Oz Mudflats

Found it here – the poster’s comment is hysterical!

I laughed so hard I peed my chair!

Meet my $2.35 banana.

As part of a normal diet for our age group, spouse and I are meant to each have one banana per day. No problem. We live in the tropics. Fresh fruit abounds. Or it did until the January flooding wiped out so many crops. Our lettuce (which had disappeared altogether back in February) is just now getting back to normal – big crispy heads of Iceberg Lettuce at just around $2.00 each.

Apples are small and often on the mushy side and average $5.00 per kg. Not great but doable. Pumpkins and potatoes are holding their own while tomatoes are up to $9.00 per kg and cucumbers have all gone MIA. Brussel sprouts and zucchini are so tiny I feel like a misplaced Brobdingnagian standing over their display cases  – and the celery is woody and way too thin.

But to suddenly be paying more than $32 per week for bananas is well – bananas! That’s$140 a month for two people to have a banana with lunch!

Holy Cow!

It makes me wonder how life is in the towns around the oil-stained Gulf of Mexico and newly radiated parts of Japan – and why we aren’t getting any reports or updates on either – but we know from minute to minute where Sarah’s damned bus is parked.

Has someone redefined the term ‘newsworthy’?

This from my email bag:

Friend —

As families around the country get together to celebrate fathers today, I’m thinking about dads like Alex.

Alex is the father of two boys and two girls, ages six to 13. During the week, he works the 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift as a front-desk supervisor at a Seattle hotel. After work and on the weekends, he devotes his time to a summer organizing program that’s giving more than 1,500 first-time organizers the training they need to help build this movement in their communities.

He says he hopes this organizing work will help teach his kids the power one person can have — that if “they see something that needs to be changed, they know they can make a difference.”

I wanted to share a video of Alex explaining what prompted him to join this program and devote his summer to this work.

I was really moved by what he had to say. Take a look, and share it with a dad you’re thinking about today:

Today, I’m also proud of my husband, the man who drove our first daughter and me home from the hospital 13 years ago next month, determined to be the kind of father he hadn’t had for himself.

Barack often says he decided that day that if he could be anything in life, he’d be a good dad, and he dedicated himself then and there to making sure our daughter had every opportunity he could provide.

When it comes down to it, that’s why we’re all here — Barack, Alex, myself, and everyone who’s part of this campaign. We’re all working to make sure we leave our kids with a country that’s fairer and more full of opportunity — just as our parents did for us.

Thank you for being part of that work, and part of this campaign.

Wishing you a happy Father’s Day,

Michelle

—
We aren’t funded by Washington lobbyists or corporate interests. We rely on donations from people like you. Barack Obama 2012

From my mailbox:

Dear xxxxxxx,

I’m writing to you from Manchester, New Hampshire, where last night I witnessed a spectacle that every single Obama supporter needs to hear about.

The major GOP presidential candidates debated for the first time and made one thing very clear: They have no agenda but to take down President Obama.

They even nodded along when one called the Obama administration a “destructive force,” and they said nothing when another said the President has “embraced our enemies.”

Last night was a wake-up call to anyone who thinks they can sit tight while the Republicans battle each other for the nomination: The campaign to defeat Barack Obama and roll back his entire record is well underway. And that’s the one thing on which all of their potential candidates agree.

It was seven against one. Since the President won’t be speaking for himself at one of these debates until next year, our best response is to show the Republicans that when they attack Barack Obama, it only makes us fight back harder.

Fundamentally, last night’s debate was about which of their candidates would turn back the clock the farthest.

They came out for re-fighting the battles they lost on Wall Street reform and the health care law. They backed reinstating “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

They even talked about abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency — and phasing out Social Security and Medicare.

They actually spent time debating whether they think Sarah Palin would have made a better vice president than Joe Biden (spoiler alert: They still think so!).

But the words “education” and “middle class” were never uttered even once.

If you were watching at home, you might have thought it was a re-run from four or eight years ago.

Most of these people are full-time candidates with nothing to lose and nothing to do but keep pushing to take us back to the failed policies of the past. Help fight back with a donation today:

http://my.democrats.org/Wake-up-call

Thanks,

Robert Gibbs

The above link takes you to the My Democrats website. On the home page there are links for fact-checking Republican claims along with a stack of other information. I am so  completely appalled with how our president is being treated both by the Republican Party and the media who seem to have forgotten HOW AND WHY news needs to be fact-checked BEFORE it is treated as news.

And where does one party get to call the seated president an enemy in order to win an election? When did this get to be ‘OK’ with the rest of us?

You may not personally like Pres. Obama – and you may disagree with his policies but that doesn’t give ANYONE the right to call him a traitor or insist the the country be TAKEN BACK as if it were lost in a poker game to a mafia drug lord.

Get Sarah Palin’s grubby little media-whore mitts  OFF THE NEWS so journalists can go back to doing their jobs and the country can go back to normal please!

Having only sifted through a dozen or three of these emails so far (posted on Crevilla West) I have two initial observations.

First, it appears a fair portion of Walt Monegan’s job description (Chief of Police/Public Safety Commission) was to spend copious amounts of time monitoring newspaper Letters to the Editor sections for any complaints made against Sarah’s administration and to write rebuttals before they posed a problem for the governor’s image. I can think of a lot of things I’d be wanting my Police Chief to be focusing on – somehow my personal image isn’t among them. But that’s just me.

Click links to view emails:

03AUG2007-Sarah tracks letters to editors

Well you know the old saying – crooks  can afford the best cars – I’m for law enforcement having even  better cars so the Espalade in the fleet doesn’t really bother me. But that really isn’t the issue here. The issue should be… why was this even on Sarah’s desk? If you’re the governor of a state don’t you have hired hands to take care of this kind of small stuff so you are free to handle oh I dunno bigger issues like – governing?

If she does officially run for president her next bus slogan should read:

Sarah Palin – It’s All About Me Me Me!

Then – on her watch, a state trooper is sued for excessive force. The police stand behind the trooper, but the plaintiff (ultimately) prevails and is awarded $1,000,000. The following email shows what most concerned the governor about the matter…

27SEPT2007-Sarah vs Spitzer

Palin Put the ME in Meme!

Sarah Palin’s emails – what’s left of them after 2.5 years of an entire state administration redacting them and turning them into expensive paper copies – thanks to Crevilla West –  are now back in a searchable, electronic format and open to the public so anyone can search through them using any word or term for the serarch.

Click here to access Palins emails on Crevilla West 

Thanks Crevilla West!

Go!  Sift!  Discover!

Many years ago *cough* I embarked on making my own Christmas cards. I drew a world globe covered with green dots and a pickle with a golden halo. Both were animated with eyes and arms and legs and holding a booklet of caroles. I called it “Peas on earth, Good dill toward man!”

Then I drew a plate with a steaming pile of asparagus, partially covered in a yellowy-creamy looking sauce with a sprig of holly on the top. I called it “Happy Hollandaise!”

No,really, it gets worse.

A carole-singing pair of salt and pepper shakers titled “Seasons Greetings” (which I would later discover some advertising company had the same idea) and a bottle of a Kikkoman’s (also singing a carole) called “Soy to the World!”

So when I stumbled on these three youtube gems I howled and laughed and just really giggled my morning away. Watch them in order. They build into a predictable albeit awfully funny ending.

I need  Palin break – enjoy the almost 4 minutes of peas and quiet 🙂

OzMud Freeware: Copy & Paste at will 🙂

Edit: Changed tips to snacks after being reminded that (1) Sarah doesn’t tip (h/t to Karen) and remembering things such as ice creams, chocolates, Red Bulls & coffees had been omitted.

OzMud’s Freeware: Copy & paste at will 🙂

Freeware: Copy and paste at will 🙂

I don’t mean to sound old-fashioned and I certainly don’t want to appear all nitpicky and semantical (if Sarah can make up words so can I) but – if Sarah wants to keep calling this bogus bus tour a family vacation wouldn’t it be prudent to actually include – oh I dunno – the family?

Ok Track’s a newlywed but in most big families just getting hitched wouldn’t be an acceptable excuse for not showing up for the big family road trip. The newlywedded (don’t bother spell-checking that one either) son would just be expected to bring along the newlywedded Mrs. So what gives?

Willow’s in schoo- no? uh yeah Sarah took Willow out of school so she could personally home tutor her. Umm how do you personally tutor a kid who is back in Alaska while you’re on vacation in New York?  And wouldn’t this ‘family vacation’ where the family is ‘tooling around educating folks on stuff like the constitution and liberty bell and statute statue of liberty and the Paul Revere ride to warn the British with bells and whistles’ be the perfect tutorial for your teenage tutoree? No, huh?

Bristol is worki – oh wait. Bristol isn’t working. Unless the filming of her new bogus reality show has started there’s actually no reason why she and her son couldn’t have gone on this family vacation with the rest of her siblings. Tripp would have been a great brother cousin uncle companion for Trig – wait – where’s Trig again? Not on the bus?

Well it can’t be that he’s too young because Sarah carted the poor kid around on her hip like a football just about 18 months ago during her book signing tour on that very same bus! So we know that can’t be the reason. Hmm…

Well Todd – wait – where’s Todd anyway? Wasn’t he there at the beginning of this trip? Sure he was we saw pictures of him and Piper riding a motorcycle at that pesky invite-me  invite-me-not Memorial Day rally. So where’d he go? He’s not out on the family fishing boat like he is every other year in June. He’s not on the slopes working a mine – where’s  dad? How do you have a family vacation without dad?

So the primary family unit of two parents and four five kids and two one grandsons plus new daughter-in-law and Sarah’s parents who by the way could easily all fit into this titanic-sized motorhome has dwindled down to Sarah, Piper, Grandma and Gramps?

Wow. A family vacation with only one of your five kids, no grandkids and only a cameo appearance by your husband. Doesn’t sound to me like the Palin clan got the memo about family values and sticking together. No wonder little Piper’s nose is so out of joint. All the fun people abandoned ship!

 Sarah – you might have at least let her bring a friend along, There’s no one on this bus her own age with whom to interact? That’s just really bad planning, bad parenting and I hope your peers in Alaska call you out on it. -Oz

============  UPDATE  ============

Sarah took a detour on Friday and landed in Arizona to ‘thaw out and regroup’. Watch video here.  (H/T to tm68 for the link.)

Sure because everybody takes a break from a family vacation less than a week in the making… must be nice to have that much money eh? Transporting the family bus from Alaska to Washington DC – then flying the family from Alaska to the bus – then flying people back to Alaska – then flying yourself, your daughter and parents to Arizona – in the middle of the vacation…

Oh wait – Sarah’s not paying for all this transportation her devoted fans are! You remember them – the people who donate to her PAC thinking they are contributing to making America better! Turns out they’re really just paying for room service and airfare.

Idiots.

I’m really beginning to like this kid. She just may turn out to be the brightest colour in the Palin paint set. And she’s going to need an edge in life as I’ve just learned this poor child’s entire Christian name. Ready? Piper Indi Grace Palin. P.I.G. P.

Really Sarah? Todd? What on earth were you thinking! Are you trying to get her beat up at recess? At least give the kid a break and make it Grace Indi. For proponents of good ‘ol common sense idills, you two sure do keep smacking your heads against the idiot tree.

Good grief.

Well , in true Palin style, Sarah elected to pretend an embarrassing moment never happened (even though it did) and performed a surgically-altered do-over of Piper’s failed press apology.

On their way to the Statue of Liberty Piper – on camera – refused to apologize to the press for her cattle-dog-herding behaviour of the day before, having shoved a perfectly polite reporter aside in what looked like the 10 year old’s perceived role as mum’s bodyguard.

Not to be criticized for her inept parenting skills, Sarah stages a second chance for Piper to endear herself to the crowd of reporters (again) outside the Hyatt. Again Sarah holds two flowers (big chrysanthemums?) but this time Piper walks right up to the cameras and smiles big, allowing the nice journos to ask her questions which she politely answers without hesitation or visible anomosity, giggling all the way. I’m not sure the apology was ever given, but she was charming and seemingly good-natured and won them over. All’s well that ends well.

My spouse looked at the clip and said, walking out of the room “Ah! She negotiated a better deal! Wonder how much it’s going to cost Sarah?” I don’t know! But some of the shots from the clip seem to lend credence to his take on the matter…

Piper [whispering]: Remember mother – when this is over I get to go to FAO Schwarz and pick out anything I want, right?
Sarah [under her breath]: Um-hmm.

Piper [whispering]: And I get to stay as long as I want and play on the Big Piano and I get two desserts with dinner for the rest of this stupid trip, right?
Sarah [under her breath]: Uh-huh

Aww I was only kidding this morning, I really like you guys 🙂

I don’t know if any of you were convinced or not – but I can’t get this picture out of my head now…

Have fun Piper! I’m rooting for ya!

I am stunned. Flummoxed. Spent. Sarah’s parenting skllls just keep sinking lower and lower. What was she thinking, dragging her 10 year old whom she obviously has little to no control over, out and into the harsh glare of public scrutiny?

Behold the woman who would negotiate trillion dollar oil deals, elicit major environmental controls and peace treaties with entire countries and hostile governments – yet can’t get her own daughter to offer a flower in apology for shoving a reporter the day before… and weep with me:

We can’t just ask Piper to turn around we have to physically turn her.

Piper can’t take her hand away from her mouth because she’s too busy trying to hide the fact that she’s laughing her bum off at the lunacy of this whole fake apology thing. Well get used to it Piper, your mum fakes a lot of stuff!

How embarrassing is this! Not only is Sarah literally begging her 10 year old to cough up an apology, she’s doing it on national television, in front of strangers with cameras – and she’s losing! I’m guessing the flowers weren’t exactly Piper’s idea either, eh mum?

This has got to be truly one of the most humiliating moments of Sarah’s political career – caught on camera – and a valid reason why she should never ever make a serious play for the presidency (there would only be more and more footage of these little image-crushing tete-a-tetes made public).  Her 10 yr old daughter refuses to go along with her mother’s contrived apology and is so unintimidated by Sarah’s authorityshe refuses the flowers and shuns her mother, boldlywalking away in a perfect exit:  stage left.

…and as the sun sets on Jersey City, Mother Sarah is left to apologize for her daughter’s behaviour and hands the not-sorry-flowers over to some reporter who isn’t even the same reporter who required the apology in the first place.

I am stunned. Flummoxed. Spent.

FYI Sarah – a decent media manager would have arranged for the shoved reporter to meet with you and Piper privately, where she could have a one-on-one conversation with the man and maybe apologize sincerely and make friends with him. Piper would have learned a valuable lesson and the reporter might have been moved to write a heart-warming little human interest piece on the two of you.

And a mother in touch with her child would have bent over and whispered in her daughter’s ear what she expected to happen next with perhaps a gentle reminder of what might happen should the daughter be less than agreeable. But not on camera – not where a microphone might pick up the conversastion – and certainly not in a way as to add further humiliation to an already embarrassing situation. It’s not too late to take some parenting classes. I’m just saying…

Please America, please do not give this woman the launch codes. At least not while Piper is the one in control.

During Sarah Palin’s UNcampaign-campaign road trip some raw footage was shot, posted online and has since gone viral. In fact, I’ve seen the clip on so many sites I can’t figure out who to ht/.

The clip is of Sarah and Piper on the street, stopped by a small handful of reporters. Sarah actually approaches one of the reporters, a gesture I’m sure she meant as an  ‘Ok I’ll talk to you guys now’ invitation to chat. Unfortunately, it seems her youngest daughter Piper didn’t get the memo as she becomes physically aggressive towards a man extending a microphone to her mother, literally pushing her own body against his protectively herding him away from Sarah like a trained cattle dog.

In response, the reporter(s) try to move in closer, even as Sarah herself moves towards them, trapping Piper a circle of big people who inadvertantly crowd Piper as a result.

I have many comments to make here. Just as soon as my blood stops boiling and I can focus without seeing red…

Parenting comes with a unique set of basic instincts that helps us protect our children while they’re infants.  More often than not those instincts continue to grow as we grow into our roles as parents and our children grow into adults. But some parenting skills need to be learned. Beyond the  traditional skills of cooking, nesting and earning a living, there are social skills that we as parents need to learn ourselves in order to instill in our children. Good habits and manners must be learned before they can be passed along. Parents need to learn communication skills to guard against sending our kids mixed or wrong messages. But when the parent is overly wrapped up in his or her own life or work or drama…

Piper’s behaviour in this video clip is clearly learned. She has obviously overheard her mother and father and their friends and security teams and advisors discuss the evils of the media and how important it is for Sarah not to be shanghied by reporters asking questions that would unravel Sarah’s political chances in her uncampaign-campaign for president.

Piper proves this by deliberately interjecting herself into what any other child would perceive as just another adult conversation. In a gesture designed to protect her mother from the evil reporter asking his evil questions, Piper rushes to the rescue. Piper would have no motive to display hostility towards these reporters without being taught by an adult. Clearly she is responding to attitudes learned in the home.

First and foremost, look at the beginning of the clip:

You’re in an unfamiliar town on a crowded street. Put clothes on your kid. It was not appropriate for Piper to be in a crowd of mostly male reporters with hotpants-styled short-shorts. Longer shorts that covered the thighs – perhaps. But if the tee-shirt was meant to set the theme, designer jeans would have been more age-appropriate for this predictable scenario. This wasn’t the desert. You weren’t at the beach. This was a public crowd on a city street which promised to only get bigger as more people identified you as Sarah Palin. Did you really mean for your young daughter to be bare-legged in a crowd full of strangers, mostly male?

Please note in the above still that Sarah was the one to approach the reporter – not the other way around. Sarah crossed in front of Piper to get to the reporter and offer a handshake.

It could be argued that Piper moved in between her mother and the reporter to attract attention but – look how she’s already pushed his right arm against his chest with her shoulder.

And now she’s literally using her whole body to push him away from Sarah – who, by the way, continues to move forward, speaking throughout (and not missing a single talking point) yet clearly overlooking her daughter’s actions, ignoring her presence entirely.

And while Sarah moves closer to the blocked-by-Piper reporter, other reporters are also moving closer and Piper begins to whine. Sarah appears oblivious to her daughter’s unpleasant predicament and just keeps talking.

And here’s the still that almost got lost in the commotion. Sarah’s chatting away, the reporter who is personally blocked by Piper desperately reaches over Pipers head with his microphone while attempting all the while to not crowd Piper in the process, as evidenced by his careful posture and the fact that he placed his other arm between Pipers head and his chest. But the parent in the room is the gentleman reporter on the left…

…that’s what a parent does to protect his child from falling, from being hit, from being crowded. A parent extends his arm to keep the child safe – from walking or falling in harm’s way.

Piper is now whinging, crying out “leave me alone!” and Sarah just keeps talking.

My feeling – and while it’s my own it’s not an uneducated or inexperienced observation –  is that Piper has been growing up for the past three years in an atmosphere of adults complaining about how bad reporters are and how much they hurt her mother. Children have their own built-in instincts and Piper is just at the beginning of the age where kids dream of being the hero.

I don’t for a moment believe Piper has been vying for attention in this or any of the road-trip-from-Hell photos taken of her restless, apparently rude behaviour. I believe she thinks she’s coming to her mother’s rescue.  Putting herself betwen her mother and the enemy would be a brave thing to do.

And if you’d lived in a home where the media was constantly portrayed as evil, vile, lame and ‘out-to-get-you’ – you’d probably think it was brave, too.