Guest Posted by Retzilian When I was a senior in college during the Reagan era I wrote an independent study thesis on “women in politics” and researched the history of what Susan Faludi, author of the award-winning book, “Backlash”, described as a foe that remains insidious, amorphous, relentless and pervasive. Not much has changed since [...]
Politics these days have taken a rather welcome turn, particularly amid the current right-sponsored and well-endowed ridiculousness on TV sets across America, toward the often ignored but essential question of, well, cake, and who is going to eat it (or not). Republicans are finally noticing, albeit belatedly, that their lavish use of deceptive advertising does [...]
New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino may or not be a bigot, but one thing’s for sure: he is as dumb as a post. As I’m sure you heard, he went to speak to ultra-Orthodox Jews in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and told the approving crowd that gay people are “dysfunctional,” we shouldn’t “brainwash” children into thinking [...]
Probably the funniest new right wing media meme, started by Jonah Goldberg but lovingly embraced by Glenn Beck and the Teabaggers, is that liberalism is somehow linked to Nazism. Yeah, and down is up on Uranus. Granted, Jonah and Glenn aren’t the brightest bulbs on the chandelier, but it seems to me that some of [...]
One of my favorite, and certainly most popular, projects I do is finishing basements. Every house here has one, originally unfinished, and they constitute hundreds of square feet of free space waiting to be built to suit. If done properly, they greatly enhance the livability and value of a home. If done improperly, as this [...]
As I often do, I got another personal note from the President today. Not personal in the sense that I can reply to it, since I’ve tried before and I get a mail error, but personal just the same, after a fashion. Cocktailhag– See? We’re on a first-name basis, and he doesn’t even bother with [...]
UPDATED BELOW: Well, yesterday I got started on that penthouse, ripping out the cramped hallway and weird floor plan borrowed from the lower floors and circa 1963, that made the bedroom/bathroom area way too small and compartmentalized to match the 30-foot living room, generous kitchen and family room, and two balconies that make it special. [...]
Overconfident though they may appear on the surface, Republicans tacitly acknowledge that they cannot win on the issues every time they run, when they either lie about their intentions, as Bush once did in that “quaint” era, or simply refuse to discuss them at all, as they are doing now. This might seem like a [...]
In the spring of 1989 I was Production Manager for Ballet Oregon, and we took the sort of tour struggling regional ballet companies take: to small towns with absurdly underequipped performance halls, and me directing some local volunteers as my sole backstage help. Having only ever set up performances in the 2500-seat Civic Auditorium, where [...]