"Revenge proves its own executioner"

“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”  ― Mahatma Gandhi


This is just stupid, unnecessary, petty revenge.

The city of Cambridge, Massachusetts wants to make one thing clear: they do not want the late Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev buried in their town.

[snip]


Funeral director Peter Stefan however told reporters he has not found a cemetery in the state willing to take the body.

"We have to bury this guy. Whatever it is, whoever he is, in this country we bury people," Stefan told local media on Sunday.

Protesters meanwhile have gathered outside the funeral home waving US flags and clutching signs demanding that the body be sent to Russia. A local activist has even started a fund to ship out the body.

Protests won't bring back the dead, or reattach limbs that were blown off. Fighting the uncle who had nothing to do with the bombing, and moreover immediately and unequivocally condemned his nephews for doing such a thing, only makes the protesters look like selfish assholes.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev already paid the ultimate price. Holding his body hostage accomplishes nothing. Let it go.

"I knew what life was for in Boston"

For several years now I've subscribed to the Tumblr "April Is: A Poem a Day for National Poetry Month." Today's poem is a lovely, sad, bittersweet missive from Anne Sexton.


Just Once
Anne Sexton

Just once I knew what life was for.
In Boston, quite suddenly, I understood;
walked there along the Charles River,
watched the lights copying themselves,
all neoned and strobe-hearted, opening
their mouths as wide as opera singers;
counted the stars, my little campaigners,
my scar daisies, and knew that I walked my love
on the night green side of it and cried
my heart to the eastbound cars and cried
my heart to the westbound cars and took
my truth across a small humped bridge
and hurried my truth, the charm of it, home
and hoarded these constants into morning
only to find them gone.

There isn't much more to say.

"The sheer hard-on of owning a gun"

“How many have to die before we will give up these dangerous toys?”  ~Stephen King, Guns

You must watch this incredible testimony from the father of one of the children killed in Sandy Hook. I wish he could have been at the Senate hearings to throw this in Wayne LaPierre's face.

“I do not think the composition of that foundational phrase [life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness] was an accident,” he said. “I do not think the order of those important words was haphazard or casual. The liberty of any person to own a military-style assault weapon and a high-capacity magazine and keep them in their home is second to the right of my son to his life.”

Of course, this is not the position of the NRA, where the Second Amendment outweighs everything else, even the Constitution itself.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Bottom line: My life is more important than your gun. Period.

Asshat of the Day

Arizona voters recalled Russell Pearce specifically because of the "papers please" law, not because of his general wingnut stupidity. So at least he's gone, for now. Unfortunately, he's still stupid.

Russell Pearce Blames Aurora Victims for Massacre

It's a good thing Salil Kapur grabbed a screencap, because the post has now vanished.

What a heart breaking story. Had someone been prepared and armed they could have stopped this "bad" man from most of this tragedy. He was two and three feet away from folks, I understand he had to stop and reload. Where were the men of flight 93???? Someone should have stopped this man. Someone could have stopped this man. Lives were lost because of a bad man, not because he had a weapon, but because noone was prepared to stop it. Had they been prepared to save their lives or lives of others, lives would have been saved. All that was needed is one Courages/Brave man prepared mentally or otherwise to stop this it could have been done. 

This is so disgusting, and makes me so angry, I can hardly gather my thoughts to respond.

First of all: This was a midnight showing, on a weekday night, of a very popular movie. To attend said screening armed to the teeth,  just in case a domestic terrorist walked in and started shooting, requires a level of paranoia that simply does not exist among the general populace. Nor should it.

Secondly: The people of flight 93 (not just men, mind you) had quite some time to think about, talk out, and plan what they were going to do. They had been in touch with their relatives via cell phone; they knew the towers had gone down, and they were on a flight from which there would be no return, either way. This is orders of magnitude different from someone storming a theater and mowing down 71 people in a matter of minutes, in the dark, with tear gas and people stampeding and screaming and slipping on a floor slick with blood. "Someone should have stopped this man," my gold-plated ass. It's vile to even make the comparison.

Thirdly: As has been pointed out by people far more knowledgeable about guns than myself, it would have been impossible to make such a shot anyway, even if the gunman had not been body-armored to the gills. The shooter had all the advantages, and there was nothing anyone could have done. It's as simple as that.

(Of course, what Russell Pearce is really saying here is that if he had been in that theater, by God and the Stars and Stripes, he and his extra-long John Wayne dick would have taken that mofo out. Even if he managed to kill ten more people along the way.)

After this, in a follow-up post, Pearce complains about being "mischaracterized." Sure. He then deletes both posts, so you can't be mean to him any more, wah wah wah.

To borrow a line from President Obama's great ad, Russell Pearce isn't the solution. He's the problem.

"A conservative is a fellow who thinks a rich man should have a square deal"

"Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.” ~William E. Gladstone

New definition of conservative, via Balloon Juice:

Bugfuck crazy panty-sniffing Bible humping let’s burn this fucker down dance in the ashes and let the rich rule what’s left destructobot.

Arnold Schwartzeneggar would be proud.

"Think you're in the middle of a hurricane now? It's time for a showdown."

These hombres are mean, vicious and quick with guns. Sure we've got a Sheriff; but what we need's a gun slinger. ~Mad Dog McCree (1990 video game)

Finally, some common sense.

What exactly is wrong with this deal? The fact that there are cuts? If people don't like that, why in God's name didn't they turn out to vote and bring back our Congressional majority? Once these nut jobs were in there, it was inevitable that this crap was going to happen. Whether or not it is advisable to cut spending, what exactly was going to stop this from happening? My experience is that the primary factor in all negotiations are the facts on the ground. The complaints center on a ridiculous notion that if the President had only said "no" harder, that these guys would have caved in.

The only thing that could have stopped the entire fiasco altogether is Obama's throwing his nuclear bomb of the 14th Amendment in the air and detonating it. Myself, I would have done precisely that. However, then we would no doubt face the prospect of a year and a half of impeachment hearings, with slavering, slobbering Republicans going rabid over the prospect of finally getting rid of this uppity Negro. 

Never mind that the Senate would have never voted for it. The process would have made Bill Clinton's impeachment look tame. 

Would we want to put the country through that? That's a genuine question, not a rhetorical one. 

Right now, I don't have an answer.