Book of the Month

Shuts and Failures

by Michael Maiello

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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 49 weeks
Blog
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Blog Posts

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The Vagina Comicals

by Ramona 6/15/2012 - 10:19 am   |
 

In the petty police state of Michigan (used to be Michigan, My Michigan; now it isn't) two state reps got a time out yesterday for talking naughty during a pre-vote session on some fancy new man-made anti-abortion bills. These two elected representatives of the people were told they could not speak for an entire day because they "ignored the rules of decorum" and got a little huffy with the menfolks. (It probably won't surprise you, given what you may already know about our once great state, but both of them were Democrats and both of them were women.) 
 [Read more]

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Wisconsin, Don't Despair. It's not You, it's Them

by Ramona 6/7/2012 - 12:57 pm   |
 

As much as we all sorely wished that the recall effort in Wisconsin would succeed, I don't know many people who were actually shocked when it failed on Tuesday.  The odds against winning were formidable. [Read more]

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Help! Michigan has Fallen and it Can't Get Up!

by Ramona 6/1/2012 - 1:02 pm   |
 

It shouldn't be news to anyone that Michigan is under siege.  There is a whole contingency out there trying to get the word out, including Chris Savage at Eclectablog, Eric B. at Michigan Liberal, and Rachel Maddow, who calls the takeover of Michigan, "epic" and "The greatest story never told."
 [Read more]

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I love Joe Biden. I mean it. I LOVE Joe Biden

by Ramona 5/26/2012 - 8:44 am   |

At the TAPS National Military Survivor Seminar and Good Grief Camp in Arlington, Virginia, Joe Biden stood in front of a room full of military families who had lost loved ones in the service of our country.  He stood with his wife, Jill, by his side and spoke from the heart in a voice thick with emotion, talking about his own losses--the deaths of his first wife and 18-month-old daughter in a horrific auto accident when he was but 29 years old and a new senator-elect--but he wasn't looking to one-up that group by telling his own sad story; no [Read more]

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Hatred in a Lovely Church

by Ramona 5/22/2012 - 12:10 pm   |

 As I watched that hideous video showing Pastor Charles Worley's recent headline-grabbing rants about penning gays and lesbians inside miles-long electrified corrals until they die, I couldn't help but notice his surroundings. (Okay, go and watch it if you haven't seen it.  But then come back and we'll talk.)

He preaches his particular style of self-righteous, good ol' boy hate from the pulpit of the Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, NC.  This is not a store-front or a rustic, backwoods building, it's a beautiful traditional church, obviously designed and built with the prospect of honoring the Christian God. [Read more]

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Fair Weather Dems will be the Death of Us Yet

by Ramona 5/18/2012 - 8:57 am   |
 

When November 6 rolls around, American voters will have only three meaningful choices in the presidential election:  We can vote for Barack Obama, we can vote for Mitt Romney,  or we can opt out of voting for a president altogether.  There will be other presidential candidates on the ballot but there's not a snowball's chance they'll win.  If we choose to vote for anyone other than Obama or Romney,  it'll have the same effect as not voting at all.  That's the reality--that's the way it is.  
 [Read more]

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Women, Gays, and Barack Obama's Ear

by Ramona 5/10/2012 - 3:41 pm   |

The big news yesterday -- no, the HUGE news -- was President Obama's interview with ABC's Robin Roberts, set up specifically so that he could air his own personal views about gay people being able to marry their same-sex partners:  After much soul-searching and a couple of decades of "evolving", he was finally ready to say out loud that he's all for it.

He did go on to say that it should be left to the states to decide their own policies concerning the legalities of such unions, but the die was cast;  the mold was formed:  A sitting president took a positive public stand, albeit a personal one, on the issue of gay marriage.
 [Read more]

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May Day! May Day! A little help here. . .

by Ramona 5/1/2012 - 6:28 am   |
 

Today is May First, or May Day.  It's the day when workers around the world traditionally rally to show solidarity and support for one another.  It's the real Labor Day. While our own Labor Day has become a holiday, a day of picnics and celebration, May Day is and always will be an international day of protest--a reminder of worker rights and worker dignity in a world gone mad with greed.

Labor in America is under siege, like nothing we've seen in this country since the 1930s.  Whatever wage scales and rights and protections had been fought for and won over the years have slowly eroded away in this new bizarre and reckless version of take-over capitalism. 
 [Read more]

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Mr. Auctioneer: Saving Our Homes One by One

by Ramona 4/19/2012 - 10:50 pm   |

 
Yesterday there was a rally in front of the 22nd District Court in Inkster, Michigan, where foreclosure proceedings were being held.  The protesters were there to help save the home of Jerome Jackson, a paraplegic who moved into his wheelchair-accessible home in 2004 with the assistance of Community Living Services, a county-funded program that provided help with his mortgage payments.  When CLS dropped Jackson's funding in 2009, he fell behind on his payments and Fannie Mae eventually bought his mortgage at a foreclosure auction.  He was a man without a home, but he stayed put, hoping they could work it out and the house might someday be his again.
 [Read more]

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No Preacher Presidency this year. Santorum is out.

by Ramona 4/11/2012 - 9:08 am   |
The big news yesterday was that Rick Santorum has suspended his presidential campaign.  After great deliberation, spurred on by the realization that he didn't have a chance at it anyway, he has cancelled his campaign plans and most of his public appearances.  As with every concession speech, Santorum says he's not giving up the fight.  There's more to come. The fight for freedom, except for women, children, the poor, the jobless and the heathens, goes on.


Yesterday, on the same day he stepped down from the podium, he stepped up to the pulpit for a scheduled appearance with James Dobson at his latest "Focus on the Family" smack-down.  I'm not surprised.  Just as George W. Bush's wishful true calling wasn't really as President of the United States but as baseball commissioner, Rick Santorum's true calling is as Grand Fundamental Firekeeper. [Read more]

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