Jill Rants and Raves: bob barr, polygamists, bitter and angry urbanites

I've been tweaking about loads of stuff this week: Obama's 'small town bitter and angry' comments, blown out of all proportion by none other than his fellow democrats. I guess those of us who are bitter and angry in the cities are clinging to our soy mocha lattes and pilates classes. And if any of the negative ads are to be believed, neither candidate is good enough to win the nomination. So why would we vote for them in a general election?

I'm tweaking about the fact that it isn't just that we (the people) don't trust our government, it's that our government doesn't trust us (the people). Do you think Texas Child Protective Services is going to do a better job with the four hundred kids they just snatched out of their communal home? How about if the men responsible for the alleged abuses were snatched instead? Huh? How about that for a concept. Taking the abusers out of the log cabins instead of the children who are now being scattered around the Texas foster care system. Oh yeah, that's a good move.

Perhaps the best way to stop the spread of polygamist sects is to print a poster like the ones we use for promoting spay and neuter in cats - just look at the numbers. At the top of of the poster the question 'How many children can one polygamist crazy breed in ten years?' and then list how many generations it takes to reach a million. Anyone wanna come and screen print with me?

And I'm tweaking about the fact that they (whoever they is) have started the cleansing of the Albany Landfill from an organic place of wild imagination to the sign-posted, interpreted, non-native plant cleansed, super-park which we can all look at from manicured trails but which will be protected (from us who have been stewards of this magnificent self regulated urban wildness). There will not be another place like it in this area and we are the worse off because of it. Soon, it will be a place we can look at with our binoculars from a viewing ledge (these always remind me of the platforms built for western diplomats to stand on while staring over at East Berlin beyond the Wall). We'll be able to read off of a sign which birds we are meant to be able to see, instead of being able to sit quietly in swaying grasses at dusk enjoying the swallows and hummingbirds, the finches and hawks and the redwinged blackbirds as they share this place which thrived under official neglect.

And I'm tweaking about liberal talk show host Tom Hartmann describing Bob Barr as 'a great man'. Just a gentle reminder to the rest of you that though Barr recently adopted the religion of libertarianism and got a little antsy about Bush's asssaults on privacy and civil liberties, he was widely considered among the most hard right conservatives as a three time Georgia congressman. Among Barr's proudest moments -

Barr was a strong supporter of the War On Drugs and adamantly opposed legalization of medical marijuana. He successfully inserted an amendment in a funding bill that blocked the implementation of a medical marijuana initiative saying it "has no place in medicine, no place in pain relief".
He's changed his tune since becoming a libertarian. Mmm.

He voted for The Patriot Act. He now publicly regrets his Patriot Act Vote. No shit.

Barr authored and sponsored the Defense Of Marriage Act. He hasn't had the guts yet to flip flop on that one.

But perhaps, as Tom Hartmann says he has written 7 books on ADD, he can be forgiven for this lapse of attention to the details of Barr's impact on our everyday lives. A man renowned for lifestyle legislation becomes a libertarian...and wonders whether we might be depriving the American people of their civil liberties...yeah, too little too late Mr Barr.