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a CITIZEN JOURNALIST reports from battleground, USA: 22

On my way to dropping my son off at school today I was caught behind an Audi SUV festooned with Obama support paraphernalia, the driver of which — once I pulled up close behind her — was rather ostentatious about keeping either at or just below the speed limit.

— That is, until we approached the first yellow light. At which point she gunned her silver bitch, making it through the crossing just as the light turned red, leaving me behind to sit at an empty intersection, waiting for the light to cycle back to green.

All of which I mention because I’m almost certain there’s a metaphor somewhere in there. Having not yet read Teaching for Social Justice, however, I don’t presume to know what an “authentic” metaphor is — and what’s more, I’m not at all convinced that, as a white man, I’m even capable of making observations that aren’t, as a matter of course, rendered useless by my complicity in a system that, ironically, so constrains me.

And, you know — my car.

Developing…

98 Replies to “a CITIZEN JOURNALIST reports from battleground, USA: 22”

  1. N. O'Brain says:

    I never metaphor that I didn’t like.

  2. TaiChiWawa says:

    The yellow light signals an upcoming change you can believe in. Or something.

  3. ducktrapper says:

    Byotch! Is that how they say it? Or am I now a racist because, after all, you know what I meant by “they”?

  4. Puck says:

    Interesting. A few weeks ago, a little before 8 a.m. on a school morning, I was out walking my two large dogs when some middle-aged woman in an Audi station wagon came bombing down our quiet, middle-class street. Though I am (and was at the time) very obviously pregnant, she slowed down not a hair as she drove past me — very nearly hitting me, in fact, though I was standing at the edge of the neighbor’s lawn.

    There was a Code Pink sticker affixed to the back of her car. FOR THE CHILDREN!!!, no doubt…

  5. Think globally, speed locally.

  6. Matt, Esq. says:

    Well, obviously not for conservative people’s children. Those children are better off aborted before they’re born. Its only compassionate.

    And yep, I’ve had several run ins with code pinkers in my area- it seems the more liberal bumper stickers they have, the worse they drive.

  7. Patrick says:

    You, sir, are an AUDIPHOBE! Or would be BAVARIIST?

  8. happyfeet says:

    NBC is giving SNL three primetime specials geared toward the election — the first of which will air Thursday night.

    I like to watch Baracky’s media because it is funny and I laugh and laugh but it also makes me think about the stuff they tell me. Mostly I just love democracy though.

  9. Of course, the more conservative elderly drivers with “PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN” emblem in one form or another have the tendency to drive =< the speed limit. In the fast lane. Nothing against conservatives, this is the elderly I’m talking about, who I hope to never pull behind at a (Soylent) green light.

  10. happyfeet says:

    It was nice of NPR to promote NBC’s programs too I thought. Baracky’s media is very cooperative with each other and really show how much we can do if we all work together!

  11. alppuccino says:

    Well, with an Audi SUV appointed with BHO sticker, that’s either a victim of social pressure to claim her God-given right to have as much goodies as the people whose income affords them, or she can afford them and her Lord Obama is about to bring a big can of Cap Gains Dong right up her patoot.

  12. Andy says:

    As the owner of an A4, I can tell you not all Audi drivers are Code Pinkos. And I like the Q7 too.

  13. urthshu says:

    “festooned”. I like that. It just sounds so festive.

  14. urthshu says:

    Did you shake your fist out the window and yell “YOU WOULDN’T BE DOING THAT IF NIXON WAS IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!!!1!” ?

    B/c, like, I do that all the time.

    Also, the only bumpersticker I have says “Shut Up, Hippy”

  15. happyfeet says:

    Lord Obama is about to bring a big can of Cap Gains Dong fairness right up her patoot. But for real I’m tired of the idea that this Baracky will like be our next president or something. It seems really unlikely that America would be that gay.

  16. I always flash my lights at them when they do that. Kind of as a “fuck you very much” sort of message. Mostly, it’s Volvo drivers with, “better a bleeding heart than none at all,” bumper stickers who perpetrate this sort of deliberate offense.

  17. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    this is the elderly

    Ever think that maybe the reason they got to be elderly was by not driving too fast? :-)

    [Richard Pryor as Mudbone]

    You can learn something when you listen to old people. They ain’t all fools, see? You don’t get to be old by bein’ a fool, see?

    That’s right.

    A lot of young “wise men” are deader than a motherfucker, ain’t they?

    [/Richard Pryor]

  18. alppuccino says:

    You got me there happy, and I should not be so assumptive. But I’ve been wanting to work in the phrase “Cap Gains Dong” into a bit for a while now, and I felt this was the only way to make it work.

    Don’t misunderestimate the gayness of today’s youth. Hopefully they’ll be caught in and endless Barney Frank-spoon on election day.

  19. psycho... says:

    silver […] back

    KABLAMMO

  20. alppuccino says:

    Which makes me think of something:

    “No Tom, I don’t believe gays should have the right to marry. That would just be so out there, y’know. Radical even.”

    is this guy kidding?

  21. happyfeet says:

    Youth and Californians are gay gay gay. It’s not all cause of tv but a lot. The rest is cause they are just broken.

  22. alppuccino says:

    but you know that SUV driver is assuming that BO is in. So it works that way too.

    I’ll let it go

  23. MC says:

    Will somebody get Jeff a firearm? For gosh sakes, he can’t even gun his car…

  24. McGehee says:

    Audis and BMWs and Volvos tend not to give me trouble. Though somebody in a Mini Cooper did try to drag-race me once.

    He found out that a 5.8L V8, even hauling a three-tons-heavy truck, really can whup his hamster-powered ass.

  25. Aldo says:

    I haaaaate that.

    I’ve never heard anyone else mention this one, but it is on my (extremely long) list of pet driving peeves: The driver who timidly creeps up to a green light, pauses until it turns yellow or red, and then rockets through, leaving the cars behind stranded at a long red light.

    Related: The driver waiting to pull out from a parking lot onto a busy street, who agonizes over the decision about whether or not to pull out when the on-coming stampede is a mile away, and then finally makes up her mind and jumps out when the on-coming traffic is 15 feet away.

  26. B Moe says:

    My bane is folks trying to turn left out of a parking lot onto a really busy undivided multi-lane highway. Turn right then make a U-turn, people. It is much quicker than waiting for a hole across all 4 or more lanes.

  27. dre says:

    greasey union guys with Cap Gains Dong

  28. happyfeet says:

    greasey union guys with Cap Gains Dong and Baracky’s boot stamping on a human face which a lot coincidentally describes my face almost perfect

  29. Ric Locke says:

    A recently popular T-shirt around here — I’ve seen several examples:

    I didn’t say it was YOUR FAULT
    I said I was going to BLAME you.

    Regards,
    Ric

  30. Mikey NTH says:

    I really dislike people who tailgate me when there is another car (or line of cars) in front of me. Like I am supposed to make them drive faster with my mind?

  31. B Moe says:

    OMG! Palin asks supporters to QUESTION AUTHORITY!

    What are you pissed about, Cleo? Copyright infringement?

  32. B Moe says:

    If you are really concerned about violence, Cleo, you might start with some of these folks.
    http://tinyurl.com/3gkkgq
    I’d recommend packing a lunch, they been at it for quite a while now.
    Dipshit.

  33. urthshu says:

    pfft. I get casually threatened with violence by Obama supporters nearly every other day.

    Its the violence inherent in the system! I’m being oppressed!

  34. Dash Rendar says:

    “Will McCain/Palin be the first candidates for Prz/Vp to be indicted for inciting a lynching”

    You wish though, don’t you. You and your ilk wouldn’t mind sacrificing a few brown people to prove how evil the rethugs really are, right?

  35. Jenny says:

    Dr. J.; Okay, this is off-topic, but I don’t see yet where you’ve addressed this issue lately, and frankly it’s scaring the crap out of me. ACORN. I can put up with anything – the loss of my carefully-hoarded, yet amusingly minute, retirement funds, my house value plunging, my 23 year old daughter voting for Obama, even the loss of the election – but the theft of said election , on the massive scale we’re just starting to hear about, is more than I can shrug off.
    Question for your tuned-in and turned -on readers.; who, exactly, put the ACORN earmark in the recently-passed bailout legislation? I know it was ultimately pulled, but who pasted it on in the first place? Anyone? JG?

  36. urthshu says:

    Yeah, Jenny, I get you. ACORN is criminal and needs to be disbanded. We also need to resurrect the idea that one shouldn’t aid or abet politicians in the course of an election. I bet ACORN is behind all the pit bull laws b/c the folks what gave it serious thought sicked their dogs on ’em.

  37. Mikey NTH says:

    For fun –
    The infamous Spc. Schwarz of ‘213 Things Skippy Can’t Do’ has his own website.

    http://skippyslist.com/

  38. Bob Reed says:

    What the metaphor is:

    Typical liberal; trying to be demonstratively pious, in a social justice and act-globally kind of way; and do-gooding by making sure that everyone else is doing what she thinks is right. Of course, that is only until it no longer benefits her; then it becomes the hell with all that stuff, I’m gettin’ mine. And in doing so, she doomed all of those that she forced to tow the line to be held back by her previously espoused policy…

    So it will be with lord O! and his cohort of liberal fascists. While they’ll be tellin’ all of us to conserve, and suffer for the greater good, they’ll be jetting around on private planes to Hollywood limousine Liberal parties eating caviar and drinking Krystal; being served by regular folks working their third job just to have some take home after they’re taxed to death to pay for socialized medicine for illegal aliens, and so that the Boyz in da Hood can spend more quality time with Boo-Boo after they get home from their O!-Force neigborhood vigilante training…

    ‘Cuz, you know, they’re doin’ it for the children…

  39. Mikey NTH says:

    And Obama supporters advocated planting bombs, Cleo.
    That enough for your world – whatever color/pattern the sky is?

  40. Bob Reed says:

    And I forgot to add at the end of that rant…

    I obviously don’t understand it all, but I guess that just comes with the territory when you’re guilty for keepin’ a brother down…

    I thought I was all about fightin’ the ManNow I’ve discovered that I am the Man !

  41. dre says:

    Per David Brooks: The real cancer is the Chicago way taking over Washington.

  42. dre says:

    “#
    Comment by Semanticleo on 10/9 @ 5:30 pm #

    Palin and McCain are devolving into screamin’ mimis.

    I thought they put AmeriKKKa first?”

    The KKK is the terrorist arm of the Demorat party.

  43. B Moe says:

    QUESTION AUTHORITY! Cleo. TRUTH TO POWER!

  44. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    “Dig it,first they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!”

    “There’s something about a good bomb … Night after night, day after day, each majestic scene I witnessed was so terrible and so unexpected that no city would ever again stand innocently fixed in my mind. Big buildings and wide streets, cement and steel were no longer permanent. They, too, were fragile and destructible. A torch, a bomb, a strong enough wind, and they, too, would come undone or get knocked down. r 30 bombings aimed at destroying the defense and security infrastructures of the U.S. “I don’t regret setting bombs, said Ayers in 2001, “I feel we didn’t do enough.”

    Those are Baracky’s and Semen’s friends.

  45. B Moe says:

    PHEAR THE PALINATOR!

  46. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Screwed up on the last paste.

    “There’s something about a good bomb … Night after night, day after day, each majestic scene I witnessed was so terrible and so unexpected that no city would ever again stand innocently fixed in my mind. Big buildings and wide streets, cement and steel were no longer permanent. They, too, were fragile and destructible. A torch, a bomb, a strong enough wind, and they, too, would come undone or get knocked down.”

    “I don’t regret setting bombs, said Ayers in 2001, “I feel we didn’t do enough.”

  47. B Moe says:

    We got a pistol-packin’ Momma to handle the light stuff, Cleo. We ain’t skeered a’ tha’ likes a’ you.

  48. Big D says:

    Barack Obama: “Well I am surprised that — you know, we’ve been seeing some pretty over the top attacks coming out of the McCain campaign over the last several days — that he wasn’t willing to say it to my face.”

    A serious blunder by Obama. This was a very juvenile thing for a presidential candidate to say.

  49. Dash Rendar says:

    Yeeeeee-Haw, weeze is gun wrassle us up some dem libruls two-night!

  50. Dash Rendar says:

    “…that he wasn’t willing to say it to my face”

    Damn Kid, you’re twirlin’ in the OODA loop.

  51. dre says:

    “#

    Comment by Semanticleo on 10/9 @ 5:37 pm #

    “The KKK is the terrorist arm of the Demorat party.”

    opaque projector……….”

    Did you have klan at the 1924 Demorat Klan Bake?

  52. “Barack Obama: “Well I am surprised that — you know, we’ve been seeing some pretty over the top attacks coming out of the McCain campaign over the last several days — that he wasn’t willing to say it to my face.”

    Tom Vilsack: “If John McCain were so concerned about things like Mr. Ayers, why didn’t he just simply turn to Barack Obama and directly confront him?”

    Joe Biden: “In my neighborhood, when you’ve got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him.”

    There goes Joe, “paraphrasing” again. He’s going to have to come up with his own material sometime.

  53. B Moe says:

    Down in front of Katie’s Restaurant, there, Joey? Is that where youse guys like to rumble?

  54. dre says:

    No at the Home Depot parking lot.

  55. B Moe says:

    Let’s see, we went from “anytime, anyplace”:
    http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/05/16/obama-strikes-back/

    To Lincoln/Douglas, in your face:
    http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/04/mccain.town.hall/index.html
    http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usmcca135725219jun13,0,604895.story

    To let’s let my media buddies run interference for me:
    http://hotair.com/archives/2008/08/03/its-official-obama-runs-from-town-hall-debates/

    Yeah, play the coward card, Obama. That is a fucking great ideaa.

  56. royf says:

    Hmm! Cleo what do you consider it when Barack told his freak toadies to get in the infidels face?

  57. Carin says:

    Is there ever a Talking Point™ that Cleo doesn’t repeat?

  58. Big D says:

    Looks like Cleo picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

  59. N. O'Brain says:

    Comment by Semanticleo on 10/9 @ 4:49 pm #

    Do you speak English?

  60. B Moe says:

    When did you first hear of Barrack Obama?
    When did you first hear of Sarah Palin?

    What. Fucking. Profundity. The scales have fallen, I can see the Lightbringer.

  61. My bane is folks trying to turn left out of a parking lot onto a really busy undivided multi-lane highway. Turn right then make a U-turn, people. It is much quicker than waiting for a hole across all 4 or more lanes.

    Or people who think that traffic is like bathwater, and they can slip in an inch at a time.

  62. N. O'Brain says:

    “#

    Comment by Semanticleo on 10/9 @ 5:37 pm #

    “The KKK is the terrorist arm of the Demorat party.”

    opaque projector……….”

    You really DON’T speak English, do you, seman?

    Or know history.

    And have only a passing acquaintance with reality.

  63. N. O_Brain says:

    “#Comment by Semanticleo on 10/9 @ 6:18 pm #

    Give a black man enough rope, and he’ll hang hisself………..”

    So you’re a racist, too,

    Ignorant, prejudiced and crazy.

    Great package you got working there, buddy.

  64. N. O'Brain says:

    Back to bad drivers: ALL cabdrivers should immediately lose their driving licenses.

    And all Cadillac drivers.

  65. dre says:

    Ladies and gentleman: Your drivers into financial chaos is Ms. Pelosi and Mssrs. Dodd, Shumer, Frank

  66. JD says:

    silver […] back

    KABLAMMO

    Racist

  67. Old Dad says:

    Cleo enjoys a special kind of stupid. It’s a stupid resulting from a modest intelligence, never disciplined. I blame George Bush and the self-esteem movement in elementary school. Case in point–the One. Now don’t get me wrong, he leaves Cleo in the dirt in the brains department, but he’s still a dumb ass. There are fifty farmers and ranchers in my county with more executive experience and better sense than the One. Damn, I wish one was on the ticket.

  68. SevenEleventy says:

    Semicoherent, your commentary is less meaningful than fecal matter. Try evacuating your bowel of a brain before leaving the house.

  69. SevenEleventy says:

    Jeff, the National Geographic Channel has a program on the science of MMA.

  70. takeshi kovacs says:

    Well they were back in 1876; that’s how they got the election so close in Florida, Mississippi, et al; which necessitated the compromise that pulled Union troops and gave us ‘southern fried apartheid. The crash of 1873 was part of the motivation, behind the people’s distress over
    the occupation of the former confederacy.

  71. cynn says:

    What I see is a bunch of angry boomers demanding their due. God help us all. Our far-flung descendents will be paying for this monumental transfer of wealth. So sad.

  72. N. O'Brain says:

    “Comment by cynn on 10/9 @ 7:53 pm #

    What I see is a bunch of angry boomers demanding their due.”

    Thank you, Franklin Roosevelt(D).

  73. cynn says:

    NoBrain: what are you talking about?

  74. Darleen says:

    Our far-flung descendents will be paying for this monumental transfer of wealth

    only if the triumvirate of Obama/Pelosi/Reid is installed next January.

  75. JD says:

    If we are blessed with Baracky/SanFranNan/Harry this “monumental transfer of wealth” will look like child’s play.

  76. cynn says:

    Just saying, nobrain: I don’t think they had the entitled class during FDR’s initial response.

  77. cynn says:

    I disagree, Darleen. I think this house of cards has finally fallen, and whoever the new president is will have to deal with a smoking ruin. Oddly enough, I am leaning toward McCain, because he seems the most clueless. It’s about mitigation at this point.

  78. RTO Trainer says:

    The Entitlement Generation (Boomers) was a consequence of the New Deal.

  79. Darleen says:

    The house of cards is primarily because of government interference… the excesses of Fannie/Freddie fueled this forest fire. Obama, in face of a deepening recession, is poised to go Hoover–with huge tax increases and protectionism and a refusal to restrain or cut any “entitlement” program. Indeed, he wants to nationalize healthcare and expand Federal education.

  80. Darleen says:

    RTO

    Only about half of us. The spoiled brats of the boomers get all the press, the responsible ones are dismissed as “squares”

  81. cynn says:

    Quit the pre-emptive Obama blaming. And for that matter, quit the fruitless McCain bashing. This hurlyburly economy was lucrative for those who bagged their candy and got out. Or, those who stick around and pick through the bones. I don’t know; the inner tinfoiler in me thinks it was a fix.

    What I do know is that the next president is going to have hell on his hands, and maybe blood as well. Talk as smooth or forcefully as he wants, he can’t beat the future.

  82. happyfeet says:

    The conspiracy theories haven’t really started yet cause the media is a lot sucking the oxygen out of that niche I think.

  83. John Edwards says:

    cynn, some of us have been watching housing prices rise, and watching the sort of mortgages that were being offered for years. And some of us knew it had to end badly. But the root of the problem has just recently become evident to a lot of people. If you’re not one of them, that’s cool.

    Mister, if we get a man like Herbert Hoover again, we’re fucked. Sorry, Archie.

  84. Pablo says:

    Oops. I’m not really knocking up hags instead of focusing on my cancer stricken wife.

    Sorry ’bout that.

  85. cynn says:

    Happy: You kind of scare me.

    John Edwards: What’s this mystical “root of the problem?” If I knew that for sure, I could have gamed the shit out the markets. Spit it up, dood.

  86. Bob Reed says:

    cynn,
    I’m sorry but Darleen has a strong point here. It only seems like a conspiracy, because as much as some of the fat-cats fortunes have declined, they still have a few mil here and there; at least they got that goin’ for them

    And, O! is gettin’ ready to go all Herbert Hoover on our asses. It’s just that schools have been busy teaching social justice fluff for so long, instead of like, history, math, reading, economics, etc., and stuff, that a great number of folks are too knuckle-headed to realize it; especially the doofus talking heads in the MSM…

    Most of those dopes are too gob-smacked by the historic nature of O!s candidacy to actually consider what his proposals would do to the economy. The absolutely delicious irony, if we were only talking about fictional literature here, is that the meltdown of the economy, which was driven, aided, and abetted by his ideological compatriots, is in large part the very thing that may get him elected (God forbid!); and he will only eff it up more by his espoused policies!

    Best Wishes,
    Bob

  87. McGehee says:

    What I do know is that the next president is going to have hell on his hands

    Events have a way of smacking prognosticators upside the head on a regular basis. For every Great Disaster that is foreseen well in advance, two more that no one ever expected usually come along and make the one everybody was afraid of look like a passing puffy white cloud on a sunny day.

    I can’t even remember anymore what everybody was saying Bill Clinton’s successor was going to have to tear his hair out dealing with. Something or other happened 20 months into that guy’s term that upended the paradigm.

  88. RTO Trainer says:

    There two ways to look at this thing.

    6 months ago I sold off a chunk of my Perot Systems stock and bought into 4 other companies–diversifying. All of those investments are today down about 50% of what I paid for them then. In a few days I get some more Perot Systems stock and I plan to sell off some more and buy some more stock–probably in one or two other companies.

    Why am I buying stock? Because it’s cheap. And I’m buying into businesses that are well established and not going to disintegrate.

    There’s always an opportunity.

  89. dan says:

    The analogy seems to be this: the character trait that disposes this woman to follow signposts telling her precisely how to drive rather than use her judgment to determine when it’s appropriate to go over the speed limit also dispose her to conform to blindly follow the directives to support Obama. Furthermore, her position in society (evidenced and manifested by the Audi SUV)will allow her to escape the inevitable traffic jam that her mindless conformity will inevitably produce. In otherwords: good luck to all us shmucks who are going to be stuck with Universal Medicare, while the truly rich can pay under the table to opt out of bureaucrat rationed medical treatment!

  90. mojo says:

    Wear a crash helmet and a crazed look. People will get the fuck out of your way.

    A dented shit-box of a car helps. Trust me.

  91. MAJ (P) John says:

    mojo – so how long have you been driving for the 51st BDE, 14th IA DIV? Oh wait, they are wearing kevlar helmets…

  92. Mikey NTH says:

    #102 mojo:

    It makes merging onto a crowded freeway much easier.

  93. kitcarson says:

    how can she hit you if you are not in the ROAD!

  94. kitcarson says:

    i take that back

    I wish she had hit you

    we need less MORONs

  95. Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) says:

    “Also, the only bumpersticker I have says “Shut Up, Hippy”

    – Mine says “shut up thor” in dayglo colors.

  96. BuddyPC says:

    35. Comment by urthshu on 10/9 @ 5:03 pm #

    pfft. I get casually threatened with violence by Obama supporters nearly every other day.
    Its the violence inherent in the system! I’m being oppressed!

    What, from across a busy street?
    Sight unseen, my money’s on urthshu vs. any five menacing Obama Youth.

    Tho an O! street worker did get frothy on me the other day by my repeatedly addressing her as “Sweetie”.

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