland Survived His Vietnam War Wounds. But He Has Yet to Recover From His Last Campaign Battle.

In his new job, Max Cleland is supposed to get young people all fired up with idealistic zeal for politics, but that won't be easy. These days, Cleland, a Georgia Democrat defeated in his bid for reelection to the Senate last fall, is angry, bitter and disgusted with politics.

"The state of American politics is sickening," he says.

Cleland has come full circle. In 1963, he arrived at American University's Washington Semester Program as a naive student and left dreaming of a career in the Senate. Now, after six years in the Senate, he's back at the Washington Semester Program, this time as a "distinguished adjunct professor.''

But he lost a few things along the way. In 1968, he lost his right arm and both legs in Vietnam. Last fall, he lost his Senate seat in a campaign that became a symbol of nasty politics.

Cleland, 60, is still livid over a now-infamous TV commercial that Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss ran against him. It opened with pictures of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, then attacked Cleland for voting against President Bush's Homeland Security bill. It didn't mention that Cleland supported a Democratic bill that wasn't radically different.

"That was the biggest lie in America -- to put me up there with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and say I voted against homeland security!" he says, his voice rising in anger.

"I volunteered 35 years ago to go to Vietnam and the guy I was running against got out of going to Vietnam with a trick knee! I was an author of the homeland security bill, for goodness' sake! But I wasn't a rubber stamp for the White House. That right there is the epitome of what's wrong with American politics today!"

He's sitting in a booth in the Ruby Tuesday restaurant near his office at American University, his wheelchair leaning against a wall nearby. A salad and a glass of water sit on the table but he ignores them as he continues to vent. He's mad about the campaign but he's even madder about the war in Iraq.

Last fall, Cleland voted for the resolution authorizing President Bush to attack Iraq, but now he feels he was bamboozled.

"I voted for it because I was told by the secretary of defense and by the CIA that there were weapons of mass destruction there," he says. "The president said it, Colin Powell said it, they all said it. And now they can't find them! Our general over there, who has no dog in this fight, he said he sent troops all over the place and they found two trailers and not much of anything else. So we went to war for two trailers?"

The war in Iraq is beginning to look awfully familiar to Max Cleland.

"Now wait a minute," he says. "Let me run this back: We have a war. A bunch of Americans die. After the war, we try to figure out why we were there. There's a commitment of 240,000 ground troops with no exit strategy. You know what that's called? Vietnam! Hey, I've been there, done that, got a few holes in my T-shirt."

Washington, 1963

When the subject changes to his days in the Washington Semester Program back in 1963, Cleland's voice softens and his eyes light up.

"I was tall, tan and tantalizing," he says, smiling. "I was 21 years old and the world was my oyster."

He was a kid from Livonia, Ga., a mediocre student at Stetson University in Florida, a tennis and basketball jock who'd changed majors twice -- going from physics to English to history. He was drifting through life, he says, until he was accepted into AU's Washington Semester Program, which promised an opportunity to see "government in action."

"I was more interested in action than in government," he says with a lascivious laugh.

He remembers the exact day he arrived -- Sept. 10, 1963. John F. Kennedy was president and Washington seemed like the most exciting place on the planet. Cleland stood on Pennsylvania Avenue to see JFK drive past with Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie. He sat in the Senate gallery and watched debates on civil rights. He saw radical students arrested at a hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee. And on Nov. 19, 1963, he and some other WSP students were permitted to visit the Oval Office when JFK wasn't around.

Three days later, the president was assassinated. When Cleland heard the news, he hustled to the White House and saw Lyndon Johnson arrive by helicopter. A few days later, he stood on a tombstone at Arlington National Cemetery to see Kennedy buried.

Moved, he decided he'd go into politics, to help continue Kennedy's work.

"I was deeply motivated, really feeling that the torch had been passed to a new generation of Americans," he says. "I was 21, full of vim and vigor and idealism, and I was ready to make my impact on the world."

He graduated from Stetson with a history degree, earned a master's in history at Emory University, then returned to Washington in 1965 as a congressional intern. By then, war was raging in Vietnam, and Cleland, still fired with idealism, joined the Army.

On April 8, 1968, during the siege of Khe Sanh, he stepped off a helicopter and saw a grenade at his feet. He thought he'd dropped it. He was wrong. When he reached down to pick it up, it exploded, ripping off both legs and his right hand. He was 25.

He spent eight months recuperating at Walter Reed Army Hospital. On one of his first trips out of the hospital, an old girlfriend pushed him around Washington in his wheelchair. Outside the White House, the chair hit a curb and Cleland pitched forward and fell out. He remembers flopping around helplessly in the dirt and cigarette butts in the gutter.

He returned home to Georgia in December 1969. "I had no job, no girlfriend, no car, no hope," he says. "I figured this is a good time to run for the state Senate. And politics became my therapy, forcing me to get out of the house and be seen."

In 1970, at 28, he became the youngest person ever elected to the Georgia Senate. In 1977 President Jimmy Carter appointed him to head the Veterans Administration. In 1982 he was elected as Georgia's secretary of state. In 1996 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, defeating businessman Guy Millner in a very close race.

In the Senate, he was a moderate -- liberal on social issues, conservative on fiscal matters. He was a reliable vote for increased military spending, but wary of committing U.S. troops overseas. He criticized President Bill Clinton's bombing of the former Yugoslavia in 1999, saying that was starting to "look like Vietnam." In 2001, he broke with Democrats to vote for Bush's tax cuts.

As the 2002 reelection campaign began, Cleland knew it would be a close race, but he had no idea how nasty it would get.

The Infamous Ad

The Senate was evenly split, with Democrats and Republicans fighting for control. Georgia was a close race, and both parties poured money into the campaign. Bush came to the state five times to campaign for Chambliss, a conservative congressman who'd been elected in the "Contract With America" class of 1994. Both sides ran attack ads, but none was as controversial as Chambliss's homeland security spot.

It opened with pictures of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. "As America faces terrorists and extremist dictators," said a narrator, "Max Cleland runs television ads claiming he has the courage to lead. He says he supports President Bush at every opportunity, but that's not the truth. Since July, Max Cleland voted against President Bush's vital homeland security efforts 11 times!"

Immediately the ad was denounced, not just by Democrats but also by two Republican senators -- John McCain and Chuck Hagel, both of them Vietnam veterans.

"I've never seen anything like that ad," says McCain. "Putting pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden next to a picture of a man who left three limbs on the battlefield -- it's worse than disgraceful, it's reprehensible."

Irate, Hagel told Republican officials that if they didn't pull the ad, he would make an ad denouncing them. After that, Chambliss's campaign removed the pictures of Hussein and bin Laden from the ad.

"Max Cleland has given as much to this country as any living human being," Hagel says. "To say he is in some way connected to people like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein was beyond offensive to me. It made me recoil, quite honestly."

Asked recently for comment, Chambliss responded through a spokesman that he did not want to discuss the ad or Cleland.

On the eve of the election, polls showed Cleland leading. But they failed to predict a huge turnout by rural white males angered that Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes had removed the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag. Both Barnes and Cleland were trounced.

Surprised and angry, Cleland was devastated by his defeat.

"It was the second big grenade in my life,'' he says. "It blew me up. It happened very quickly and very intensely, and I was left with virtually nothing but my life."

To him, the campaign seemed to symbolize everything wrong with American politics. "When I came to the Senate, I wanted to do the best job I could, but now I found out it doesn't matter what kind of job you do," he says. "It's all about the goal of driving your opponent's negatives up. It's all about trashing the other side."

The day after the election, he flew to the Virgin Islands with his longtime girlfriend, Nancy Ross, and asked her to marry him.

Ross accepted. They have not yet set a date for the wedding. Cleland says he and Ross, a Postal Service executive, have agreed not to discuss their private lives in public. But he did announce the engagement in his farewell speech to the Senate last November.

"I will be married to my fiancee, Miss Nancy Ross, after I retire," he said as she sat in the balcony and blew him a kiss. "There is life after the Senate, and it will be a wonderful life."

That sounded upbeat, but Cleland's friends still worried about him. The usually ebullient Cleland was depressed. The man who'd inspired crowds as a motivational speaker remained morose and despondent for months.

"He was down, just down," says Steve Leeds, an Atlanta attorney and longtime Cleland fundraiser. "I knew how much he hurt and I was concerned for him."

"We could see that he was depressed," says Hagel, "and we tried to rally around him."

In December, Cleland and Ross went to a Washington restaurant for dinner and left Cleland's 1994 Cadillac -- equipped with controls for a handicapped driver -- with a parking attendant. Confused by the controls, the attendant smashed the car into a truck, three other cars and a telephone pole. The Cadillac was totaled.

"It was awful," Cleland says. "It just took me out."

Not long after that, Cleland's old friend T. Wayne Bailey, a Stetson professor, called David Brown, who heads AU's Washington Semester Program. Max is really down, Bailey said, but maybe he'd perk up if he got involved in the Semester Program.

Brown thought that was a great idea. He'd seen Cleland speak to WSP students and he was impressed. So he called Cleland in for a job interview.

Cleland "closed the door and said, 'I'd really like this to be a therapeutic session,' and we talked for an hour and half," Brown recalls. "He really was down. He'd had everything -- a car, a staff and people who took care of him. Now he didn't even have an office. He told me he was using an office in the basement of his apartment building and he said, 'They're gonna take that away to use for a Super Bowl party.' "

Brown offered him a teaching job and Cleland accepted. In the spring semester, he guest-lectured in other professors' classes. This summer, he got a class of his own -- 24 students from around the country who have come here to work as interns at congressional offices and political organizations.

As the first class approached, Cleland was nervous.

"I'm trying to put my life back together," he said, "and one of the ways I'm trying to do it is to get encouragement from young people who come here wanting to be lifted up. Hopefully, we'll lift each other up."

Max's Class

"Let me introduce myself," Cleland said after rolling into class in his wheelchair. "I'm Max."

He wore a white shirt, a blue tie and blue blazer whose right sleeve hung limp and empty. The students wore jeans, shorts, T-shirts. One young woman, working a wad of gum, blew a big pink bubble.

The new teacher explained his pedagogical style: "I don't do lectures," he said. "I just talk a lot."

He announced that he'd provide cookies and coffee for the class, which meets Wednesday afternoons, and recommended frequent snacking.

"Keep your energy up because this is an energy-draining town," he said. "Just being here is draining. Being a target is draining. So keep your energy up."

Things happen fast in Washington, he said, launching into a story about Sept. 11, 2001. He had been sitting in his Senate office with Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They were, by pure coincidence, discussing terrorism when the planes hit the World Trade Center and the general was summoned back to the Pentagon, which had not been hit yet.

"You never know what will happen in Washington," he told the class. "In so many ways, it's combat. Sometimes it's low-level combat, sometimes it's high-level. Sometimes you're the target, sometimes you're targeting somebody else. It's a target-rich environment, as they say in the military."

He told stories about his days in the Semester Program in 1963. Some of the stories involved Congress or the White House. Others involved Maggie's, a bar near AU in those bygone days.

"When you said 'Meet me at Maggie's,' " he said, "It was 'Hello, baby! This might be the night!' "

The students cracked up.

Socializing is important, Cleland told them, and he promised the class a social event every week. He appointed Dustin Odham, a Southern Methodist student with a mischievous gleam in his eye, to lead a "recon squad" to find appropriate watering holes.

"You gotta make sure it's safe for the troops," he told Odham, "so you gotta go there first."

Cleland was rolling now. He told stories about Vietnam and the Clinton impeachment trial. He revealed the secret of what goes on in the Senate cloakroom: "They're watching the Braves game." And he offered sage advice for young interns in Washington:

"Make yourself known. Assert yourself a little bit. Everybody else in this town does."

"You'll have rejection. Everybody won't love you. Believe me, I know. It's nothing personal. It's just the way Washington works."

"To build your credibility, you come in early and you stay late. You do a good job and you volunteer for more work. What you want to do is become indispensable."

He'd been talking for well over an hour when he asked the students to answer the question "Why are you here?"

"I wanted to be in Washington," said one.

"I wanted to be where the action is," said another.

"I wanted to learn how interest groups influence government," said Jolana Mungengova, a PhD candidate from Boston University.

"Money," Cleland told her. "That's it. It's all about money, and it's out of control."

The next student was Kasey Jones from Reed College. "I'm sort of an idealist," she said. "I want to change the world and everything, and this is supposed to help me figure out how to do that."

Idealism -- it was the topic he'd been hoping for and dreading since he took this job. He'd thought about it constantly and he knew what he wanted to say. It was the same thing he'd been telling himself since Election Day.

"Let me give you a quote from President Kennedy," Cleland told Jones. "He said, 'I'm an idealist with no illusions.' You'll begin to lose your illusions about things, but that doesn't mean you'll lose your ideals. That's part of life, but it doesn't mean you have to lose your ideals."

The class was scheduled to last from 1 to 3, but at 3:20 Cleland was still going strong and nobody showed any sign of wanting to leave.

"This is gonna be fun," he said, smiling broadly. He'd stripped off his blazer and he sat in shirt sleeves, his eyes bright, his face flushed with enthusiasm. "It's really a joy to see a group of people like you. I need you. We're gonna have a real good time."

 

[Boxlicker101]

Killing Politicians

The long article by Shereads is an example of why it would be great if we could kill off a lot of politicians. It is a viscious cyle, though, because they keep coming, some die or get kicked out of office or have to retire in disgrace, but there are always more to take their place.

I won't say anything else about the post except you really shouldn't call someone a coward because he is 4F, and, as for the rich campaign chest, the incumbent probably had one as big plus the name recognition of being an incumbent. I don't live in George but if I did, I probably would have voted for Max Cleland, if just in revulsion at the infamous ad. Especially after hearing from Sen. McCain.

As I said, I don't live in Georgia but if I did, I probably would have seen attack ads from both sides, maybe none as nasty as the one being cited, but nasty just the same. I still say all politicians are crooks because if they weren't, they wouldn't be politcians.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

"I've never seen anything like that ad," says McCain. "Putting pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden next to a picture of a man who left three limbs on the battlefield -- it's worse than disgraceful, it's reprehensible."

Reprehensible.

I don't think there is much else you can say.

-Colly

 

[shereads]

Re: Killing Politicians

I won't say anything else about the post except you really shouldn't call someone a coward because he is 4F

That has nothing to do with why he's a coward.

I still say all politicians are crooks because if they weren't, they wouldn't be politcians.

An understandable assumption, but it's also the one that allows the system to continue as it does, Box.

I know people who are involved in politics who have no intention of ever seeking public office. They are activists for the causes the rest of us worry about and write about. Some people became politically active when they were fighting cityhall to get a bike path built (Howard Dean) or to stop construction of Maurice's House O' Crack across the street from their kids' school. Political activists become "politicians" by the accepted definition when they seek public office. Some of them do it reluctantly, not as part of some grand design for their careers but because they've seen the system while trying to work the system and they think they can do better. Or because they've gotten to know the incumbent and know they can do better.

Public service is a noble pursuit that can't work without the use of whatever political system is in place.

Those who seek office for the right reasons may end up whoring themselves to the system out of necessity - but they're doing it because you and I don't want to get into the mud with them and work to make things better.

To be an effective advocate requires more than voting and signing petitions and writing our congressmen - that's just being a citizen. Some of the most courageous and selfless people I know are unpaid activists for important causes, who sacrifice a comfortable lifestyle and neglect their own careers and finances in order to accomplish something good - or prevent something badf. It's a neverending chore, and they quickly learn that one of the few ways to get paid to be involved is to hold office. It's not what they love doing. They might prefer to just be doctors or fishing boat captains. But they see things that need doing, and you and I aren't doing them. Somebody has to.

As my friend told me once when I asked why he spent his own money to lobby the state legislature against overhwhelming odds,

"Decisions are made by the people who show up."

If the system is corrupt, it's our own fault. We are the system.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Re: Re: Killing Politicians

That has nothing to do with why he's a coward.

An understandable assumption, but it's also the one that allows the system to continue as it does, Box.

I know people who are involved in politics who have no intention of ever seeking public office. They are activists for the causes the rest of us worry about and write about. Some people became politically active when they were fighting cityhall to get a bike path built (Howard Dean) or to stop construction of Maurice's House O' Crack across the street from their kids' school. Political activists become "politicians" by the accepted definition when they seek public office. Some of them do it reluctantly, not as part of some grand design for their careers but because they've seen the system while trying to work the system and they think they can do better. Or because they've gotten to know the incumbent and know they can do better.

Public service is a noble pursuit that can't work without the use of whatever political system is in place.

Those who seek office for the right reasons may end up whoring themselves to the system out of necessity - but they're doing it because you and I don't want to get into the mud with them and work to make things better.

To be an effective advocate requires more than voting and signing petitions and writing our congressmen - that's just being a citizen. Some of the most courageous and selfless people I know are unpaid activists for important causes, who sacrifice a comfortable lifestyle and neglect their own careers and finances in order to accomplish something good - or prevent something badf. It's a neverending chore, and they quickly learn that one of the few ways to get paid to be involved is to hold office. It's not what they love doing. They might prefer to just be doctors or fishing boat captains. But they see things that need doing, and you and I aren't doing them. Somebody has to.

As my friend told me once when I asked why he spent his own money to lobby the state legislature against overhwhelming odds,

"Decisions are made by the people who show up."

If the system is corrupt, it's our own fault. We are the system. [/

Hi, Sher.
My definition is a little different from yours, at least in regard to killing them off. To me, "politicians" are people who almost neve do anything else. When they attend college, they major in Poly Sci and/or law, but they never try to hold an actual job, except as aide or something to some other politician. Nixon, JFK, LBJ, Ford, Bush the elder, Clinton, and many others were politicians. Eisenhower and Reagan were not, because, although they did hold office, they established careers first, like the activists you refer to. Whatever you might think of him, I would probably describe Max Cleman as a politician because, although he did not study to become one, he did devote his life to politics after left the military.

Politicians mostly want to enrich themselvfes at the expense of the people, or gain power over them. In addition, men recognize that holding positions of power will make them attractive to women. The concept of "career politician" was alien to the framers of the Constitution, because the expectation was that successful men (women were rarely involved at that time, for varous reasons.) would contribute a few years of their lives in public service. Until the late 19th Century, Senators were elected by the state legislatures.

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Re: Killing Politicians

In addition, men recognize that holding positions of power will make them attractive to women.

Nixon? Ford? Bush? Seriously?


Eeewww.

I do have a gay male friend, a very elegant, literate gentleman, who thinks George W. Bush is sexy. (Note that my friend has no sense of irony, so what I'm going to quote was said with absolute sincerity.)

I was astonished that he, of all people, would find Dubwya sexy. "What appeals to you about him?"

"He is primitive, like an ape."

 

[Boxlicker101]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Killing Politicians

Nixon? Ford? Bush? Seriously?


Eeewww.

Of course, I don't mean all women, but I do mean bimbos. You may remember Fanne Fox. I am not sure how her name is spelled, but she was associated with Wilbur Mills, and brought him down. You surely also remember Monica.

In your "Eeewww" you excluded LBJ, which was probably an oversight and you also excluded JFK, which might not have been.

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Killing Politicians

Of course, I don't mean all women, but I do mean bimbos. You may remember Fanne Fox. I am not sure how her name is spelled, but she was associated with Wilbur Mills, and brought him down. You surely also remember Monica.

In your "Eeewww" you excluded LBJ, which was probably an oversight and you also excluded JFK, which might not have been.

Excluded JFK for obvious reasons, LBJ because there are women who go for the smirking grab-ass good ol' boy type, and Clinton because there's something in his eyes - an intelligence coupled with confidence and humor - and a sense that he gets the joke - that makes him sexy sometimes.

Neither of the Bush men have anything present in their eyes. It's like looking into the eyes of a shark - you see that there's a live animal with shrewd instincts, but there's no self-awareness. I think that's what my friend was referring to when he said he was attracted to Bush as a "primitive ape." The right wing is heavily weighted with well-off men who lack the introspection to wish that the world were just and fair. Men who lack an introspective side are not sexy, no matter how powerful they are, Arnold Governator.

Fanne Fox and women who use sex with unattractive men as a ticket to expensive parties and gifts, don't count because there's no reason to assume she found Wilbur Mills sexually attractive.

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Killing Politicians

deleted triple post

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Killing Politicians

Neither of the Bush men have anything present in their eyes. It's like looking into the eyes of a shark - you see that there's a live animal with shrewd instincts, but there's no self-awareness. I think that's what my friend was referring to when he said he was attracted to Bush as a "primitive ape." The right wing is heavily weighted with well-off men who lack the introspection to wish that the world were just and fair. Men who lack an introspective side are not sexy, no matter how powerful they are, Arnold Governator. They have to reply on chiseled abs and steroids so that their bodies, if not their brains, can be found attractive.

Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Although I'm usually not wrong.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Killing Politicians

Excluded JFK for obvious reasons, LBJ because there are women who go for the smirking grab-ass good ol' boy type, and Clinton because there's something in his eyes - an intelligence coupled with confidence and humor - and a sense that he gets the joke - that makes him sexy sometimes.

Neither of the Bush men have anything present in their eyes. It's like looking into the eyes of a shark - you see that there's a live animal with shrewd instincts, but there's no self-awareness. I think that's what my friend was referring to when he said he was attracted to Bush as a "primitive ape." The right wing is heavily weighted with well-off men who lack the introspection to wish that the world were just and fair. Men who lack an introspective side are not sexy, no matter how powerful they are, Arnold Governator. They have to reply on chiseled abs and steroids so that their bodies, if not their brains, can be found attractive.

Fanne Fox and women who use sex with unattractive men as a ticket to expensive parties and gifts, don't count because there's no reason to assume she found Wilbur Mills sexually attractive.

Certainly Fanne Fox was a bimbo, almost a stereotypical bimbo. I don't know if she found Mills sexually attractive or not but she did find him attractive and for reasons related to his positon, and she was getting it on with him so the distinction is moot. I still say, many women, not most or even a majority, find powerful men to be attractive, and I include congressmen and other pols.

To get back to what I said earlier, JFK and LBJ and Clinton were politicians and should be herding sharks along with Nixon, Ford, both Bushes and others. If some of them don't know how to swim, so much the better.

We are not really in much of a disagreement. I say all politicians are crooks and you say that certain activists who get into politics are not. I don't consider those activists to be politicians because they do not make a career of it. They are actually good examples of the original concept of office holders as public spirited citizens who wanted to make a difference.

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Killing Politicians

I say all politicians are crooks and you say that certain activists who get into politics are not. I don't consider those activists to be politicians because they do not make a career of it.

Well, yes, actually they do. You can't seek public office and not make a career of it, it tends to be time-consuming.

They are actually good examples of the original concept of office holders as public spirited citizens who wanted to make a difference.

Is this your get-out-the-vote announcement?

 

[shereads]

We still have not come up with a marketable alternative to the pancake breakfast method of screening candidates. I'm sure it's occurred to most of us that Howard Dean's outburst after Kerry's upset victory might have been aggravated by an allergic reaction to weeks of maple syrup; that he has to attend even more pancake breakfasts in New Hampshire to stay in the running is intolerably cruel.

Suppose we look at the Mabeuse Scale and come up with one for candidates, and then - since the pancakes are apparently not going away - invite citizen participants to score their candidates on a one-to-five pancake scale?

Adding butter to the score would signal an added "thumbs-up" for your candidate; adding syrup would mean "Donation to your campaign fund is in the mail"

I like the sheep herding skill contest, but it may be a tough sell. The beef cattle industry is already hurting because of mad cow disease, and they have a powerful lobby as anyone will know who has read "Fast Food Nation."

 

[lucky-E-leven]

pancakes for president!

We still have not come up with a marketable alternative to the pancake breakfast method of screening candidates. I'm sure it's occurred to most of us that Howard Dean's outburst after Kerry's upset victory might have been aggravated by an allergic reaction to weeks of maple syrup; that he has to attend even more pancake breakfasts in New Hampshire to stay in the running is intolerably cruel.

Suppose we look at the Mabeuse Scale and come up with one for candidates, and then - since the pancakes are apparently not going away - invite citizen participants to score their candidates on a one-to-five pancake scale?

Adding butter to the score would signal an added "thumbs-up" for your candidate; adding syrup would mean "Donation to your campaign fund is in the mail"

I like the sheep herding skill contest, but it may be a tough sell. The beef cattle industry is already hurting because of mad cow disease, and they have a powerful lobby as anyone will know who has read "Fast Food Nation."

Something like...

1- Burnt to a crisp, dropped on the floor, sneezed on, or not cooked through.

2- Too thick requiring each bite to be chewed for five minutes until the cementy cake is grudgingly sliding down the hatch.

3- Decent thickness and overall roundness with a circle of gold, but lacking the perfect shade and lacking flavor. (with a pat of butter)

4- Great size, shape and color with a super taste, butter and finally some great syrup from the ma & pa shop next door.

5- Four perfect flapjacks stacked atop the other, drenched in strawberries and strawberry syrup, tons of whipped cream and a sprinkling of nuts. Going the extra mile with a flute of champagne to accompany strawberries and bringing on my vote!

-E suddenly wishing TX had a caucus instead of a primary! And reminded I haven't stopped for lunch yet. Thankfully I am not a participant of the Atkins trend.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Tony Blair doesn't have time to eat with voters.

There are people voting for Tony Blair???

 

[gauchecritic]

There are people voting for Tony Blair???

Only in his constituency.

We aren't the 51st state yet!

Gauche

 

[Svenskaflicka]

But he's working very hard for it, you have to give him that much credit.

 

[Boxlicker101]

We still have not come up with a marketable alternative to the pancake breakfast method of screening candidates. I'm sure it's occurred to most of us that Howard Dean's outburst after Kerry's upset victory might have been aggravated by an allergic reaction to weeks of maple syrup; that he has to attend even more pancake breakfasts in New Hampshire to stay in the running is intolerably cruel.

If Howard Dean were allergic to maple syrup, he would never have become governor of Vermont, where maple syrup is an institution. If he had an allergic reaction, it would probably have been to corn based foods. In Iowa, they probably put corn syrup on their pancakes.