I really need to be better about posting

So much has been happening recently, it's difficult to keep up with...from giving of care to Cheryl's mother/father...ferrying our grandson back and forth to school to finish out the year (he graduated from elementary school and has moved in with his mom, now...) Plants had to be started in the greenhouse, gardens prepared, new landscaping developed from our bathroom/laundryroom project just prior to winter...attended a grafting seminar in Decorah, IA at Seed Savers Exchange, Cheryl had surgery on both wrists for carpal tunnel...rain has been consistently falling for the past few weeks...even had a tornado touch down on Pickerel Lake and the area around Emmaville. No one hurt physically, although a few cabins were very damaged and many trees were downed. I'd like to include an excerpt from a posting at DailyKos...a friend asked how much it would cost to have it tattoed on his chest... The link is at the end of the post: OKLAHOMA CITY—Democratic Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma said Tuesday Barack Obama is "the most liberal senator" in Congress and he has no intention of endorsing him for the White House. [...] Boren, a self-described centrist, is seeking a third term this year in a mostly rural district that stretches across eastern Oklahoma. "We're much more conservative," Boren said of district. "I've got to reflect my district. No one means more to me than the people who elected me. I have to listen them." He called Obama "the most liberal senator in the U.S. Senate." Boren still is going to vote for Obama, mind you, just not "endorse" him. Because, you know, Obama is "liberal", and that's just not an OK thing to be in the OK state. It seems like a rather odd line for a Democrat to be taking -- clipped as it is from conservative talking points -- but I'll be honest. I can't get all that worked up about it. So, you know, whatever -- if he "votes for" Obama, but "endorses" an animated tick hiding in a Pokemon's brightly colored back fur, meh. I'm hoarding my disapprobation right now, in anticipation of Peak Outrage. Which will probably be sometime in 2009, for those of you who are following the outrage markets. So here's my gentle question for Rep. Boren. Let's just suppose that he was right, and Obama really was "the most liberal senator" in the entire Democratic contingent -- a term magically conferred by conservatives on whatever figure wins the nomination, election after election, while hyper-mega-death-penalty-mocking-war-humping-salmon-punching-archconservative Republicans magically turn into "moderates", using those same conservatives' exact same terribly objective calculations for such things. So let's just stipulate that someone might be "the most liberal" senator. My question for Rep. Boren, and for his Oklahoma constituents, is this: so what? So what if someone is a "liberal"? What exactly are you afraid of? What, will he start some wars? Will the economy go to hell? Will gasoline suddenly cost four bucks a gallon, so that getting from one end of town to the other starts to be something you have to plan for in your family budget? Oh, wait, no -- that's what conservatism has wrought. So what big, scary menace will "liberalism" rain down upon us all? The horror of free public education? The apocalypse of affordable healthcare for families and the elderly? An energy policy that consists of something other than "hell, let's just sit on our asses and see what happens"? My God, maybe we'll have a foreign policy that doesn't revolve around sucking thousands of dollars out of your constituents' pockets, lighting all that money on fire, and using the pyre to make super-special Democracy Smores in the middle of the Iraqi desert? What, are we afraid less American soldiers will die? That our trade deficit will be, if not reversed, at least addressed? Are Oklahomans all huddled in their closets, lest some of the now-legions of outsourced jobs start reappearing in their towns? What? What is it that is so absolutely alarming about the word "liberal" that you'd rather stomach having everything that's happened to America for the past decade continue, rather than being seen as someone who might secretly have tolerance for, shudder, that word? Markos linked to this only briefly, in an open thread, but I think in order to absorb the true terror of liberalism, we must seek out those that fear our liberalism the most. The powerhouses of conservative thought who can really define, for us, what exactly it is conservatism is facing. If our fine Democratic representative Boren cannot explicitly define why liberal is supposed to be a bad word, let us go to the experts at Townhall.com, in this case one Mary Grabar, whose name I will not childishly compare to fellow cartoon elephant Babar because I'm trying to be helpful and understanding and all that other terribly earnest crap. So perhaps by understanding conservative fears, we liberals can assuage those fears? Grabar: An Obama presidency would signal the final salvo by the Left in the culture wars. Obama’s advance troops have already taken over our college campuses, have bound and gagged our conservative professors, have ravished our virgins, have pillaged our stores of wisdom, and have ensconced themselves in the thrones of power in deans’, presidents’ and department heads’ offices. The victory cry is heard across the land in the cheers of Obama’s constituency on college campuses. This has been going on under the very noses of the Republicans. Ok... I was wrong. There's absolutely no way I can assuage those fears. For starters -- and I will here too strive not to be too harsh on the poor creature that wrote such things -- they are the demented ravings of a buffoon. They would make the screechings of howler monkeys sound like enlightened discourse. They would make the graffiti on a bathroom stall look like the Gettysburg Address. We have met the enemy, and it is not us, but an imaginary sprite inside a delusional head, and it is called liberalism, and by God it does sound scary when you put it like that. Anything that can ravage your wisdom -- no, sorry, bound your daughters -- no, sorry again, pillage your... thrones... in the dean's office... um, where were we again? Suddenly it sounds like conservatives don't fear liberalism, but some post-Narnian villain. (The lion in that story? That was supposed to be Jesus, if Jesus had three-inch claws and powerful jaws capable of snapping a gazelle's neck like a toothpick. Now that's a Jesus we can all relate to!) I think, in the end, perhaps the conservative fear of liberalism really is all about scary people ravishing their virgins. That is the only thing that comes up consistently in so-called conservative intellectual thought; the notion that someone, somewhere is just one dashing, hopelessly suave line from getting it on with your virgin daughter. Or son. For a long time, it was black people seeking to move into your neighborhoods and seduce your offspring. Then it was illegal immigrants -- yes, apparently all these people were swarming across our border because your virgin daughter was just that damn hot. Don't even get me started on the homosexuals -- they are all about corrupting your virgins. Except conservative Mark Foley, who was innocent. And conservative Larry Craig, who was twice as innocent. And conservative preacher Ted Haggard, who in his defense was mostly just in it for the drugs. The problem, you see, is that since we can't be freaked out about ethnic people anymore, at least not in polite company, and you can't be all that freaked out about gay people now that we've figured out that most gay people are, you know, boring... so now it is simply the ephemeral liberals that are after your virgins. (continued at link) http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/11/54116/8362/89/533846