Tonight is the final Saturday night of February. My psychological yardstick for survivng winter is that once we get into March, and specifically once we get past Saint Patrick's day, I know we're in the home stretch and spring is finally coming. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind winter and this winter, for me, has been bearable because at least it has snowed instead of that awful winter rain we have gotten in the past. I'll take snow anyday. Although I have to admit that, unlike Philadelphia and some of the other East Coast cities, we really haven't been hit hard by tons of snow. At least not yet because you never know what March will bring. According to the weather, Monday is supposed to be close to 60 degrees and the weather is supposed to be a doozy with a lot of rain and severe weather. We'll see what happens. Being a weather forecaster is one of the few jobs you can have where you can get paid well for being wrong a large part of the time. That we all should be so lucky.
This week has brought some interesting news with the true nature of the Tea Party/Republican right wing coming into focus. According to a transcript of a conversation that a liberal blog -- masquerading as a Koch brother, a secretive extreme right-wing corporate head -- had with the Republican governor of Wisconsin the true motive is to break the unions because, well, for extremely rich, corporate people, unions are a thorn in their side because they demand that their employees be treated fairly. It seems that the Koch brothers and their ilk want to take us back to the good old days of the 1800's when the rich could do whatever they damn well pleased and the workers had to take the bread crumbs given to them. You only need to look at former Massey coal head Don Blankenship to see the example of what this might look like for America. The individuals behind the Tea Party are not lowly working men and women. They are rich, white fucks like Dick Armey and Karl Rove. They created this so called "populist" movement to do their bidding which is to stomp on the unions, in particular the teacher's unions, call their employees "greedy," God I love the hypocrisy in that charge, and make it so that their corporate brethen can do whatever they damn well choose in the name of profits. You see this in the desire to roll back all the environmental and food safety laws and their condescending pats on the head to us with the admonition that the corporations don't need regulations and that they will do what's best for us. What's fascinating for me is how willingly "regular" Americans are to go along with this charade and cut their own throats. What's also interesting is that many of the so-called anti-government tea baggers don't hesitate to take federal beneifts. I just read an article tonight on CNN about the god-mother of the Tea Party movement who, surprise, surpirse, decries big government but is on Medicare for her hips. For more examples of this look no further than a great article that Matt Taibbi wrote for that liberal, pinko rag Rolling Stone on the Tea Party movement. And, in Pittsburgh, the woman who runs the tea party here is a rich, white woman who lives in one of the rich suburbs of Pittsburgh. Yes, Virginia, these people are working for your rights (not).
It's scary. The rich folks exported all of our good paying jobs overseas and left us with an economy based on jobs at Walmart. And none of the so-called service jobs pay enough for their workers to buy a house, a car, or any of the other trappings of the elusive middle class life. Meanwhile executives at the large corporations are being paid millions of dollars A YEAR to run their corporations. Who is worth 5 million dollars? That's just obscene. And the tea partiers are complaining about teachers and public sector workers being greedy?? I work as a public employee for the City and I can guarantee you that I am not getting wealthy. And I have a law degree. Yes, it was my choice to work for the City instead of chasing people for money all the time and worrying if I would make enough each month to pay the bills. But don't demonize me because I'm a public sector employee. I heard that the FOP joined in on the protests in the Capital in Wisconsin. Wonder what political motive they had for doing this? The FOP here in Pittsburgh goes on about other unions being bad, liberals being evil, etc. etc. but they have one of the strongest unions in the country along with the firefighters and they are usually backing Republicans. So wonder what's going on with them in Wisconsin.
The fight to crush the unions is coming here to Pennsylvania. Corbett is already for "school choice" which is the right-wing code word for breaking the teacher's union. Of course this is all done in the name of protecting poor black students. Meanwhile guess which social service programs that benefit these same students are being cut??
In today's issue of the Post-Gazette a straight, presumably white woman wrote an article about who is advocating for people like her who are normal and not freaks (her words). She then spends a great portion of her article talking about how all the gay/lesbian individuals have people like Lady Gaga speaking out for them when her kind of people don't. Well, I agree to a point. Women in general in this society don't have people standing up for them -- witness the recent wars on abortion -- but the freaks and not normal individuals have been demonized, denied the right to marry, until recently the right to serve in the military, denied employment and other various types of civil rights while she at least can enjoy some of these rights. Just stay away from Ben Roethlisberger and Charlie Sheen.
Oh, and by the way, I listened to the new Radiohead "album" tonight that is streaming on Rollingstone.com. Several commentators have said it's their most divisive album. Well, I did listen to it only once and on my computer, but, it sounded like just another Radiohead album to me. Which by that I mean I didn't notice a big difference between this album and their last few albums.
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