Ron has No Johnson

GOP Senatorial candidate Ron Johnson in a recent TV ad moans of the fact that there are 57 lawyers in Congress and 0 Manufacturers.  Ron is a Plastic manufacturer.  From his own site
http://ronjohnsonforsenate.com/home/2010/09/57-2/#comments
It drew a few comments on his site.

1. 
   
   
   

   September 28, 2010 at 7:38 pm

   before you make a comment like your opening in your add, I’d like to know if any of you could READ OR UNDERSTAND anything real people write or ARE ALL OF YOU AS SMART AS G. BRUSH???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? I WOULD HAVE TO BE OUT OF MY MIND TO VOTE FOR SHOULD A BUNCH OF DISTORTIONISTS AS YOU PEOPLE ARE.
2. 
   
   September 28, 2010 at 8:34 pm

   I don’t know why there are so many lawyers in the U.S. Senate. It could have to do with the complexity of writing laws. They could certainly earn more money practicing law I would think.
   Russ is only one of a handful of Senators that is NOT a millionaire. Electing you will add one more millionaire to that bunch & I personally don’t think that is a good thing. You don’t represent me nor most of people from Wisconsin. You are fooling people with your ads. You represent BIG BUSINESS.
3. 
   
   September 30, 2010 at 12:48 am

   Ron I don’t see a big difference in accountants and lawyers, both look for ways to go around the law. And if we have people writing laws, isn’t it important to have people that understand how laws are written? Seems like a poor argument. Weren’t there alot of accountants working at Morgan Stanley and the others when they went broke. I think you have a bigger issue explaining how many Senators have testified against pedophile laws when they worked for the Catholic Church who had a problem with molesting priests. I think you have seen your Waterloo.
   

   Reply

But .... from the Huffington Post, and featured on Keith Olberman..... he does not think it is fair that victims of sexual abuse be allowed to sue for damages.

"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/29/ron-johnson-wi-senate-can_n_743910.html

Last week, I encouraged readers to get to know their Ron Johnson, the GOP insurgent who's lately been up in the polls against veteran Democratic Senator Russ Feingold in the Wisconsin Senate election. Now, here's a new fun fact, courtesy of Zaid Jilani, at ThinkProgress -- in Johnson's "one prominent act of political participation" prior to his Senate run, he testified in front of the state legislature against the Wisconsin Child Victims Act.

The Wisconson Child Victims Act essentially eliminates the statute of limitations for bringing suit againt "any person" for "injury caused by...an adult's sexual contact with anyone under the age of 18." For the purposes of the statute, "person" was defined as "an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, limited liability company, association, joint venture, or government; governmental subdivision, agency, or instrumentality; public corporation; or any other legal or commercial entity."

Now, me, personally, I have no problem with easing the burden on children victimized by "an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, limited liability company, association, joint venture, or government; governmental subdivision, agency, or instrumentality; public corporation; or any other legal or commercial entity."

Johnson didn't feel the same way. Per Jilani:

In his testimony before the Wisconsin legislature, he said it was "extremely important to consider the economic havoc...and the other victims" that the new law would "likely create" -- ridiculously comparing child abuse victims to the economic damages faced by employers being sued. Johnson warned that the Child Victims Act would lead to businesses or other organizations that work with children to be "damaged or destroyed" by civil suits and that it would "send a chilling signal" to civic-minded organizations like the Boy Scouts to not work with children in the future. He then opined that if the bill were passed, "I have no doubt trial lawyers would benefit, I'm not so sure that the actual victims would."

 support abuse victims/ NO
support business   Yes

Fuck you Ron Johnson.
*hastily put together.  I am too pissed to do better.

Milk, margarine, eggs, beans..... and some eggrolls

I have to go shopping.  Very much out of beer and other exciting household items..... and I have and old Neil Young song  in my head.... sing it with me....

Well, I dreamed I saw the knights
In armor coming,
Saying something about a queen.
There were peasants singing and
Drummers drumming
And the archer split the tree.
There was a fanfare blowing
To the sun

 etc etc etc etc

What I saw on a Saturday, clearly

This Saturday past I found my feet taking me to the Leach Amphitheater on the Fox River for the annual Community Dragon Boat races.  There was a more than brisk chill in the air, but my daughter called and asked to meet her there.

Basically it is a charity event where you get a sponsorship to fit twenty people in a silly looking boat and race down the river to raise money for community charities.  Business sponsor teams, employees sponsor their own, community groups, University organizations, Breast Cancer survivor groups.  There were 42 boats sponsored, 840 people paddling, plus a good sized crowd of onlookers.

It has become a mini-festival.... bratwurst, music on the stage, funny costumes, coffee, face painting for the kids, Suzuki violins, folk singers, Okinawan Taiko drummers.  Despite the chill there was a good crowd.

My daughter and I sat along the river wall to watch.  Soon she was pressed into a University  crew that was short a paddler.  Her place next to me was taken by Peyton and his grandmother.
He looked to be about four and of African-American Heritage.  His grandmother seemed more than just a bit older and of Anglo-European decent, if that really matters.

As he looked down into the water I admonished him to be careful, that there were big, mean fish down there that could jump up and bite him on his toes.
He looked at the river, at his grandmother and then at me.
"Huh," he said. His mouth was agape, his eyes grew wide and his grandmother laughed.  "My daddy is racing," he said seriously, "and Grandpa, too!"
"And your uncle," his grandmother said.
"Uncle too!!!" Peyton said.  The day grew a bit warmer.
After a bit I rose to get a hot chocolate.
"Peyton," I said," it was nice to meet you.  Be careful of your toes. You need them all."
"Huh?", and his grandmother laughed.
"Do you know how many toes you have,Peyton?"
He scrutinized his shoes.  "All of them," he said.  The day got a bit sunnier.
It was a good morning....I am not sure who won the races.... but I am thinking everyone there did.

Later in the afternoon, of a curious bent, I went to the shores of Lake Winnebago to watch a Tea Party Rally.  There were roughly the same amount of folks in attendance as there were paddlers from the morning gathering....except these were mostly seated in lawn chairs and carried signs instead of paddles.  There was a pledge of allegiance, several invocations to God, and a badly sung National Anthem.  One of the first speakers spoke of the need to get back to our "Judea-Christian" values, to get rid of the elitist Liberals and Democrats.  One of the next speakers followed up and was even a little more specific about values.....his were "Protestant-Christian" values.... which rather left me out... as long with a bunch of Jews, Catholics, Hindus and Buddhists.

 .Well, it went on from there. I guess it was at the point when a later speaker started complaining about immigrants and the teaching of "Multiculturalism" when I started to feel the day getting chillier.  I guess it is hard to row a boat from a lawn chair especially when you only have your oar in on one side.  And these guys were leaving my new buddy Peyton out of everything.  It seemed to be like a Nuremberg Rally with oodles of fear to go along with the Geritol,  Ensure and Depends.  And a bit of Valium.  The tea being served was tepid and I felt a need to have a beer.  I need to get back to my values... where friendship and the quality of your heart is all that matters.

Sometimes it takes a little work to sort out the truly substantial from the inconsequential hubris of life.  A beer can help.

Peyton..... I checked my toes when I got home.  I had all of them, thank you very much.

*photos blatantly borrowed from the Oshkosh Northwestern.

Thoughts on a Windy Day

I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.

JD Salinger

Nothing recedes like progress.

ee cummings

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

Mark Twain

If I were reincarnated, I'd want to come back a buzzard. Nothing hates him or envies him or wants him or needs him. He is never bothered or in danger, and he can eat anything.

William Faulkner

My witness is the empty sky.

Jack Kerouac

 

Beauty may be skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone. 

Redd Foxx

I have always wanted to write a book that ended with the word mayonnaise

Richard Brautigan

It must be Happy Hour somewhere

okjimm

Drill baby, baby Drill

 The TeaCup candidate for Senate supports drilling for Oil in Lake Michigan..

Would you support drilling, like in the Great Lakes for example?

“You know, the bottom line is we are an oil-based economy.  There's nothing we're going to do to get off of that for many years.  I think we have to be realistic and recognize that fact and, you know, I, I think we have to, get the oil where it is, but we have to do it where it is.” Ron Johnson

I think that's what he meant.  It is hard to understand his views.....

I have answers!!!!!

People ask me questions. A lot of them.  Sometimes one or two a day!!  So... in the Spirit of Peace, Love& Quality beer..... I will answer the most pressing questions asked of me  last month.

1  Get off Hwy 41 at 9th ave and go east until you hit South Main.  Take a left and go over the Bridge.  Then a  right and a quick left and head north four blocks.  It's on the left just past the library.  You can't miss it.  Big Neon sign by the back door.

2  No.  I only have two left

3  $50 a quarter ounce

4  I forgot.  I'll wear one next time.... I promise!

5  Paulie Tuna.  But I haven't seen him in years.

6  Not today.  Maybe tomorrow.

7  Front porch at the cottage in Door County.  Labor Day 1986 around sunset.  Doggie-style, I think.

8  That's really none of your business!  I don't ask where you got your toe fungus, do I?

9  Sure, I eat muffins.  But only moist ones without nuts.

10 I'm sorry.  I thought you were someone else.

Just goes to show I could be a teagag politician...... I have all the answers!

Badgers on the tube at 2:30..... touring the renovated Grand Opera House at 2:00.....

http://goh.intergen.org/

decisions decisions

Obama beer......

 

OK...... is your glass half full?...... ya upset that the wars are not over? upset that the doan ask thingee not done?  downright upset you're 401K tanked.  Righteously so!!!!!

Well..............................just ask..... what  would the alternatives been/might be

a glass full of tea?  and

“The vice-presidency isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss” John Nance Gardner, former VP

Shit&whiskers.!!!!!! she couldn't handle a governorship!!!!!

and folks want her as president???

"gimmee a beer or gimmee a bratwurst..... but doan gimmeee tea"

okjimm, current blogger

 

In Parentheses

Not much today.  Unlike yesterday when there was oodles of not much!  Very much, though, enjoying the new(er) Black Keys offering.  It's good.  Very good.  Really good.  As in, I like it very really much&stuff.
Ok.... I don't do reviews well. for that you need to go to The Caliph of Clevelandistan  lennui-melodieux.blogspot.com..... if you can figure out what he is saying(which usually is more fun that KNOWING what he is saying. (if you know what I mean) Really.

but I have been on a reading kick..... eating stuff up.  Waiting for the new Thomas McGuane to hit the library (alreadyz gotz mine reserved).... and in the while reading a great book , "

Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" 

 

 

... not that it is a huge piece of literary accomplishment... but it details very well two of my heroes from my adolescent years ( I think I had a couple dozen of them.... years, not heroes)  Tom&Dick Smothers  and the show they had on CBS (when there were NO cable channel shit) The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
Now looking back... it was all pretty tame stuff compared to what is on TV now (which is almost nothing.. or nothing gooooood.. or little that I watch) but with-out the Smothers Bros beating down censorship and pushing the edge of what is considered acceptable for TV viewing... there would have been no SNL or Cobert  or a host of other people.

(in 1968 the Comedy Hour featured comedian Pat Paulsen running for President as a member of the STAG party (Straight Talking American Government Party.)  A fore runner of the TEA Party (Tepid Enough Assholes) but really much more funny and whimsical.  (Really)

ok.  Now I gotz to get something done.  Gonna make some phone calls this afternoon for Russ Feingold.....

...... he belongs to my party. (I just hope he brings better beer the next time.) or I won't invite him to my next party.

ok.  Gotz to run and return my ex-wife's hedge trimmer(before she finds out I borrowed it)

No Bongos or Burritos in Norway

So it was a slow news day here in beautiful downtown Wisconsington.... right before the Senatorial and Gubernatorial primaries.  Page two of my local paper ran three stories right next to each other.....

The Capital Times reports that a 31-year-old street musician, apparently enraged over criticism, bashed a 54-year-old man over the head with his guitar and wrestled with police before being taken into custody last Thursday. The musician, Brandin Hochstrasser a.k.a. Bongo Jesus, had to be subdued by TASER after beating and knocking down his would-be critic at the 500 block of State Street. “The dispute started over some questionable guitar playing,” said police spokesman Joel DeSpain.

Whew.... good thing the guy didn't play a tuba!  and the next story....

Competitive eater Joey Chestnut, AKA Jaws, has downed 47 burritos in 10 minutes at the New Mexico state fair in Albuquerque, beating the previous record of 33. Chestnut, of San Jose, California, won $1,500 (£977) for the feat on Saturday.
Known for his hotdog eating, Chestnut also won the annual July Fourth hotdog-eating contest on Coney Island, New York, for the fourth year in a row this summer.
The Garcia's World Burrito Eating Championship was supported by the International Federation of Competitive Eating, which oversees all international professional eating contests.

I wonder how many burritos Jesus could eat?

..... and the last!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Norwegian public news reporter lived the dream of every journalist and writer this weekend, quitting in the middle of her news broadcast after a slow news day.

Reporter Pia Beathe Pedersen accused her employers at public broadcasting company NRK of placing too much pressure on the staff to churn out news, culminating in her quitting her job after having nothing of note to report.
During a live Saturday broadcast, Pedersen told listeners that she wouldn’t read the news and that “nothing important has happened.”

See..... Nothing has happened.  You can all go home now.

I understand I think maybe

 

 I said she said

but then he goes

  &I saidyouknow

and he went

No!

really yes

exactly then

right I heard that

I said she then went

you know he came

   back with

of course when

but they said

if you shouldn't put pearls before swine

where is the oyster bed?

Yes is a World

love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds

eecummings

9/12

9/11? More than the Trade Towers feel on 9/11.... America did too. We fell into a pit of fear, paranoia, hate, cynicism and bigotry that keeps getting deeper and deeper. Not that we already didn't have a fair amount before... but the veneer was stripped away. I am waiting for 9/12. That day after we never came to after the attacks.  When we rebuild our National Ethos of truth, justice, brotherhood, fair-play, generosity and kindness. I'm thinking I maybe waiting for awhile.

Bubba good bye

And the seasons they go 'round and 'round
And the painted ponies go up and down

I  am bumming a bit.  One of my two best friends leaves tomorrow.  Portland Oregon.  I have known him every single moment of his life and though he has taken trips and there were times I didn't see him all that much.... there was never a day when I didn't know when I would see him again.  That all changes tomorrow.  New challenges in new places.... 


I guess I always knew that someday he would go somewhere.... I just never thought it would be this far away.

We're captive on the carousel of time

I remember when he was about  six and I took him out to Washington State to visit my brother.  We cruised the San Juan Islands and camped on a beach.  Hiked in the Norther Cascades.  The real telling story of that trip though was that he lost his first baby tooth up in the mountains.  Of course he was distraught.... the tooth fairy thing.  I told him that when we got home I would leave a note under his pillow and the tooth fairy, being wise and reasonable, would accept the note.  That is what happened.  About a week after we returned my brother sent him a large over sized plastic molar from a novelty shop with a note..."Dear Max... I found  your tooth...gosh.. things really grow big in the mountains."  Well the kid believed it.  It was his tooth... it did grow big ...  and I realized my son was a Believer.  That all things are possible.

I remember helping coach him when he played soccer and football.  He was crazy about sports. Still is.  At one time he had three years of the NBA Draft memorized.... player, pick, school, height&weight, but still would have difficulty naming what year the War of 1812 took place.

He had a radio show at the U for about two years and would frequently have me as a guest on the show.  He would introduce me as a homeless guy that walked into the studio.  Another Sunday night he said he had left the window open and God had come into the studio. All I could say was, "Bless you my son."  It was better than throwing a Frisbee with him... a skill I never acquired.

We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came

 He'll be ok.  I haven't been able to give him as much as I would have liked to.  He worked all through college...sometimes three part time jobs simultaneously .  I did my best to give him a sense of humor.  He took the gift and built on it often creating much more fun than I could handle.  He was a bouncer on weekends at my favorite pub, Oblio's.  Tonight they are having a little good-bye thingee for him and his buddy Jon.  Stop down...  it will be fun.  And I will cry.

And go round and 'round and 'round
In the circle game
And go 'round and 'round and 'round in the circle game.
It's a good thing my other best friend is still around....... I don't know what I would do with out her sense of humor......

kiss me good night, Max.....

Burn THIS shit!!!!!!!

I get the news I need on the weather report.....


Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, FL is planning to burn copies of the Quran to commemorate 9/11.  The Gainesville fire department has denied him a permit.  Good for them.  At least someone is showing some sense.  Burning books is odious, reprehensible and pollutes air as well as minds.  To say nothing of my personal sense of decency, which I admit, is a thin veneer soaked in beer.

But this shit is too much.  And I am sick to fucking tired of it.  My sense of decency may be questionable, but my sense of intelligence is NOT and I have had it with insults to my intelligence!

Start with Fox News.... ( wish we could end Fox News)....  I am so tired of them.  Not mad, not upset.... Tired!  Right from the get-go.... any NEWS that continually needs to tell me that they are "Fair and Balanced" only reinforces my notion that they do not think that they are "Fair and Balanced" and must continually state that they are to convince themselves as well as delude everyone else!  Such piss-postulating is fucking ridiculous and insulting!  Like they're other tag....."Severe Weather Coverage"....what?  They don't report good weather?


I can gather all the news I need on the weather report.

Ya ,,, So the Dove World Outreach has got 50 fucking members!  Imbeciles I am sure.  Outreach?  The only outreaching Pastor Jones is doing is digging into his trousers to dig out his diminutive dick ego so he can stroke it in front of TV cameras!  Whatta bunch of bullshit! Of Course Fox News will cover the event just to adjust the old Pastor's diseased balls if they happen to swing anywhere to the left of common sense!


Half of the time we're gone but we don't know where,
And we don't know where.

Pastor Jones?  Whatta joke!  Makes me think of that dealie that was pumped all over the place..."What Would Jesus Do".  Well I'm not a Christian... but I have a feeling, from everything I know about good Christians, that Jesus would grab a 2x4 from his carpentry shop and whap that sucker upside the head!  Jesus would kick his ass!
  

And the TeaBaggers are coming to my part of Good old Wisconsington!  More fucking azzholes slinging shit and mis-information and vile scum and diseased indignation.  I need this shit like I need jock rot!  Shit&Whiskers!   Be Still my Beating Heart!  Joe-the-Fucking Plumber & all the spit&piss of Sarah Palin! 


So.... I am starting my own Political Party...... The American Bowel Movement Party.   Let's get the shit out of America!  I am going to do my bit on 9/11...... I will burn a Tea Bag.  Used.  Cause I ain't got much and I is just about all I got and I will not waste a perfectly good tea bag demonstrating against Assholes!  I am so sick of shit heads.... and I am so sick of the scumbag, degenerate, mental morons!!!!!!!!  I do not care that they are Mad.... I am too!  About people sticking their fucking dumb mentalities in my face!!!!!!

I get the news I need on the weather report.
I can gather all the news I need on the weather report.
Hey, I've got nothing to do today but smile.

But other than that....... I am OK and you can be too!