Full Transparency — I love ‘Broads’. I love the ‘idea’ of ‘Broads’. I even like the word ‘Broads’ to describe that particular kind of woman…
Of all the words used to describe women, “Broad” has had a virtually unique journey. It went from having purely negative connotations to having almost completely positive ones. At the web site todayifoundout.com, Dave Haskey has a good post about where words like ‘broad’ came from. He finishes the section on ‘Broad’ with a quote from A Dictionary of Words About Women, by Jane Mills: “…A broad is defined as “a woman who is liberal, tolerant, unconfined, and not limited or narrow in scope.”
“Unconfined” is important. So is “Not limited or narrow in scope”. Broads have perspective. It’s hardwired into them. It’s what gives them that ‘Honey, I’ve seen it all, heard it all, done it all’ quality.
Broads are steel built on a foundation of heartache. She liked the look of ya, so what? She saw the rest of you coming from a million miles away. You can knock her down all you like. She’s already back on her feet. She may want you but you? You need her — and that’s gonna be harder on you.
Bette Midler is a ‘Broad’ —
One of Bette’s idols — Sophie Tucker (“Last of the Red Hot Mommas”) — was the ‘Uber Broad’.
If you’ve never seen The Divine Miss M’s tribute to her idol — you owe it to yourself: A Broad Paying Homage To A Broad…
Helen Mirren is a ‘Broad’ — you could see the ‘Broad’ in her even when she was a young actress chewing up the RSC.
Helen Mirren, nominee Best Actress in a Leading Role for ?The Queen? (Photo by Jeff Vespa/WireImage)
But, finally, the quintessential ‘Classic Hollywood Broad Moment’ is delivered by Hollywood’s Most Classic Broad — Lauren Bacall.
One thing ya never do — men especially? Is try and top a ‘Broad’.
Imagine us sweeping into a dressing room for a fitting. How shall we ‘dress’ going forward (through the door of the next election — there, that’s the whole metaphor)?
Turns out we have the whole world’s attention as we twirl in the mirror. They all see us how they see us — like friends and rivals, each with a history and an attitude toward us. Can’t do much about that right now. History is history.
But, as we twirl, we catch our own reflection. And what we see staring back… It confounds us. We know what we are in our heads. Why doesn’t our body look like it?
Welcome to Gerrymandering.
Quick example (drawn from Lawrence Wright’s wonderful piece in the New Yorker from a few months back about the effects of gerrymandering on Texas). Austin, Texas has a largely progressive voter population. And yet — of the SEVEN voting districts into which Austin has been carved, as of the time Wright was writing, only ONE was represented by a Democrat. The rest of Austin’s six — predominantly progressive — districts were represented by conservatives (and in several districts, ARCH conservatives).
The (intended) result — A MAJORITY Progressive voting population is represented as a MINORITY Conservative population — the Will of the People has been completely CIRCUMVENTED. The intended result isn’t just an electoral win for the MINORITY candidate but the creation of a Juggernaut of electoral invincibility that will keep the conservative white, Christian minority in power over a progressive, diverse majority. In heavily gerrymandered districts all over the country, Democrats must, in essence, generate at least twice the voter turnout just to achieve ‘parity’ that overcomes the distorting effect of the gerrymandering.
Because that’s what gerrymandering does (aside from circumvent the will of the people) — it creates a distortion — exactly like dysmorphia — to take root in our brains. The News Media — glomming onto the numbers (like it was our weight expressed down to the atom) — doesn’t see or acknowledge the context that gerrymandering presents, that the numbers, without that context, tell, in fact, a very false narrative about a district that doesn’t exist.
If you’ve ever experienced body dysmorphia — or know someone who has — a dysmorphic’s body image does not match reality. They desperately need a meal but their dysmorphic mind says ‘Go on a diet’. The diet could kill them.
That is us — America. A progressive-by-nature country (that’s what diversity does — it’s why diversity COMES in the first place because progressive places welcome while regressive places turn away) being run by arch conservative people NOT because the progressive population ‘wants’ to be governed that way but because the arch conservative people figured out how to HOLD ONTO POWER despite the fact that they were no longer the majority entitled to hold onto power.
And they did that through GERRYMANDERING.
When America looks in the mirror, it sees THIS —
It sees diversity. It sees every color in the rainbow and every variation on the theme of being human. It sees America staring back at it.
When Conservative America look in that same mirror, this apparently is what it sees staring back —
THEY look like that, yes. They do. And they’re proud of it. But it’s not what WE look like. It’s not what America looks like.
When we start to get healthy again — soon, I hope — we’ll see it.
I am biased as hell. Yessirree. I am an out-and-out advocate for MARIJUANA. More transparency — I now write a weekly column (for $) at marijuana.com — and I urge you to check them out — they’re now THE site to go-to for real news about marijuana.
More transparency — I’ve always wanted to write the story of how marijuana was made illegal in this country — and the world — in the first place (and most importantly WHY).
It’s a subject I care about. Cause I use it — and, yes, yes, it’s not for everyone and children should NOT use it (are we all done being stupid?) but — for most adults, it is a good product with good, solid, reliable benefits. It does vastly more good than harm to and for the people who use it and, as we’re learning state by state, when you legalize it and tax it and people go buy it & use it… nothing bad happens. And tax dollars come in.
Marijuana is not a perfect product. NO PRODUCT IS PERFECT (are we done being stupid now?) For argument’s sake — cos it’s ‘related’ — your average pharmaceutical product (to judge by the litany of horrible side effects) has a far better chance of harming you or, just as bad, addicting you. Marijuana — in a world of choices — is a good choice for many medical conditions — and a better choice than alcohol for recreational use.
You’ll have to point to the news coverage of a bunch of stoners leaving a soccer game and tearing up a town. It doesn’t happen. Because marijuana doesn’t inspire you in that direction.
Still – we get to hear the opponents (and ‘soft friends’) of marijuana warn us about the drug’s inherent dangers. Psychosis comes up a lot. Schizophrenia too. Cannabis ‘can’ make those conditions worse. ‘CAN’. But ‘can’ HOW?
The same argument gets made about marijuana’s impact on young users. I’m not saying — at all — that marijuana is ‘good’ for young users. Hell no. I’m just asking can we get some actual data that says it’s bad and show us how and why it’s bad. But the published data really can’t do that because it never bothered to keep track of the marijuana being used. In some cases, the teens whose experience researchers were talking to simply reported they were high all day. But we don’t know on what. We don’t know how much. We don’t know where it came from or even if the test subjects are even reliable in their reporting.
I want to know the Truth about marijuana as much as anyone. More. Cause I use so damned much of it. If it IS killing me — I may not stop using it because it does so many other good things for me (and the truth is, at some point, I’m going to die anyway). But at least I’ll be able to make an informed, adult decision. Like a Free Person should be able to.
Until marijuana research starts approaching the product it’s researching like a ‘real thing’ and not the ludicrous abstraction that bad, racist law enforcement and cultural prejudice convinced us it was, we will live in darkness. I can’t think of another product that was so demonized for such terrible reasons.
We live in Indecent Times. Decency is as dead as irony is alive.
In American Politics, Decency died the day Lee Atwater went to work.
WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 21: Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Lee Atwater, young Republicans political operatives who have set up lobbying firms. (Photo by Harry Naltchayan/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Lee Atwater’s the dude on the right — keeping company with Paul Manafort & Roger Stone. During the 1980’s & 1990’s, Atwater ran campaigns for Ronald Reagan & George Bush before running the RNC. Atwater didn’t invent dirty, malicious politics in America but he turned them from gamesmanship into brinkmanship. He had no interest in compromise. None.
Newt Gingrich picked up the mantle when cancer took a bite out of Atwater (though I bet cancer wished almost immediately it could spit Atwater out).
Newt turned Atwater’s political war against the Left into an all out Culture War. We have not been the same since.
When you choose not to compromise with someone, you cease having to communicate with them — except to tell them what you expect to DO to them. It’s an aggressive act — cutting off effective communication with someone. It’s a not-so-subtle declaration of War. Culture War. Political War.
It flows: When you see yourself in a perpetual state of war, the people opposing you are your enemy — even if they’re your countrymen and they simply see a different way of solving the Nation’s many problems. Decent people don’t see people they disagree with as their enemy deserving of cultural death.
But Newt did. As did Lee.
Paul Manafort and Roger Stone — friends of Lee’s — went to work for Donald J Trump. We all know where he stands vis a vis ‘decency’.
Another of Donald Trump’s mentors of course was Roy Cohn — another member of this despicable club.
And Roy Cohn famously worked for Joe McCarthy. And Joe McCarthy famously got asked the very same question Donald Trump and the whole Republican Party need to be peppered with repeatedly: “At last, sir, have you no DECENCY?”
There’s a phrase I’m fond of saying here: “BACK IT UP OR IT’S BULLSHIT”.
I appreciate that it’s just easier to let other people think for you — especially where the Bigger Questions In Life are concerned. Where did ‘This’ all come from? Why are we here? What is the point?
‘Cos god’ is what Institutional Religion wants you to buy — and they hit you early and hard to make you buy. And, because they’re hitting you early, when you’re a kid, they know you have no capacity to fight back. Or ask a good question or two. Something that might stump them like: “What the hell are you TALKING about?”
Enter the ‘Mumbo Jumbo’… the ‘Ooga Booga’… The MAGICAL THINKING.
What happens when we die? Heaven. Proof of it’s existence? Don’t need proof — faith. Ah — and ‘faith’ in WHAT?
Faith in the Magic. Faith that ‘The Magic’ is real. Based on… nothing. Because there never was anything to back it up.
For a generation now — since Lee Atwater & Newt Gingrich & Karl Rove & everyone who ever worked in the Nixon White House declared open cultural war on Progressive America (AMERICA in other words), actual data to back up and justify their policy initiatives and the direction they wanted to take America were totally non-existent. But MAGICAL THINKING was suddenly available in abundance.
Liberated from having to actually BACK UP their claims, republicans and conservatives went hog wild — trickling down all kinds of bullshit on the heads of the American People. Bullshit is like a booby trapped toy dropped into a war zone. It looks so innocent when you pick it up — and then it ‘explodes’ inside your head. Coat the Truth in enough lies often enough and the lie begins to cover up the Truth completely.
The story of how marijuana was ‘illegalized’ in this country comes to mind. And while I’m at it, let me do a little cross pollenization —
Inevitably, Magical Thinkers legislate their Magical Thinking onto the rest of us. We find ourselves subjected to laws and rules that WE KNOW are based on bullshit. And we look around at each other and we wonder — how the hell did THE MAJORITY of Americans end up HERE — where BULLSHIT (Magical Thinking) gets taken seriously while The Truth gets tossed aside?
Bullshit — and those who deal in it — count on their bullshit causing confusion and disrupting logic.
Donald J Trump comes to mind, strangely…
Good thing the cure isn’t hard to find or take: Read. Learn. Analyze. Question. Back It Up.
Remember this guy? The Crypt Keeper? Friend of mine actually. For real. He used to say “Be careful what you wish for, kiddies, you may just get it!” Then the Crypt Keeper would laugh — kinda like this —
And then he’d get on with the episode.
Now, of course, when the Crypt Keeper warned that you’d ‘get’ it, he didn’t mean that you’d ‘receive the thing you wanted’. He meant, ironically, the opposite. You’d ‘GET IT’ and wish like hell you hadn’t.
That’s how republicans would feel — in a very short amount of time — about The World they have been trying to foist upon the rest of us: “Wait — we didn’t realize THIS would happen if we had our way — send it back to the kitchen! Is it too late to order something else off the menu?”
American conservatives — if we take them at their word — want to CONSERVE a world where:
The Rich Get Richer
Everyone else gets poorer
A dwindling Social Safety Net (to pay for the rich guys)
White Christian Male Cultural Hegemony rules
Abortion is illegal & so is Birth Control
All non-European immigration is illegal
The Free Press is not Free
Guns are even MORE ubiquitous than they are already
Anyone who isn’t Straight, white, Christian & male is automatically suspicious.
Might makes Right
Ignorance is bliss
A lot of conservatives want to bring religion (theirs) back to a Central position it really never had in American Life — except in Currier & Ives prints.
A lot of conservatives want to restrict education to ‘special white people’ only. Everyone else is going to work the gig economy while their faltering, compromised standard of living gets harder and harder to maintain.
A lot of conservatives think guns should be everywhere. Literally EVERYWHERE (except republican party events).
American Conservatives now think conspiring with a hostile foreign power is no different than cleaning hand and finger prints off a gun you just used to murder someone. No prints, no crime.
Uh huh. Let’s see if Mr Mueller goes along with that…
If one could really pull off ‘Thought Experiments’, I would LOVE to give Conservatives the world they crave.
First, of course (because it’s a thought experiment), we’d put all the Conservatives in one part of the country (one that’s already hard core red) and — irony — PUT A WALL AROUND IT.
Then we, the progressive world, would go do our thing for, say, A GENERATION while our conservative chums did the same thing inside their world. Then, at a certain pre-determined time and place, we’d all get together and COMPARE NOTES. Question: How would Conservative World have done in contrast to Progressive World?
If we realistically laid out Each World’s approach to education, to diversity, to health care, to birth control & abortion, to financing the commonweal itself, we would find very distinct countries: One — Conservative Land — would be lots of fun to live in if you were straight and white. More of a daily grind if you weren’t but that’s by design.
For anyone else, Conservative Land would be the ‘spark’ in their lives going out. It’d be the voice of Reason sputtering.
For us, it’s just another day in TrumpLand…
Conservative Land would NOT be a place that innovated anything because innovative people would have been dissuaded from going there. Conservatives figuring that THEIR gene pool would make up the difference are going to be mighty shocked when they discover that White People — fine as they are — aren’t an more innovative than anyone else. In a world though where few new ideas gain purchase (because thinking the SAME is encouraged), innovation fails to ignite.
Thinking the same promotes acting the same promotes being the same.
And yet — as it teetered toward ruin — because bankrupt, because horrible standard of living, because dwindling tax base — Conservative World would still THINK it was succeeding. What everyone else called failure, they’d call ‘doing things their way’. But, no — it’s failure. Total failure by EVERY other name.
Conservative World would probably attend the meet-up as spiffed up as it could be — but unable to hide how hard things have been. Holding out their hand to Progressive World — after the hand-shaking was done — probably gave the WHOLE GAME away: They needed help.
And they knew Progressive world 1) could help and 2) probably would help.
Progressive World would be a very different place — where anything can happen because so many people are creating so many things and thinking so many exciting new thoughts. Diversity challenges everyone to compete against everyone else on the levelest possible playing field.
Diversity of opinion and process, diversity of point of view, diversity of problem-solving. The human genome works by favoring strong attributes over weak ones — strong attributes being the ones where you’ll ‘survive better’ for having them. The irony (cause you can never have too much irony) is that White Supremacists are under the mistaken impression that they can ‘fine tune’ and ‘purify’ their white genes by excluding everything else from their gene pool.
One more dumb white person idea gets revealed for the dumb white person idea that it is. White Supremacists aren’t stupid. The aren’t incompetent. But they do cling on to bad information like it was their last dollar — which is stupid.
While Progressives could never, would never have a place in Conservative World, the opposite is almost never true. It’s not true now.
One of the most important aspects about Progressive World — what really sets it apart from Conservative World — is that it evolves. All the time. It allows people to evolve. To grow up and mature. To live and LEARN. And then to come back to the fold and contribute — hopefully having LEARNED from their mistakes.
There wouldn’t be a single attribute about Conservative World that wasn’t a thousand times better in Progressive World — Food, Entertainment, Art, Technology, Governance.
The only question remaining after this Thought Experiment — if it could be made real? What to do about the fence we’ve built around Conservative World. We’re not tearing it down — that’s for sure. Hell — the question I’m thinking of is — do we build it even higher? Or do we must mine the damn thing and enjoy the fireworks?
Hey, Trumpanistas — Still fuming over ObamaCare? Still cursing the day your insurer was FORCED to insure your pre-existing condition without bankrupting you? Still hating on having to pay for other peoples’ health care — including WOMEN?
Well TrumpCo has exactly what you’re looking for — a ‘health insurance’ plan that has the same grasp of what ‘insurance’ is as YOU apparently do — NONE! Introducing, New Trump-Care ‘PICK-AN-ORGAN’: The Health Care ‘Plan’ designed for Trumpanistas.
Think of it THIS WAY: You have lots of organs. What are the chances any will ‘go south’ on you during your lifetime? Your lungs? Probably not — unless you smoke. Your kidneys — You have two — you’re playing with house money. Your heart? Well, okay — that one could be a problem but if your heart’s going south on you — you’re pretty much toast anyway, right?
The point is, Trumpanistas, you’re too smart to INSURE organs you don’t need to — or are worth the risk NOT to insure. And that’s why you’ll love ‘TrumpCare PICK-AN-ORGAN’ —
LUNGS
Odds are nothing will happen to either of em. But you want to play it safe — so we offer options to allow YOU to decide: Insure Neither Lung, One Lung or Both Lungs!
See? Easy! Now, of course, the trick is, if you insure just one? Ya better hope like hell you insured the correct Lung — the one that’s gonna be needing insurance…
LET’S TALK INTESTINES!
If you’re like the average Joe, you have LOTS of this stuff inside ya. You have intestines to spare. In fact, you have so much intestine you even have two kinds (I know — weird, huh?) But do you really need to insure both? Do you really need to insure ‘ALL’ of it?
And what about your APPENDIX? You don’t even use it — hell you haven’t used it in millions of years. Only an idiot insures something he can’t use — amiright?
I KNOW THAT’S MY LIVER BUT WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ‘GREEN’ THING?
The Truth is — Outside of your heart and lungs, your stomach and your anus, you haven’t a clue how any of your plumbing works. You know you HAVE a Liver and you remember somebody lecturing you once about alcoholism while you were passed out in a drunken stupor but that was so long ago.
Be that as it may — This is probably you: “What in hell’s name is that green thing — and please don’t say I have one…!”
Yeah, you have one all right — and it costs a BOMB to insure it — IF you insure it…
YOUR SPLEEN — 1-2-3-ANSWER QUICKLY: ‘WHAT’S IT DO?‘
Not a goddamned clue, amiright (and “The spleen ‘spleens’ ain’t it”)?
Here – we’ll even show you a spleen and point out all its bits. Does THAT help? No?
And you want to insure this WHY?
AND THEN THERE’S THIS ORGAN…
Insuring brains is expensive. In fact, it’s SO expensive, you’d have to be crazy to pay the freight. So why bother.
TrumpCare ‘PICK-AN-ORGAN’: ‘Hey — look at all the money YOU just saved!’
The Truth is — Outside of your heart and lungs, your stomach and your anus, you haven’t a clue how any of your plumbing works. You know you HAVE a Liver and you remember somebody lecturing you once about alcoholism while you were passed out in a drunken stupor but that was so long ago.
