Archive for October 19th, 2009
Joe Biden admits we are in a Depression
Years ago, a friend of ours in New York lived in an apartment with cockroaches. Her landlord, however, insisted those were “just hugabugs”.
Hugabugs?
“Yah, think of them as hugabugs and they aren’t so bad. They’re more afraid of you than you are of them and they eat old food, so they are like little helpers. You should be happy they’re there.”
Honestly, that’s what the man said to her.
Hugabugs.
The British press started admitting there’s a global Depression on months and months ago. In the US, the White House has been insisting it’s only “The Great Recession”. Operative letter, “R”. That’s a load of hugabugs from the Utopia Administration.
Those were cockroaches in that Brooklyn walk-up.
We’re in a Depression now.
Joe Biden has finally admitted it.
How long until the MSM and White House admit it too?
Every man, woman, child, cat, and dog needs to stop Alexi Giannoulias from being the next Senator from Illinois
Birds of a feather play basketball together.
Most of you aren’t following the Illinois Senate race to replace Senator Roland Burris in 2010. Senator Burris is not seeking election to a full term, but currently occupies Dr. Utopia’s former Senate seat.
Alexi Giannoulias is an old basketball buddy of Dr. Utopia. Currently, he’s favored to win the Democrats’ nomination for the Senate. The other people in the race are Cheryle Jackson (Urban League President, and a woman who not many people have a whole lot of nice things to say about) and David Hoffman (former Chicago Inspector General, whom we support for the nomination).
The Giannoulias Family runs the mob bank in Chicago, Broadway Bank. There are many adjectives that can be used to describe this family. Honest, good, decent, and clean are not amongst them. A fun game to play is walking the block around Giannoulias’ family offices and keeping track of the kinds of cars parked there, catching glimpses of those coming and going on business with Broadway. Lotuses. Deloreans. Flamboyantly yellow corvettes.
It’s like a car show staged by Sopranos set designers.
Republicans in Illinois are playing one of their games right now: they want Giannoulias to be the Democrats’ nominee because they think Kirk will beat Giannoulias. That’s why you aren’t hearing anything on Giannoulias now. Everyone is waiting until the general election.
However, Democrats have a lot of dirt on Mark Kirk ready to go, not the least of which are revelations from Kirk’s messy divorce. In the middle of the general, Democrats hope to out Kirk, embarrass him, and bring down his campaign Jack Ryan style so Giannoulias can have his old basketball buddy’s seat.
Republicans are intensely stupid.
If the best they can do is Kirk, at the very least they should take Giannoulias down now so either Hoffman or Jackson can be the nominee. Jackson is vile, rude and pushy and not at all pleasant to deal with. But at least she doesn’t run the mob’s bank. Hoffman’s a decent, good, honest man we like very much…so, of course his chances of winning are slim.
We wish Republicans would see the forest for the trees here: if a Dem is going to win that seat, then Republicans should do everything they can to see to it that a halfway decent, non-mob connected Dem is the next Senator. If the GOP can’t do better than Kirk, they can at least use some influence to ensure Illinois has a non-mob controlled Senator heading to Washington at the conclusion of Senator Burris’ term in 2011.
We cannot tell you how frustrating it is to live in this state sometimes. As gay men, we say over and over how much we want all closeted politicians to just come out already so their opponents don’t have any “nukes” to use against them in the GOTCHA! last days of campaigns. Kirk’s going to go down for this…the same way Aaron Schock will go down when he tries to run for Senate himself in a few years, most likely for Durbin’s seat in 2014. Both Kirk and Schock could win those seats as openly gay men, because they would win more of Cook County’s independents and moderate Dems than they would lose downstate from bigoted conservatives who won’t vote for a friend of Dorothy.
If a Republican wins an extra 4% in Cook County (that’s Chicago), then he or she wins the state. It is as simple as that.
Because Cook’s so influential, Illinois defaults Dem because of it. Giannoulias will depress turnout on the ballot because it’s well known how dirty his family is…but the Dem attacks on Kirk will depress conservative turnout enough to squeak him into office (because we all know painfully well how much Republicans love saying, “I’m sitting this election out to teach the GOP a lesson”, while letting bad Democrats win).
More than a year out, it’s depressing to see what will happen unless every man, woman, child, cat, and dog mobilizes to stop Dr. Utopia’s basketball buddy from taking the Sopranos to Washington.
Why is Senator Roland Burris insisting on a public option in the healthcare bill?
In the end, Senator Burris will have the last laugh.
We know Senator Burris. We support Senator Burris. Senator Burris is a good man.
Senator Burris was treated despicably by the DNC, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, the White House, and just about every Democrat there is.
Now that Democrats need his vote to pass ANYTHING related to Utopiacare, Senator Burris is doing exactly what the White House doesn’t want him to do…something that could very well provoke a Democrat Civil War.
Moderates versus Liberals, baby. For the heart and soul of the Democratic party in the end.
That war’s coming in 2010 after the midterm elections.
Burris is nudging an issue the White House wants to just go away, because without a public option the liberal Left will go moonbat crazy.
Burris is a social progressive and fiscal conservative. He has his own motivations for doing everything he does. We do not attempt to read his mind or tell you why he’s doing anything because we do not speak for him.
But we can tell you that if we were him, we’d be doing the same damn thing.
If anyone out there thought a good man would let his good name be dragged through the mud and take every abuse heaped on him by his own party without ever hitting back in creative and compelling ways…then you need to wake up and look at what Burris is doing from 20,000 feet.
Like we said, he’s a smart man.
He’s a good man.
And we love him.
Sarah Palin big again for Halloween costumes this year
We’ve been hitting all the Halloween stores around Chicago trying to get a pulse on what the big Halloween costumes will be this year, for a piece we hope to have up in the next day or so, with all sorts of fun Halloween ideas for all of you in the Chicagoland area.
One of the more interesting and unexpected things we stumbled on is the fact that Sarah Palin’s going to be a big Halloween costume again this year.
Yesterday, we went to Uncle Fun’s on Belmont and saw people buy the Sarah Palin masks they had in stock. The adorable manager of the store, dressed in a fuzzy bunny costume, said a lot of people are telling him they’re going to be Palin for Halloween. Billy the Bunny is clearly a lib, so he wasn’t too happy about that (but when a guy’s so cute we just want to bake him cookies and watch him dunk them in milk while watching his cartoons, we don’t care all that much about him being a lefty…he even tells little jokes in line like, “What did Tenna see?”, and customers are all, “Huh?”, and Billy says, “The same thing Arkansas”. Ba-dum-dum. Come on…how adorable is THAT?).
Rachel Dratch from SNL was also in the store buying snakes, which was totally random, because we were there buying snakes too. The same snakes Dratch was buying, in fact. Ours were for both a Medudesa (male Medusa) costume and for a chimera dog costume for our friend Zodie the Dog (who will be Trick or Treating with us part of the day on Halloween, during the big pet parade they’re having in Lakeview). We thought it was impolite to ask Dratch what her snakes were for, and to be honest all our energy was occupied trying to keep our friend Panda from doing any Debbie Downer bits for Dratch (“Lookit, that’s totally Debbie Downer. Her eyes are so big! She got googly-eyes, guys! Googly-eyes! Lookit!”). Because we’re sure Dratch just loves when random Gaysians do her own schtick for her. Wa-wah!
It’s going to be interesting to see how many Palins are out there year. We saw quite a few out, wearing red suits mainly, last year for Halloween in Boystown. There were also random people dressed as Alaskans, lumberjacks, moose, wolves, etc.
Dr. Utopia masks are on sale everywhere, too, with some that look like pumpkins…but at every store we go to the people say that customers try the masks on but no one buys them. At one of the stores we went to, the manager flat out told us people were afraid of being called RAAACIST! for dressing up as Dr. Utopia, because they’d be wearing black face, if only in vinyl.
Mrs. Utopia is just ripe for parody in the drag community, especially considering her favorite designer, who did her inaugural gown for her, is Jason Wu, who also designs for drag icon RuPaul and Amanda LePore, America’s favorite transsexual (self-billed, like Mrs. Utopia’s “fashion icon” label). But we don’t know how many people will go out dressed as her, wearing someone else’s upholstery fabric.
Though none of us here have ever had any inkling of doing drag, it actually might be funny to dress up as Mrs. Utopia and act like a self-absorbed “proud of Halloween for the first time in my adult life” ass for the night.
We have a friend who’s going out dressed as a MiniBar employee: wearing tight black pants, a v-neck white shirt two sizes too small, suspenders and carrying a martini shaker (he says, “I’ll just act like a total douche all night, and people will know I’m a MiniBar bartender”). So, sometimes it really is just the attitude that makes the costume. If you have ever been to Chicago and spent any time in MiniBar (like Congressman Aaron Schock), you do indeed know what MiniBar’s employees are like. So, even if you don’t physically look like one of these clowns, a few wardrobe picks and the right attitude can carry the costume.
So, anyone, regardless of color, really could pull off Dr. and Mrs. Utopia…you just need the right entitled attitude…and in the case of the latter, enough upholstery fabric.
Why we fought the Olympics so hard, Part 312: Chicago is broke and has to furlough thousands of people
For those of you out there across the country who didn’t understand why we fought tooth and nail against the Chicago 2016 Olympics, today imperial Mayor Daley announced he will be furloughing thousands of City of Chicago workers.
Anyone who is non-union will be taking five weeks of unpaid vacation in 2010.
The unions control Chicago, keeping many of their own on City payroll as chair-warmers: big, beefy butts in charge of keeping those lightweight chairs in so many City offices from drifting off into the ether and floating away. That’s their job, with many of them making $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 you name it to do just that.
And union workers can’t be fired. Can’t be forced to take pay reductions. Can’t be made to do actual work.
Welcome to Chicago!
In terms of who’s going to be forced to take all that unpaid leave, who wants to bet it’s going to be people on Daley’s personal hit list…and not one of them will be people who pay their dues to Daley’s ward bosses and fall neatly into line whenever Da Mayor barks.
The reason the Olympics was such a potential nightmare for us is because Daley’s constrained currently by the fact the City has no money. With nothing in our treasury, Daley has little to dole out in patronage, perks, and financial windfalls to his cronies. Sure, he can keep his loyalists on the payroll, warming those cushions, keeping the chairs from floating away, but even that has its limits.
With all those Olympics billions Daley would have had access to, the sky would have been the limit for patronage. In fact, his whole political operation would have shifted from City Hall to the Olympics office…THAT’S where all of the Mayor’s cronies would have made their REAL MONEY.
Just imagine all the creative “jobs” that could have been created for these people with the Olympics. ”Consulting” is a wonderful, wonderful racquet for those who know how to work it. Are you the son or daughter of someone the Mayor wants to give a large sum of money too. Well, you could have been a “creative consultant” to the Chicago 2016 Olympics, making, oh, say $90,000 a year for sharpening crayons.
With the Olympics, there would have been absolutely no oversight whatsoever. It would have been a free-for-all.
And the City could not have afforded any of this…and in our opinion would not have survived it.
The lucrative Race Industry in America
Here’s an interesting read over at RealClearPolitics about the lucrative Race Industry in America.
One of the most interesting dinners we had last year after the election was on the Southside of Chicago, in the home of a very prominent member of the black community here — someone, like Hillary Clinton herself, who we would literally go to the gates of Hell and back for. We love this person, but were always very careful about criticizing Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Henry Gates, or the other national race hucksters around her because, simply, she’s black and all of us are white guys. We had no idea where she stood on Jackson, and never wanted to get into any racial issues with her.
Well, imagine our surprise when at that table she and the dozen or so others, mainly black, around her all let into not only Jackson and Sharpton but Dr. Utopia, too.
The general consensus was that Dr. Utopia had spoiled it for everyone, but it would take Americans a while to realize it.
They were, of course, talking about the Race Industry — something black people have profited from in one way or another for a long time, and not just the Jacksons and Sharptons and their ilk. ”White guilt” has been a powerful tool for black community development for a very long time — an effective and easy to use tool, for those in the know who knew how to push all the right buttons and handle things the most manipulative way.
Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were just the most blatant in what they do. They literally go to corporate America and extort millions of dollars for their fictitious charities…where charity most certainly starts and finishes in the opulence of their own homes. As the article above notes, Sharpton and Jackson team up, head over to a company they seemingly pick from the phone book, accuse them of having too few black people working there, and then demand a payoff for “consulting fees in the area of diversity training” to halt any plans this dynamic duo have for picketing and protesting the company and generally shutting down business operations as usual.
Those of us in Chicago recognize these tactics because it’s more or less the sort of thing another Al, with the surname Capone, used to do…and it was lucrative for him, too. Capone would visit legitimate businesses and tell them they weren’t safe enough…that they were in danger of burning to the ground…that their employees were very likely to be riddled with bullets…and that there weren’t enough of Capone’s protectees working there. The business either paid the “consulting fees” to Capone and did as he said, or it was burned to the ground.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Sharpton and Jackson aren’t arsonists, but they do their level best to bring down reputations in flames, whenever someone doesn’t pay up.
A tier below Sharpton and Jackson are the Henry Gates and Spike Lee race-baiters, who make their fortunes by encouraging racial grievances in the form of “scholarship” or “art”. Gates is a well-paid Harvard professor who race-baits to pay the bills; Harvard indulges him, lets him teach whole courses on grievance, and gives him a platform to wail and scream from. Lee makes millions of dollars from his victimhood movies, and generates constant attention for himself by accusing everyone under the sun of being racist. RAAACIST!
For all of these men, shouting RAAACIST! as loud as they can has been the equivalent of parrots squawking for crackers. The louder they squawk, the more they are fed. The more innocent people they accuse of being RAAACISTS!, the more media attention they get. For Gates, that attention means more speaking engagements and book deals. For Lee, that means bigger box office for his latest tripe. For Sharpton and Jackson, that attention means more fear to strike into the hearts of corporate America…since these two clowns are only powerful so long as Ivy League idiots in their Brooks Brothers finest actually live in terror of their exploits.
Now, most of you out there can see this part of the Race Industry, and it’s what the article talks about. But what you don’t see are the good people in the black community who use white guilt and liberal fools to do real good in poor, urban areas…good they could never do if wealthy people weren’t so easy to manipulate with racial narratives.
There are an awful lot of liberals who live in gated communities who like telling people how often they watch Oprah, how happy they are Halle Berry and Denzel Washington and Cuba Gooding Jr. and Whoopi Goldberg won Oscars, how gleeful they were to vote for Dr. Utopia, and how much they think Mrs. Utopia is the world’s greatest fashion icon. These people would never be caught dead south of the Loop, unless they are attending an art gallery opening in Hyde Park or taking a class at University of Chicago. But, they also love telling all their friends how they donated this or that sum to “those poor black people on the Southside”.
Instead of hitting these people on the head with Capone-style racial cudgels, there are smarter Race Industry experts who manipulate gullible liberals to hand over large sums to community projects that actually need that money.
And you know what, more power to these people. While we despise Sharpton, Jackson, Gates, and Lee, we love the people who work so hard for so little personally, devoting their lives to milking white guilt for all its worth…to actually improve black communities.
These people are playing the hands they are dealt expertly, and we have to admire that.
But, Dr. Utopia has been a critical blow to the Race Industry…a hole in the ship that’s going to sink it in time. No one knows how long that will take, but those on the ground know it’s coming.
There were many people in the black community who did not want Dr. Utopia to win…because the black community at large invested everything they had in this one man, who was the wrong man to put all their trust in. Dr. Utopia will not do a damn thing for the black community. But, by racializing the 2008 campaign to the extent Dr. Utopia and his followers did…and by insisting anyone who didn’t vote for him was RAAACIST! and anyone who criticizes anything he does is RAAACIST! and anyone who thinks of opposing him or his socialist agenda is RAAACIST!, these people have evaporated 99% of white guilt.
Only the most left of the Leftists still feel any white guilt, now that we have “the historic first black president”.
All those old lines about “the man” keeping black people down and not helping black people get anywhere ring hollow with “the historic first black president” in the White House.
What are the excuses now?
It’s harder to use any of the old tricks on those wealthy liberals, too, because they assume the “historic first black president” is actually doing things for the black community. Because, the logic dictates, if he’s not, then who on Earth would? If these liberals worked so hard to put Dr. Utopia in office and create the “historic first black president”, these liberals think that “historic first black president” should actually be doing something…anything…for the black community.
And if he’s got that job covered, then these liberals are now free to do other things.
Their great burden has been lifted…conveniently at a time when their stocks are down and incomes have dropped considerably.
The black community is now largely on its own…inconveniently at a time when its longtime supporters believe the government should now take their place as patron at large for urban community projects.
We’re in unprecedented territory with all of this, but within a few years, watch Sharpton, Jackson, Gates, Lee, and their ilk be out of business. It’s not going to happen overnight, but people are going to start loudly asking why all this hucksterism is still going on when there’s a black president…one who wins Nobel Prizes and all sorts of elite awards…so what more does the black community want?
They have a Nobel Prize winning black president who said he was going to solve everyone’s problems.
So, what is he doing?
Corporations will ultimately grow spines and fight back against Sharpton and Jackson, in particular, because all the cries of RAAACISM! have cheapened and diluted the accusation itself. If everyone in this country is RAAACIST, then nobody is.
Anyone who supported Hillary Clinton or McCain/Palin against Dr. Utopia last year was called a RAAACIST. That, combined, is more than half the country, counting the primaries and general election. If not drinking the Kool-Aid and accepting Dr. Utopia as our new personal savior makes people RAAACISTS, then why would anyone fear being called a RAAACIST again?
When we were younger, being called a FAG! was a big deal.
It was a scary, scary thing to be called that on the playground, with all attention suddenly thrust on us. We’d spend the next few weeks watching every hand gesture, noting the tone of our voices, editing our speech to ensure we weren’t doing, saying, or even thinking anything, ANYTHING, that could warrant another blast of FAG! in our general direction. It was exhausting, terrifying, and life-altering.
But, somewhere along the way FAG! was overused so much it became meaningless. True, moving from Ohio or Pennsylvania into the big city of Chicago has a lot to do with that, since there are many, many more gay men here than there were back home, so there’s safety in numbers. You shout FAG! in Boystown and dozens of guys will turn around thinking you’re talking to them. Not that you should ever do that, but you get the point. Even people who aren’t gay will turn around and look at you, if only to see how stupid you are for shouting something like that.
It’s a onetime crippling pejorative that’s been turned into a joke.
RAAACIST! is the same thing, a joke. After its overuse in 2008, and its continued abundance in all things Sharpton-Jackson-Gates-Lee-Holder-Clyburne-Lewis-etc., calling anyone a RAACIST! has absolutely no meaning at all.
Just like us with the word FAG!, it’s going to take most people a while, maybe a few years, to stand up and laugh back in the faces of those doing the shouting. There’s still that knee jerk reaction to cower and run for cover whenever RAACISM! is tossed around, but with this happening so often, every time Sharpton and Jackson get at it takes more of the punch out of the word.
It will be only a matter of time before the whole Race Industry collapses, no matter how many bailouts the White House and the current president try to give it.
What are you doing for Thanksgiving and Christmas? Why not help the USO?
Why not make the USO part of your Thanksgiving and Christmas?
We just want to put this idea out there for you — and hope some of you make this a new holiday tradition in your own families.
Those of us here left our homes in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Rochester, Milwaukee, Detroit, and other cities years ago and started new lives here in Chicago. Not having any family here, we started new holiday traditions of our own, and a large part of that has always been volunteering on the holidays. We’ve worked at soup kitchens, homeless shelters, senior centers, and churches on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day every year that we’ve lived in Chicago. We volunteer all morning, and then we have the evening to enjoy our own little dinners at home with our friends. It’s a great way to spend the holiday, meet a lot of new people, and stand on the side of good instead of just sitting at home and watching a parade on TV or overeating all day.
Last year, during the McCain campaign, we discovered the USO — and it quickly became our new favorite charity.
We. Love. The. USO.
Every major city has a USO office. Most major airports have them. They are not JUST on military bases.
In Chicago, there are 4 USOS: at Great Lakes Naval Station, at O’Hare, at Midway, and at Navy Pier.
The USO helps service men and women with their travel needs, as they are heading home for leave…and the USO serves up snacks and meals for these wonderful service people at USO centers on bases and wherever else our uniformed heroes need them.
It is a wonderful, wonderful thing to be involved with.
So, we tell you this when you have enough lead time to not only sit down with your families and think about how you can make volunteering a part of your Thanksgiving and Christmas, but also so you have time to contact the USO nearest you and see what you can do for them on the holiday.
This leaves you enough time to do whatever volunteer training you’d need, and give the USO itself an idea of what they can do with those volunteers.
So, please think about it, at the very least.
Yes, we realize being single guys we don’t have the family pressures and tugs that a lot of you have. We certainly don’t have to drive hundreds of miles to in-laws houses, or deal with all sorts of people coming over on Thanksgiving. We don’t have kids to wrangle or schedules to juggle — so making volunteering part of the holidays is probably easier for us than it is for a lot of people.
But, we are telling you, the joy you will get out of doing this is something we’d love all of you to share in.
It’s hard work, and it’s tiring, but just being there on Thanksgiving and seeing all those people so happy to see you, so grateful you are there giving your time, well it’s amazing. Though tired, later in the evening when we sit down to our own meals and watch It’s A Wonderful Life or whatever on the TV, we love knowing we helped make someone else’s holiday a little merrier.
And multiply all of this by 100 if the people you are helping, supporting, and showing holiday cheer to are the members of our volunteer military, who are so young, so bright, so patriotic, and so giving 365 days of the year.
There’s a chance out there for you to give something back to these men and women.
We just want you to be reminded of that option as you start to plan your own holidays.
The USO can always use your support…and we’re telling you, honestly, it will be the best Thanksgiving and Christmas you ever had if you share it with someone in uniform.
