For example! You could say any of the following:

Benjamin Franklin – because he was so cool and multi-talented. He had a great sense of humor, was an accomplished writer, and invented a bunch of nifty stuff like bifocals and the glass armonica! Remember Poor Richard? The stuff with the key and the kite and the lightning? That Franklin, what a card.

Thomas Jefferson – because he was a true renaissance man. Not only did he write the Declaration of Independence, a stirring and moving document; he was also an intellectual and a strong defender of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. He started a university, was a governor, president, vice president, and secretary of state. Dude stayed busy!

George Washington – what’s not to love? The dude was a war hero, and refused to be treated like a king when he became America’s first president. He was, in fact, one of America’s greatest presidents, according to scholars. Also: wooden teeth, which cracks me up (but couldn’t have been very comfortable); Mount Vernon; the dollar bill…

And that’s just three of them. If none of those struck your fancy, you could still choose from John Adams, Alexandar Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay (source).

What I’m saying here is, if you were asked “Who is your favorite founding father of the United States,” and you couldn’t think of someone right off the top of your head, or you had to give some lame non-answer like, “All of them,” it would demonstrate a real ignorance – evidence of the fact that you had never given it much (or any) thought. One might assume that you were kind of clueless about history and other intellectual matters. One might assume you were so absorbed with yourself, you didn’t care about people from long ago who lived and died making our country the great bastion of freedom that it is today. One might think.

I’m just sayin’.

But anyway! I’ve slapped together these counter-protest images for your use. They are horrible, I admit – offensive and inappropriate, and that’s just my photo editing skills! But what do you expect, all I got here is Paint.net, I’m not very coordinated, and I did the best I could. Enjoy!

The ol' monkey boy himself

Darth Cheney

The amazing orange dude

Turdblossom

Waaaaaahhhh!

Head blowhard

Benedict Arnold

Miss Psycho America

My thoughts and prayers are with his family, and I mourn with all Americans for a great senator and a wonderful human being. May he rest in peace.

Daily Outfit – 8/26/09 by Groovymarlin featuring Jessica Simpson shoes

If only.

You see, racism is alive and well. In fact, racism seems to just get more bold and blatant and “out there.” And I find it very, very discouraging. A few recent examples:

• A swim club in PA kicked out a bunch of black day campers, apparently just for being black. Read about it here. The swim club in question is now trying to say that they “didn’t realize how many kids would be there” when they originally agreed to the once-a-week swim sessions and gladly took the day camp’s money. Only problem is, other members of the club said derogatory, racist things to the campers and in front of them on the day that they went there, only to be kicked out. And the club’s president (who obviously needs a PR person to make his statements for him) told media that “There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club…” Poor choice of words there, bozo.

• The leading candidate (and, as it turned out, the winning candidate) to be the new president of the Young Republicans allowed and encouraged racist (and some seriously over-the-top hateful) comments on her Facebook page. When this was publicized, she took a page out of the Palin playbook and played the victim, calling criticism of her racist comments on Facebook and other sites “political attacks.” There’s a summary page of several stories about this here.

• In what strikes me as just about the worst of all these incidents, commenters and proprietors on the wingnut site Free Republic went to town on Malia Obama Thursday, after she was photographed in Rome wearing a t-shirt with a peace sign on the front. That’s right – they called an 11-year-old “a typical street whore” and “ghetto street trash.” Just when you think these nuts can’t sink any lower…well, you can read all about it here, and according to David Shuster’s Twitter feed, he will cover this story on Monday (more info here).

That last one really makes me feel sick. When people can’t even agree that an 11-year-old should be off-limits, there is something wrong with the world, or at least the wingnut corner of it. Sadly, the type of comments described are fairly typical of coverage of the First Family lately. I read a lot of blogs about Michelle Obama (including Michelle Obama Watch, East Wing Rules, and Mrs. O), and there are always plenty of haters that seem to pop up in comments. (Of course on major news sites and political blogs it’s even worse. Mostly I just have to ignore the comments section.) They call Mrs. Obama “ugly,” “arrogant,” “trashy,” and other adjectives that I don’t think any rational, non-frothing-at-the-mouth person could ever use to describe her.

Part of this is, I think, the problem of perception. People will see what they want to see. They don’t like the fact that a Democrat is president, and especially a black Democrat, and they lash out at President Obama and his family, however inappropriate that is. But I’m honestly shocked at the vitriol. For instance, I really really hated our last president. I thought he was a total douchebag and said so many, many times. But I never found any reason to criticize his wife (although to be honest I can’t imagine how a seemingly-nice lady like her ended up with a douchebag like him, but I digress). She did all of the things that Michelle Obama does – travelled with her husband, ran the social side of things at the White House, got involved with community service and charitable causes – but nobody seemed to have it in their hearts to call her ugly or trashy or arrogant. Believe me, I read Daily Kos regularly – nobody was picking on Laura Bush there.

So what’s different when it comes to Michelle, and by extension, her daughters? Michelle is not getting involved in anything political (at least not so far). Her activities have been wholly uncontroversial – planting and harvesting a kitchen garden with local elementary school students, visiting schools and daycare centers, travelling with the President and dressing and behaving in a tasteful and traditional way while she does it.

Is it because she’s black? I think when the First Familiy is referred to as “ghetto,” there’s really no other conclusion. And that makes me really, really sick.

Today, the President and his family toured Cape Coast Castle, a former slave port in Ghana. Speaking about why it was important for Malia and Sasha to see this site, he said:

“And hopefully one of the things that was imparted to them during this trip is their sense of obligation to fight oppression and cruelty wherever it appears and that any group of people who are degrading another group of people have to be fought against with whatever tools we have available to us.”

Apparently, there are a lot of people right here in the good ol’ US of A who still need to learn this lesson, Mr. President.

Here’s one example though. Douchebag-in-chief Michael Steele said this when he was (unsuccessfully!) running for the Senate in 2006:

“Who pays for universal health insurance? Who pays for socialized medicine? I don’t need government dictating to me when I go to the doctor, which doctor I go to, how much is going to be paid for my health care. That’s not the America I want to live in.”

Yeah, Michael. That sounds scary. Lucky for us that’s not the America we live in, huh? I mean, the government doesn’t dictate to me when I can go to the doctor, or which doctor, or how much will be paid. But unfortunately, you know who DOES decide all that? It’s not my doctor, and it’s not me.

It’s my insurance company.

(thanks to Politics Daily for inspiration)

More memos detailing the abominable practices of the previous administration were released today. Here’s a short summary of what they contain, courtesy of the Daily Beast. Most of the practices described and “justified” in the memos were actually put to use, which we know from a report by the Red Cross which details the actual experiences of more than a dozen detainees. You can download the full Red Cross memo here (warning: PDF). It’s pretty gruesome, sickening stuff.

I’ve been thinking about this whole thing a lot lately, definitely more than I want to. I have thought back to how we all felt after 9/11; how many of us might have been a little more open to the idea of torturing suspects, especially if they knew things (and would tell them) that would prevent a similar tragedy. Or, if we knew a person was guilty of horrible crimes, would we perhaps be comfortable with that person being tortured in ways such as those described? Sometimes, in our worst moments, yes; we might wish to see people suffer torture. But that doesn’t make it right.

Here’s the problem, or actually, problems.

1. Even if a person has committed horrible crimes, we cannot then commit horrible crimes against him or her, because that makes us no better than the criminal. Torture has no place as punishment in a just and moral society. Our duty is to try, convict, and incarcerate criminals. To punish them by the loss of their freedom, perhaps to make them perform community service, and even to find ways in which they might be redeemed some day.

2. It has been proven time and time again that torture is not an effective way to elicit information. As far back as the Inquisition it was recognized that a man will say nearly anything while being tortured. He will admit to anything in order to make the torture stop. True to this historical example, it has been reported that no intelligence of real value was obtained through the torture that was perpetrated on behalf of this country.

3. Here’s the one that bothers me the most. The people being tortured in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and CIA black sites were not tried or proven guilty. They were suspects. In some cases, they were turned over by various warlords and militias through a bounty system. We do not know if some of these men were guilty of anything at all. In fact, there is a very high likelihood that many of them were innocent of any wrongdoing, and were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that is what will give me nightmares until I die: this country tortured innocent people. Were all of them innocent? Probably not. Did some of them deserve to be punished or treated badly? Possibly. Did any of them deserve to be treated as less than human and tortured? Never.

Andrew Sullivan has a long, th0ughtful post about all of this, which is very good. Read the whole thing. I agree with him that “those who pay the legal price should be, first and foremost, those who authorized this at the highest levels.” That means Yoo, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and ultimately, Bush, among others. I don’t know how I feel about prosecuting any individual interrogator. On one hand, their consciences should have told them that what they were doing was unacceptable. On the other – they were told it was legal, right, and allowed. Perhaps some of them were even ordered to do it. I find it difficult to believe that anyone would willingly and unquestioningly follow such orders, but that’s why I’m not in that line of work, I suppose. I just wish no one else was, either.

People continue to act shocked and surprised that companies like AIG think that their employees still deserve bonuses. AIG told Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, that they simply had to pay these bonuses, for two reasons:

1. They were agreed to before the bailout and the firm would risk being sued for violating employment contracts if they were not paid.

2. AIG needs to be able to pay these bonuses so they can “attract and retain the best and brightest” to ensure the company’s success.

Yeah. Choke on that for a minute.

So, “best and brightest,” huh? Is that what you call the douchebags that almost drove AIG out of business in the first place? The brilliant minds that okayed the risky investment strategies and crazy financial manipulation that necessitated their eventual government bailout? And those same tools won’t stay with AIG if they don’t get their bonuses?

LET. THEM. LEAVE.

Of course that won’t happen, and that’s not really what I wanted to address anyway. My point is, why do people think they’re entitled to bonuses in a year when their company nearly went out of business? And not just at AIG, but at Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo and all the other banks and brokerages teetering on the brink?

OK, it’s a trick question. I actually know why. It’s called entitlement. All those people think they’re entitled to a bonus, simply for doing their jobs. Bonuses have kind of lost their meaning, especially in financial services, but to some degree in all fields. It used to be that you got a bonus when you did something extraordinary, somehow went above and beyond expectations, or exhibited leadership or effort that set you apart from your fellow employees. In other words, a bonus used to be a reward, but that’s changed. At a certain level in the company hierarchy, bonuses are expected, no matter how the company performs. It’s like, hey, I showed up most of the time this year, now give me my bonus!

It’s not just confined to middle and upper management, though. This is the same pervasive attitude that explains why most employees expect a generous raise every year, no matter what. At every company where I’ve worked, even the weakest (some might say most useless) employees expected an annual increase well above cost-of-living adjustments, simply for showing up every day. This is why performance management is, in most cases, a complete joke, at least in my industry (IT). Mediocrity reigns supreme.

And those twatwaffles at AIG, that are counting on their precious bonuses? They should just be happy to have jobs right now. If Geithner called me up and put me in charge of AIG, I’d fire all their lame asses, and start over again. And he wouldn’t need to pay me a bonus to do it.