The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

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FRIDAY FOLLIES: Bachmann's look, Mitt's People, and the Artistry of the All-seeing Blind.

By Ramona on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 1:59pm | Politics, Humor & Satire
 

Michele Bachmann was on Newsweek's cover this week and editor Tina Brown swears to all who will listen that Bachmann's bizarre cross-eyed skyward gaze was meant only to "capture her intensity".  About the crossed-eyes, Tina says she doesn't see it.  She honestly doesn't know what all the fuss is about.  (Cough, choke, gasp, gag.)

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Humor & Satire
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Friday Follies
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Poor Old Detroit: Who is going to save it from itself?

By Ramona on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 3:35pm | Politics, Personal
 

Detroit is my unofficial hometown.  I spent more years in and around Detroit than anywhere else in the country. I loved growing up there, so it would be hard not to have feelings for the city now, even after all of the scandals, the neglect, the excesses, the tearing-down of beautiful landmarks, and the destruction of entire formerly lovely neighborhoods for no earthly good reason other than that nobody cared.

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FRIDAY FOLLIES: on Purple Prose, Mangy Mutts, Smokey Sunsets and R-E-S-P-E-C-T

By Ramona on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 9:38am | Politics, Humor & Satire

Every year I think about entering a sentence in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, but it always happens after I've seen the announcement of that year's winner.   This particular contest is like a "Worst Fiction in the World" contest, where contestants have to come up with an opening sentence for an imaginary novel that is worse, or at least comparable to, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton's first sentence of his 1830 novel, Paul Clifford (and the first line of many of Snoopy's unfinished novels).

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Rosa Parks: No Way to Treat a Lady

By Ramona on Wed, 07/27/2011 - 9:50pm | Politics

People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.

Rosa Parks,  My Story.

In December, 1955, after a long day at work as a seamstress at a Montgomery, Alabama department store, Rosa Parks got on her bus and plunked down in a first-row seat of the section clearly defined as Blacks Only.  "The back of the bus".  The unwritten, unofficial public transportation rule in Montgomery said no white person should be standing in the aisle if a black person has a seat to give up to them.  Four white men got on the bus but the white section was full.  The four blacks in the first row of the black section were told to get up and give up their seats.  Three of the four moved.  Parks sat and waited. She was arrested and fingerprinted on the day which would mark the end of what might have been for her a quiet, uneventful life.  It was the impetus for the Montgomery bus boycott, an effort that would last just over a year before the U. S Supreme Court struck down the laws on transportation segregation.

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FRIDAY FOLLIES: On the Palin Docudramody, the Cantor uninvite, and Will Rogers' finest moments

By Ramona on Fri, 07/22/2011 - 3:34pm | Politics, Humor & Satire

 All alone, I'm so all alone...  When the Sarah Palin docudromedy "The Undefeated" debuted last week, Conor Friedersdorf happened to be visiting his parents in All Red All the Time Orange County.  He went to see the Sarah movie hoping to interview Sarah fans to find out what the hell they're thinking.  Except he didn't find any.  In fact, he didn't find anyone at all--hardly.  He

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In Our Own Voices: Getting it Right While Blogging

By Ramona on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 10:24am | Politics, Media
 

 Once there was a post by Simon Dumenco called, "Poor Steve Jobs Had to Go Head to Head With Weinergate in the Twitter Buzzstakes. And the Weiner Is ...."  It appeared online on June 8.  The next day The Huffington Post published a piece by Amy Lee called, "Anthony Weiner vs.

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Politics
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FRIDAY FOLLIES: The Arresting truth about Orlando Cops, Vegetables, Bachmann, and the Sublime Ruby Bridges

By Ramona on Fri, 07/15/2011 - 10:32am | Politics, Humor & Satire
 

I guess you've heard that the Orlando police have been busy arresting people from Orlando Food, not Bombs who have been busy feeding the hungry and the homeless in the city's public parks.  That was a big story in itself, but the even bigger story was that, among the protesters, there was one lone supporter of the police.  He prefers to remain anonymous, but he's pretty clear about why he's s

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Politics
Humor & Satire
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Friday Follies
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Betty Ford: Truth was No Stranger

By Ramona on Sat, 07/09/2011 - 1:58pm | Politics, Personal

Until last night, when I heard that she had passed, I didn't realize how much I admired Betty Ford.  Truth said, my first thought was "I thought she had died long ago."  I do that a lot lately.  Betty lived to be 93 years old and hadn't been seen in public for several years.  That's the only way I keep in touch with public figures -- by seeing them in public.  So when public figures I admire or enjoy are gone from view they're gone from thought, and when they pass, only then do I see it as moments lost.  I should have been paying attention.

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FRIDAY FOLLIES: On Roswell, A Beer for the Times, Disappearing Art, and a Twitterpated Pope

By Ramona on Fri, 07/08/2011 - 11:18am | Politics, Arts & Entertainment, Humor & Satire

Roswell, NM is in the news again with only just another suspicious "crash".   The "crash" supposedly burned "28 acres" of "grassland".  Uh huh.   The official word is that the pilot "ejected safely".  No ID on the "pilot".  Nobody is allowed to "see" him.  The base is "asking the public to cooperate with military and civilian authorities at the scene to ensure the safety of everyone involved."
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In an Era of Super-Villains we need Super-Heroes

By Ramona on Wed, 07/06/2011 - 5:02pm | Politics
 

Since the dawn of man there has always been the need for a healthy society to smack down villains.  Villains are the human version of opportunistic rats:  There is no compunction about doing us in if that's what it takes to keep their kind going.  If their population is allowed to grow and thrive, their numbers will take us over.
 

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Personal Information

Website
http://www.ramonasvoices.com
Favorite Quotes

 

"Leave safety behind. Put your body on the line. Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind - even if your voice shakes. When you least expect it, someone may actually listen to what you have to say. Well-aimed slingshots can topple giants. And do your homework." . Maggie Kuhn

 

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.  Dorothy Parker

"Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow ... money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands" - Abraham Lincoln

 

It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.-John Steinbeck

 

The moment you limit free speech it's not free speech. -Salman Rushdie

Biography

Ramona used to write nice feature pieces for newspapers and magazines, along with columns that, yes, got testy once in a while (Ronald Reagan was president. What could she do?) but were basically and overall nice.

But then. . .

. . .then came the hanky-panky and subsequent impeachment of Bill Clinton!  Then Bush v. Gore!  Hanging Chads!  Katherine Harris!  Supreme Court busy bodies! 9/11!  War with Iraq! (Iraq??)  The right wing!  The religious right!  The TEA PARTY, for God's sake!

Whatever she is today is the fault of all of the above.  She is not to blame.

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