It’s hard to write an obituary for someone I’ve admired my entire adult life.

This is what politics, particularly politics in the most corrupt state in the union, does to a person. It turns you into a cocksucking whore. I don’t know any other language that can express the sadness, the anger and the horrible disappointment.

He used to be a good man. I’ve supported him since I can remember, when he was state comptroller and when he ran for governor. I believed in him. He was one of us, a southern Illinoisan.

Burris is from the same town as my mother (not that my mom lived “in” that tiny town…she lived on the farm in the country). Mom was friends with his sister Gloria at a time blacks and whites weren’t supposed to be friends. (Mom being a Pollyanna, didn’t know, and to this day spits when we drive past the diner that educated her.)

When all of the scandal regarding selling Obama’s senate seat broke, and Burris was tossed into the mix, I stood up for him. I still believed, but the truth is, I haven’t been active in Illinois state politics in a few years. All I can plead is ignorance.

My uncle told me Burris sold out, that he’d changed. Not only had he put up a giant monument as a future tombstone, and had crazy stuff carved on it, the tombstone was in….Chicago.

The only people who could possibly understand the significance of such an act are native southern Illinoisans like myself. It would take a book’s worth of writing to explain it all. Let’s just say it’s not a good thing and leave it at that.

So Roland Burris sold his soul to the devil that is the state of Illinois politics.

And now he’s one of very few who voted to continue funding the joke that is Acorn. Nothing else needs to be said.

RIP Roland, you’re political roadkill now.

I’m not sure why I care, but it’s like being covered in maggots when I see major news media making mistakes like these. If it’s not the Associated Press, it’s the New York Times. Now it’s the Washington Post:

“You want socialism?” said Susan Clark, a District resident marching with a bullhorn. “Go to Russa!”

I’m sure they’ll fix it pronto, but the url is here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/12/AR2009091200971_pf.html

Does the Post not have a copy editor anymore? How does this kind of shit make it through?

In my day, not only would that kind of mistake (it’s Russia, not Russa) have been caught, it would have resulted in a head blast from the managing editor. A million years later, I still remember the fury when I made the error of “artic” instead of “arctic,” and I came in to the newsroom the next morning, not only saw it wrapped in red, I had a huge angry note, followed by screams. Uh, never made that mistake again.

But it was caught by a copy editor and didn’t make it to press.

This is the Washington Post, not the Bumfurg Weekly. Just another example of why the media has no credibility left. If they can’t even spell Russia, how can they possibly get the facts right? Oh, they can’t.

Gawd.

I wasn’t going to say any more about the stimulus bills because they’re done and over with. I don’t see the value of wasting time on them any more.

However….I just have to say this. Bits of stimulus money keep popping up all around me. The latest is my aunt’s opera company, and they got a wad. Hey, if they’re gonna spread this money around, I *am* delighted some is going to the arts, and her company got some benefit. We had a nice laugh about that today on the phone. I’m not sure what that does to the economy, because the same people who go to the opera are going to go to the opera, and the arts depend a lot on donations anyway. And ticket sales, and I doubt they’ll go down. I figure opera is like porn in that no matter how hard times get, you need your fix.

The other bits of stimulus money, one I can’t say because it would violate someone’s privacy. It was just funny; basically a call to a certain company out of the blue saying “Hey you want fifty grand?”

Um yeah.

The third bit makes me roll my eyes. Shortly after the money was being divvied up, I had to take a drive from St. Louis to the middle of Illinois via I-70. I know this stretch of interstate well, because I grew up taking trips on that road. The little town in southern Illinois is my hometown.

Usually, during this two-hour drive, you might see a state cop in the turnaround, using radar to catch speeders. It’s a big day if you see two.

On this particular trip, I can’t tell you how many I saw because I didn’t think to count. But there were usually two state police cars at EVERY turnaround (are those about every two miles? I’ve never measured.). A few places only had one car, and a couple had THREE CARS. Some were unmarked, but most were not.

Turns out….stimulus money. I’m all for state police getting some overtime. But do we *really* need this kind of overkill? Nobody was speeding, that’s for sure, but it’s not like that stretch of road is filled with crazy drivers. It’s 80 percent truck drivers. (That’s not scientific, I just made it up, although in the field of psychiatric medicine, pulling a number out of your ass IS scientific. But that’s another story.)

Seeing so many state troopers was just ABSURD. Somebody, go do a murder so they have something to do. Geesh.

So yesterday, I made the trip again. (It’s a common trip, I fly in from NY and then take a car east.) This time, the state trooper level was back to normal. But now, the trip took a lot longer because….ROAD CONSTRUCTION.

I’m sorry, but they just redid those roads not so long ago. In fact, I remarked a year or two ago to my mom that they did a really nice job, the surfaces were so smooth and it was overdue because there had been some rough spots.

So this is yet ANOTHER waste of money, in my opinion.

I traveled yesterday on a number of roads, the interstate and then some state routes. ALL WERE NA REMONT, which is Russky for under repair. (When I lived in the USSR, the big joke was that the entire country was na remont, because even though it was many decades after WWII, they were still repairing the damage.)

Oddly, huge stretches of road were being worked on, and NOT ONE BRIDGE. Illinois is a state full of damned bridges. (Lotta rivers.) I thought the bridges all needed to be fixed, or that’s what they said after the big disaster up north when the bridge fell in.

Yes, I suppose it’s normal that Illinois got more than its fair share of pork money, I mean stimulus money, given that our president is from Illinois (by way of other places…it’s not like he’s really a native, and I don’t know if he’s yet learned that Kentucky is our neighbor to the south). But c’mon, this is just out of control.

If someone can give me justification for that many state troopers having donuts in the turnarounds, please do. And if someone can tell me that Interstate 70 east of St. Louis was in dire need of repairs, but the bridges are good, I’m open to hearing it.

So????

I have to confess I’d never even heard of Whole Foods until I watched the last season of Top Chef. That’s another reality show with cheffish people who can take a box of ingredients and turn it into a meal. Not being one who really enjoys spending time in the kitchen, I’m amazed at what these people can do. It’s not for me.

That show apparently has a deal with Whole Foods, and at one point, I finally googled it, learning that it sells things like whole grains and organic produce and lots of different kinds of meat and stuff. The only one on Long Island is practically in Queens. It’s kind of odd that the eastern tip of the island is filled with Christie Brinkleys who protest nuclear plants but don’t want windmills off their shores (or was that Ted Kennedy?), and yet there is no Whole Foods. It seems like that would be a perfect fit.

Except you’ve all been so PWNED, and I just LOVE when people are taken on a ride. LOVE IT.

Massive fail for all you folks who shopped Whole Foods thinking it was a big happy family of people yearning to live on a commune and make babies in the flowery van.

The CEO is a friggin LIBERTARIAN!

HUGE PWN.

So boycott your heart out, but bet you go back. Because this dude knew what he was doing and you got sucked in.

Just to be clear: I’m not a libertarian, although I appreciate some of their views on things like drugs, porn and prostitutes. I disagree in that I believe  there IS a role for government with respect to roads and libraries, art funding, and so on. Oh, I’m in the MIDDLE again.

I hate being a moderate so much, because it goes against my need to be freakish, but sometimes middle of the road, while boring, makes so much more sense.

Oh, and get this: I’m an avid organic gardener myself.  I haven’t used a non-organic chemical in over three (four? I’ve lost count now) years, and I even shun certain organic-approved products because they hurt the bees. I like the bees.

But…I don’t buy organic unless I’m at the farmer’s market. And there I do because a particular husband-wife team IS organic and I just heart their produce. They also have lambs, but you have to buy an entire lamb. That’s too much MEAT.

I wonder how many heads exploded when they found out the CEO was not a fellow super lib, and was the worst of the worst: a libertarian. God I wish I could have seen that.

FAIL.

Life never goes how I plan. I planned that this little section of this website would be my little corner, a blog where I could talk about various things and stay away from politics.

But not blogging about politics for me was a ridiculous idea. I love politics and always have. The problem is, I do all this activism stuff and it’s just not smart to be blogging about politics or my personal life. They don’t mix well.

With politics, no matter what your view, you’re going to piss off about half the people (unless you’re doing a political blog, and then you’ll develop a following of mostly like-minded folks and a few others who come to fuss or discuss).

I want people to pay attention to my activism work, not the junk I post here…it’s distracting from my message. I also have this need to keep my life very compartmentalized, and having this section out there doesn’t fit in with that personality quirk.

So…I’m going to keep on rattling on here like I do, though probably less often. It’s still my little corner just to be me. But I’m going to remove the link from the other sections of the site, and people who are looking for depression/shock info can do that. I get Googlers, which is fine. They aren’t here for depression stuff, and I somehow don’t like mixing it all up.

I’m canning relish tonight, fresh from the garden, so I need some things to do in between sterilizing jars, packing and sealing. There’s downtime, so here I am.

That’s all.

If you have HBO and anyone in your life with bipolar disorder (or you have it), you should watch “Boy Interrupted,” a documentary that played at the Sundance Festival.

I think this movie will be up there with Kite Runner as one that sticks with me. It is haunting and it is powerful.

The filmmaker is Evan Perry’s mother, and Evan Perry killed himself at age 15. His parents did everything right, got him into therapy, saw a psychiatrist regularly, loved him unconditionally.

If there’s anything you take out of this movie, it should be this: there’s no black and white with mental illness. The media portrays it as two ends of a spectrum: either the person with mental illness is a crazed killer (most killers are sociopaths and assholes, but not necessarily mentally ill, and most persons with mental illness are not violent) or psychiatry cures it all.

I’ve been afraid to watch the show “Mental” precisely for this reason. I have taped every episode, but haven’t had the heart to watch it. I’m afraid it’s going to be the typical bullshit of “these poor mentally ill folks, if only they’d take their meds, all would be right with the world.” And add a rogue psychiatrist who goes out of his/her way to be cool and avant-garde. There may be a couple of them out there, but your chances of finding them is remote. And who knows if a groovy hat and James Deanesque personality means anything with respect to recovery.

This documentary is a real heartbreaker. I could so empathize with Evan. I just got him, that’s all I can say.

The quote in the title is something the psychiatrist said. It’s pretty true.

Is douchebag one word or two? I don’t think it’s in my AP Style Manual. (Do reporters still use that? I’m out of the loop these days.) It matters not. What matters is that the Queen of All Media (and I don’t mean Helen Thomas or Perez Hilton) has put together a nice short list of liberal hypocrisy. This is reason #187,992 why I told the Democratic Party to suck it. (I’m still without a party, but that’s okay. I have plenty of company.)

I’m warning all libs now, Dana Loesch is gonna be your worst frigging nightmare. Do Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Laura and Tammy get you all sweaty? Do they take that tingle up your leg and turn it into a migraine headache? Well, strap your panties on tight, because I’ve heard from my magic 8 ball and it says Dana Loesch is the next big thing in conservative media. I predict sweet book deals, a national radio show and spontaneous combustion at MSNBC.

I’ll tell you what, everybody in Missouri and Illinois (and Kansas and other neighbors) ought to head over to Mark Muller and buy their new car or truck.

Muller completely pwned the CNN lady. Nice one!

Check it out over at Dana’s.

and p.s. you wait and see…it won’t be that long until Dana’s name is mentioned in the same breath as Laura Ingraham. She’s got the goods. Missouri puts out some mighty fine people.

That’s sad to hear, although I’d heard he was ill. He was a real newsman, back when the media had some credibility and respect.

CNN ruined it, and other things didn’t help. Dan Rathergate, who used to be the only “hero” I ever had, stuck the final straw up the ass of the media.

Now the mainstream media is factually wrong a lot of the time, the Associated Press can’t even spell, and it’s all one big fat and greasy tabloid.

Katie Couric tried, but she did not rescue CBS News, despite wearing her smart glasses. Perky doesn’t equal dignity, nor accuracy.

As my very first newspaper editor Bill Harmon used to scream:

Accuracy, God Dammit! Accuracy!

I’ve known some people who could afford to pay the premiums for health insurance, but made choices. They didn’t, so they could buy other things. (In one case, a family with two kids, mom is a clotheshorse and that comes first. The rest of us have paid a lot of medical bills for them.)

Under the proposed healthcare plan, these folks will be required to carry insurance. I’m not sure, but I think if they don’t ante up, the government will just take it out of a paycheck like it does FICA.

All of these folks voted for Obama, and they’ve been whistling a happy tune, thinking they’re getting free or dirt-cheap health insurance.

Wake up, suckers. Your paychecks are gonna get a whole lot lighter pretty soon.

It’s called the No Choice plan.

You whined and whined about health insurance (I’m talking about the millions of people who had access to it, but had other priorities and rolled the dice; I’m not talking about people who have lost jobs and have genuine need) while you shined your BMW and wrote checks for the private schools.

What you really wanted was to take a ride on the Obama Gimme Train, and guess what. Nothing is free. Welcome to the world the rest of us live in.