Shaunna's Soliloquies

Barack O'Lantern -or- Yes We Carve

Happy Halloween! (Homemade shenanigans and photo courtesy of my Buzznet bud Xris.)

Putting $ Where Your Hate (and/or) Intolerance Is

As a multi-generation native of Califas I've been extremely annoyed lately by the out-of-state funding streaming into California for Yes on 8. It's not your state... BUTT OUT. Of course dear Cali is a bellwether state (i.e., "a bellwether is any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to presage future happenings"). Like being the first state to eliminate the prohibition to interracial marriage in 1948.

So Proposition 8 has the religious fanatics, paranoid, homophobes, intolerant or just plain haters coming out in full force. However, it's nice to know where the money is coming from that's funding this campaign. Here's a list keeping track of the names, dates, and dollar amounts donated.  You can see who's from out-of-state, as well as anyone from within your local community (like the local heath food store, who's contributed more than $25,000).  Sigh. Now I'll have to drive to Whole Foods.

And I'll give those who want to track down anyone in their local community (they're listed by town) a helpful hint. Call the county assessor's office and if they own property you can get their full address.  So you can send them a card. A "Haters Go to Hell" would be apropos.

Equal Rights for All. Vote No on Prop 8.

"We're one nation... all of us proud, all of us patriots"

Food for thought.

Obama Ohana

"Part of Hawaiian culture, ohana means family in an extended sense of the term including blood-related, adoptive or intentional. It emphasizes that family and friends are bound together and members must cooperate and remember one another."

Viva Obama!

Back at the beginning of the year the pundits were dubious about Obama crossing the the Black-Brown Divide. And now it appears that the Latino vote may deliver those Western red states blue. Maybe this catchy little ditty had something to do with it (while illustrating how Mexicans took the German immigrant accordion music and made it their own):

Yesterday's Sunset

Opie - and Richie - for Obama (not to mention Sheriff Taylor and The Fonze)

Literally. You gotta watch this:

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

I'd kinda like the red leather jacket... and maybe the boots, too

I know I could/should take a break from the national news (jellyfish infiltrating and shutting down the local nuclear power plant would ordinarily be worth more than a link), but the national news is just too good to resist.

There's serious/depressing financial doings going down with the 3rd quarter forclosure rate that was released today. However, I simply can't keep quiet about Palin's $150,000 shopping spree. Again, it's just too good to resist.

Now, I get it that a candidate needs to look good yada yada yada, but they usually spend their own money for personal appearance. Wardrobe and makeup isn't an ordinary campaign funded expense. Anyhoo, even the RNC is unhappy about it, and McCain's reaction was, well, just a bit lame.

It certainly doesn't match his eloquence of fifteen years ago when he argued against - and changed the law - regarding such hubris in front of Congress, does it?

"Madam President, the amendment before the Senate is a very simple one. It restricts the use of campaign funds for inherently personal purposes. The amendment would restrict individuals from using campaign funds for such things as home mortgage payments, clothing purchases, noncampaign automobile expenses, country club memberships, and vacations or other trips that are noncampaign in nature.

Under House and Senate ethics rules, Members of Congress must use campaign funds for political--not personal--purposes. Yet the commonly accepted definition of a political expenditure has grown so broad and enforcement of the rules has been so lax that congressional campaigns now routinely make purchases that on their face appear to be personal, such as resort vacations, luxury automobiles, expensive meals, apartments, country club memberships, tuxedos, home improvements, baby sitting, and car phones.

If we in Congress learned one thing from President Clinton's $200 haircut last week, it should be that the public does not approve of its elected officials being treated as royalty. We should be no different."

Sigh. Can anyone say - SHOUT - hypocrisy?

(hypocrisy/noun
dissimulation, false virtue, cant, posturing, affectation, speciousness, empty talk, insincerity, falseness, deceit, dishonesty, mendacity, pretense, duplicity; sanctimoniousness, sanctimony, pietism, piousness; informal phoniness, fraud)

I'm almost at a loss for words... except to offer this advice to the McCain/Palin campaign:

If those Needless Markup threads are going to charity, at least donate them to be auctioned off for top dollar on Clothes Off Our Backs. Where the celebrities donate their clothes to charity. (Believe me, Palin's a celebrity. Hollywood's courting her now.)

Playing Wordless Wednesday

If you want to do Wordless Wednesday go here.

Dirty Tricks and Dirty Words

Well well well... we're getting down to the wire and it just keeps getting more interesting.

Palin has now apologized for giving the impression that those of us who may be progressive and don't live in small towns throughout the country aren't "true Americans" (although a North Carolina Congressman was caught in a bald-face lie - he denied it until a tape was produced - of saying liberals hate "real Americans"). Coupled with a Minnesota Congresswoman's hateful diatribe - that may very well cost her re-election - it's beginning to resemble the path to McCarthyism. Just a bit. Beware.

Let's beware of that and voter suppression (amazingly, it was right here close to home - and has now made the national news- about Republican voter registration fraud).

And then there's that dirty S word. Although Obama's defended himself ably and even the Wall Street Journal has agreed what an absurd charge it is, it does trouble me. Again, a bit. I worry about the non-critical thinkers.

When I first kept hearing the socialism bugaboo from Palin and McCain, all I could think of was Bulworth. Like a song that gets in your head that's hard to get rid of my mind kept going to that bit where he sabotages his campaign by grabbing the microphone at his fundraiser and decides to rap:

"Big money... big money... it's the taxpayers - taxpayers! that take it in the rear...

... everybody's gonna get sick one day, but nobody knows how they gonna pay...

... call it single payer or Canadian way...

... lemme hear that dirty word... socialism!"