A dispatch from the North, no shit

Here I am in Carson City Nevada.

Back on the grid.  Internet access achieved.  Kinda proud, as I’m a bit of a luddite.

The capital of the great state of Nevada, merely titular as the seat of power.  Since the seventies or early eighties,  the actual force and center of political influence has resided with indefatigable dominance in Clark county, some five hundred miles to the south, by virtue of the voracious development and a subsequent population explosion in Las Vegas.

Despite all that, Carson City remains a cracklingly political town.  My sister tells me it’s all about to change.  Power will return to it’s rightful place in the North.

Between nation trotting sojourns with my father in an RV better appointed and more luxurious than most apartments I’ve lived in, my retired mother still oversees vital components of the bi-annual legislature.  They are somewhere between small towns in Washington state as I write this.

My sister swings a heavy municipal bat.  She has big plans for this town.  A media center unrivaled on either coast.  Her husband, whom I’ve known since grade school, wields substantial influence with Nevada’s nearly omnipotent Gaming Control Board.  Friends of the family are the wealthy, elite and intelligentsia as well as the kind, humble, ordinary and delightfully quirky.

Hello, Don Carlson, Harry Reid and the rest of you.

Not at all out of the ordinary for me to crack my hometown paper to find an article or editorial written by my uber talented and modestly ambitious sister.  Just last week while having lunch in an ordinary burger palace, I enjoyed such occasion.

Their lives are impossibly full.  Easy to envy.  Very busy and purposeful people.  Even my sister’s three children, two in college and the youngest a senior in high school,  are elaborately involved.

The net effect of all this furious activity and humble accomplishment  allows for me to feel distinctly and unmistakably slovenly.  Sloth like.  As I sit writing this from my parent’s kitchen counter, my trophy, a gold record, prominently adorns a living room wall.  Not much in the scheme of things, but I’ll take what I can get, at least until I’m a famous and/or critically acclaimed writer.  Or maybe head of the cheese department at Whole Foods.  

Another thing that impresses the crap out of me is the depth and breadth of both my mother’s and sister’s larders.  The culinary treasures in each are enough to sustain one through the apocalypse.  Exotic condiments, mustards, pickles, oils and dressings of all kinds.  Cheeses and sausages.  Canned fruits and vegetables.  Spices, soups and seasonings.  Refrigerators and freezers stocked with meats and nuts, breads and more vegetables.  Everything from freshly frozen hand picked huckleberries to chicken nuggets, huge sides of mammals, frozen diet meals and seafood.  Sauces from barbecue, to soy ginger and sesame, vidalia onion and fig, chili, rice vinegar and raspberry pecan.  Tomato paste, tomatoes chopped, tomatoes whole.  Soups and pasta, raw beans and crackers.

Slim fast in a can and baby corn in a can.  Microwave popcorn and Cups O’ Noodles.

Alcohol from fine wine to to cheap champagne.  Malibu Rum to Creme De Menthe, blood orange liqueur, vodka, gin, whiskey and Amaretto.  Soda, beers and juices.

All manner of candies and chocolates.  Jams, jellies and preserves.

Farm fresh eggs from my brother in law’s chickens and home made pies from my sister’s oven.  She has an herb garden and shops the farmer’s market every Saturday morning.  She runs marathons.  Her husband is soft spoken, brilliant and absurdly funny.

Not much substance here I know.  Been away from the wheel for awhile so give me some room.

I will tell you this.

Without a public option at the center of any health care bill, all is lost.  Obama will have squandered too valuable political capital for next to nothing.  The only efficacious mechanism for curbing corporate insurance greed, for legitimate reform, will be missing.  Without it, it will be a band-aid on a sucking chest wound.  Consequences of a bill without it will be dire.  All momentum and any mandate from an overwhelming majority will expire.

The ideas of hope and change will atrophy.  No bill will be failure.  A bad bill, without a public option, will be a stage for blame deserved, optimism smashed and the very last chance Americans will ever have at fair and equitable health care will fade to black.  The best promise of this administration will be shit.  Obama’s presidency, and our last best hope, will surface out past the breakers, missing a limb.

Fuck the Republicans.  Take one lesson from them and get the goddamn Democrats to march in step.  Marginalize the flat earthers by excluding them.  I’m weary of the vagina monologue here.  Tell the assholes that would terrorize their constituents  with stories of “death panels” and grandma’s plug being pulled to shut the fuck up.  Go to those states and wage war.  Get proactive.  Get medieval on their asses, with the truth.

Chuck Grassley should be invited to suck his own dick.  He’ll never vote for health care reform unless he’s shamed into it.  Obama needs to go to Iowa.  I’m not sure what Ted Kennedy’s status is but wheel him in.  Get proactive.  Fight, you you pussies.  More than health care is at stake here.  Don’t you see it?  Hope and change hinge on this.

Absent a public option will be proof that Democrats are unable to even lead a horse to water.  A majority in the House and Senate will be meaningless and it will all be for nothing.  Not a goddamn thing.  All for naught.  God will whisper in Michele Bachmann’s ear and she’ll be your next President.

You think the last eight years sucked?  I’m just sayin’.  It’s all about this.  Right here.  Right now.

Drinks for my friends.

16 Responses to “A dispatch from the North, no shit”

  • Temy:

    Hey, you got a gold record and wealthy people in yer family. My biggest claim to fame is having been listed in the book “Who’d Who in Hell”.

  • David Lee 3:

    Tell your sisters husband I want to open a Pink Dot-like franchise in Vegas. See if he laughs.

    Goddamned casinos.

  • Ralph:

    Let’s see,,,,
    Social security, Medicare and Medicade,,, all bankrupt and of course, government run programs.
    Oh yeah, the post office a federal too, verdict,,,bankrupt too.
    The US Government has NEVER HAD ONE SUCCESSFUL PROGRAM THAT HAS BEEN PROFITABLE AND DONE WHAT IT SET OUT TO DO NOT ONE!!!!
    Government run health care, lets see,,, Canada, well Canada has NO defense budget and it’s STILL as we speak going DOWN THE TUBES.
    Britain,,,completely screwed up unless you have the money to buy a private supplemental plan and even then it pales to the US health system.
    Senor citizens and NOT republicans are the ones that are doing the best yelling about this Obama-care soft tyranny.
    Many who are true americans are saying more and more in the words of Gandolph, “Socialism,,,you shall not pass!”
    America is discovering it’s conservative roots again.
    Hurray for liberty
    Mike, your are as always, on the complete wrong side of the US constitution and liberty.

  • admin:

    @Temy: The record went triple platinum and my family is not wealthy…….thanks for reading.

  • admin:

    Ralph, none are bankrupt but medicaid and medicare are in trouble because of greed and waste.

    Seen where the Canadian dollar is at lately?
    Contrary to the fear mongering your buying, Canadians and Brits are overwhelmingly pleased with their health care. Life expectancy in both countries are longer than here.

    If you think reform threatens seniors you’re retarded.

  • Ralph:

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
    SSI is not bankrupt????
    And you are calling ME retarded???
    Well, how bout’ that “cash for clunkers” going???
    Another pretty fucked up govenment “Progressive” program.
    Oh yeah Mike how bout that withdrawal from Iraq??
    How’s that goin’ there cowboy?
    Pretty fucking slow eh?
    And how bout them there bodies comming out of each war zone, EVERY DAMN DAY THERE COMRADE???
    This is too easy.
    You guys are fucking up spo much your actually making people wish Bush was still the president.
    How’s that for irony?

  • admin:

    Laugh all you want. The fact is that if nothing whatsoever is done SSI will become insolvent around 2041. So no, it’s not broke.

    I think the cash for clunkers program is a short term band aide but at least it has a positive environmental impact and any stimulus is by definition short term.

    Iraq withdrawal is not going fast enough for me but it is happening. Have you heard of the referendum that may have troops out a year earlier?

    So Ralph, did you have a point?

  • Ralph:

    So far as your assertions about SSI, that’s complete and utter liberal BULLSHIT.
    SSI is OUT OF CONTROL GOING BROKE AND COMPLETELY UNCONSTITUTIONAL TO BOOT.
    Yeah the environment, oh yeah right uh,huh,,,cash for clunkers or as I like to call it, “”Lies for suckers”
    The government is NOT paying out the cash, the “Clunkers” are not being crushed and the car dealers are taking it on the chin or should I say, having Obama’s message “Rhamed” home where the sun don’t shine.
    The troop withdrawal is NOT happening. we will NEVER be out of Iraq. What do you think we are using for a base of operations for Afghanistan?
    GERMANY????
    NO we are using Iraq thanks to the efforts of GWB otherwise your Boy would be lost in that one just like Mikhail Gorbachev your hero was in the 70’s and 80’s.
    Yes I have a point and that is you and your side is LOSING!!!!!!!!
    Hurray for liberty. This president MUST fail if this nation is ever to move forward again.

  • admin:

    Show me some facts on SSI or shut the hell up. How is it unconstitutional?

    Our troops are NOT fighting and dying in Iraq like they have been.

    Afghanistan is another matter entirely. Too little, too late. We should walk away.

    Gorbachev isn’t my hero but as far as Russian leaders go they could’ve done a lot worse.

    What exactly is my side losing and what are you winning?

    If you think the auto dealers won’t get their money, you’re retarded. But then we knew that.

  • Ralph:

    For Pete’s sake Mike read a fucking book or two. Something beyond Karl Marx or Howard Zinn.
    Try Mark Levin’s “Liberty and Tyranny” for starters
    It will blow your little pea brained mind. I doubt a pea brained idealoge like you could handle it.
    You’d be crying for your mommy there puss-boy
    You are TOTALLY wrong about everything you believe this country is.
    There is no provision in the US constitution that supports SSI.
    NONE!!!!
    That was all FDR’s bullshit idea that he put in his bullshit “Second bill of rights.
    Look it up asshole.
    It all BULLSHIT.
    Obama is 100% BULLSHIT just like all leftwing assholes like you and fortunately, the USA is waking up, slowly but it is.
    Iraq is STILL a war zone there sparky and troops are still being killed and injured there.
    You are a moron Mike.
    A liberal moron.
    You know NOTHING but pontificating liberal un-American horse shit. Over and over again.
    You are just a blow hard blowing out your ass.

  • admin:

    Ralph, because there is no provision in the Constitution for Social Security, doesn’t make it unconstitutional. By that logic, everything from skateboarding to fondue is treason.

    Again with Marx references, you’re so predictable. I can’t believe you honestly choose to argue against a program like Social Security. On second thought, you are retarded.

    Forgive most of us for being fans of FDR. Why don’t you move?

    Please try harder, you’re wasting my time and boring my readers.

  • Ralph:

    Mike:
    There is a huge differance between skateboarding and SSI.
    Your comparisions are bullshit.
    Just like your so called logic.
    I say to you again you blow hard read mark Levin’s book.
    Or are you too much of a coward?
    It explains it all.

  • admin:

    Hey Ralph. Point well taken about the difference between skateboarding and Social Security. Retard.

    Yawn.

  • Master Bacon:

    So much territory, so little to offer… Oh, that was my idea for the Nevada state motto ages ago. I have walked the same alkali-dusted trails as you, brother, and I actually do know the gal at Whole Foods cheese department in Reno (has it reached CC, NV yet?) I wish I loved Nevada; I might have been somebody by now. But I lothed it; still do. Sticks and mud, and government every other year. Yet, I follow it, like the low-grade soap opera it is, a whorehouse on fire, even! People as me about Burning Man, I say ‘I am Burning Man’ therefore, why would I attend? The imprimatur of Nevada is on me like the mark of Cain. But about that public option, it is why we voted for Obama, along with the war, guantanamo and equality. He is overdue to deliver but at least his body count is a fraction of his predacessor’s. I’ll second your mantra, ‘Fuck the Republicans,’ (indeed) and wipe your dick on the drapes as you leave. Goodnight from the ‘New’ Comstock. Master Bacon

  • admin:

    Whammy would so beg to differ. I neither love nor hate. It is our mark of Cain. Time for Obama to man up or I wipe my dick on the drapes indeed.

  • Master Bacon:

    Whammy knows best and at least the Silver State dodged the mark of McCain…

Leave a Reply

Recent Comments
Archives