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Personal Information

Website
http://www.ramonasvoices.com
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.

 

Favorite Quotes

 

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.  Carl Sagan

 

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

History

Member for
2 years 45 weeks
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Blog Posts

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Luke, you're too damn young for this. Give your job to someone more Mature.

by Ramona 11/15/2012 - 9:55 am   |
 

 So, Luke, remember your dad, Tim Russert?  Let's say he's sitting in a press room where House minority leader Nancy Pelosi is taking questions after announcing that she's staying put and is really excited about the next term, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.  Let's say he notices that she isn't alone up there on that podium; he sees there are maybe a dozen women who hold seats in the House of Representatives.  They're standing behind her.
 [Read more]

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We All Won Last Night

by Ramona 11/7/2012 - 9:15 am   |
 

President Obama won a second term last night and it wasn't even a squeaker.  The Senate and the House stayed pretty much the same, but Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin and Tammy Duckworth are going to Washington. 

Joe Walsh, Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin will wander off into an oblivion they so richly deserve.  

Karl Rove was seen on Fox howling foul over Ohio with such naked grief his election night companions could only look on, astonished. 

Donald Trump threw such an incomprehensible hissy fit on Twitter you just had to know the little guy was not happy. [Read more]

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Election Day, 2012. It's Up to Us Now

by Ramona 11/6/2012 - 9:23 am   |
 

5 AM EST.
I'm up and already nervous about what this election night will bring.  I want the Democrats to win everything.  I want the Republicans to lose in numbers large enough to show them the error of their ways.  I'm so biased that way there's no pretending otherwise.  I know it won't happen, but if I were wishing upon a star it's what I would be wishing for.

I'm an old-style liberal--a dreamer, an optimist, a pie-in-the-sky Pollyanna.  There aren't many of us left, mainly because that kind of nonsense has been knocked out of the more sensible of us.  With me it's still there, and at this late stage I have a feeling it's here to stay.
  [Read more]

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Why is this man Romney even close?

by Ramona 11/1/2012 - 2:17 pm   |
 

Okay, I'm breathing again--raggedly, to be honest, but I'm seeing clearly and whatever fun writing I was so longing for last week will just have to wait.  Mitt Romney is closing in on the home stretch and I can't stand it.  What can I say that will change that?  We all know there is nothing I can say that will change anything this monumental and incomprehensible.  But I repeat: I can't stand it.
 [Read more]

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On Writing Free and Brave

by Ramona 10/27/2012 - 3:59 pm   |
 

I had a bout with bronchial pneumonia this week, which left me breathless enough to now be able to cross "ambulance ride" off of my bucket list.  I spent two days in the hospital and, while I feel almost human again, a strange thing has happened.  When I sit down to write, I'm finding that the last thing I want to write about is the current political situation.
 [Read more]

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Hey, Liberals: Now is the Time to Panic

by Ramona 10/15/2012 - 4:02 pm   |

WARNING:  Cheers for Obama here, at least until Tuesday, November 6.  Don't come looking for relief from Obama luv.  You won't find it on these pages. I'm getting ready to panic and, if past history is any indication, it's not going to be pretty.

Romney/Ryan have a chance to win this thing.  That revelation is so shocking we should be calling for a congressional investigation into how right wing billionaires and clueless teapartiers were able to pull that off. (Right. . .that'll happen) [Read more]

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Fall Comes to the U.P.

by Ramona 10/12/2012 - 10:41 am   |
 

At the easternmost edge of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where I live, the land is low.  In the deep south it would be called the low country.  Here it's called the cedar swamp.  Where there isn't swamp there is rock, where thin sheaths of earth allow only the shallow-rooted trees to thrive--the quaking aspen, white birch and the Michigan cottonwood known as Balm-of-Gilead.  The weed trees.
  [Read more]

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Shut your Enthusiasm Gap and get out there and DO something -- two years later

by Ramona 10/8/2012 - 3:47 pm   |
 

NOTE:  This is a repeat of a blog post from October, 2010, the year the Democrats lost the edge by losing the House to the Tea Party and the Right Wing.  If it looks like I'm nagging, what you're reading is pure desperation.  If the lines in bold-face look like I'm gloating because I was right, look more closely.  They're covered in bitter tears.

I'm repeating this because we're at that place again and if we couldn't afford to lose in 2010 we really, truly can't afford to lose in 2012. [Read more]

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Live-blogging the debate tonight. Open Thread. Come on in.

by Ramona 10/3/2012 - 8:09 pm   |

Open thread on the debate tonight at dagblog.  You can start right now or wait until 9 PM EST, when it all starts officially.

Alrighty then. . .

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After all that, I can still be shocked. That's shocking

by Ramona 10/1/2012 - 8:19 am   |
So this is what it’s come to.
After four years of invective, four years during which the right has called President Obama a traitor, a communist, a fraud, an affirmative-action case, a terrorist-sympathizer, and a tyrant, its shrillest voices have been reduced to the most primal insult of all. They are calling Obama’s mother a whore.
MichelleGoldberg, The Daily Beast, 9/28/12

I'll get right to it:  After reading Goldberg's piece, my stomach is churning; it's telling me if I don't stop thinking about this, I may just vomit.  I'll admit when it comes to the really ugly stuff, if there's any chance I can avoid it I will.  I'm chicken that way.  But I can't ignore this, because the last thing I want is for vicious lies borne of pure hate to become trivial or normal.  We're dangerously close to that point already. [Read more]

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