Monthly Archives: November 2011

Eugene Delgaudio’s pants are on fire, again

[Promoted by Epluribusunum. Although surely our readers do not need that much help.]

WMAL reports on this year’s Courthouse Christmas controversy.  Here is the quote from Supervisor Delgaudio and the facts as reported by WMAL.  Can you spot the lie?  If not, I’ve bolded it.

“This is the same location that for three years running, crowds of people have shown up to protest the elimination or the barring, outright barring, of a nativity scene.  Why are we revisiting this again?” Delgaudio said.

This year’s accepted applications, in order, include:

– The Welsh family nativity scene

 

Pizza is a vegetable, really?

[promoted by Liz]

The house and Senate approved legislation that redefines pizza as a vegetable, and the President signed it.  You can see our Congressman’s vote on HR2112 here.  As you ponder this, please remember a few things.

  1. We’re talking about that cardboard crust pizza that is served in school lunches
  2. The rationale for the classification is that a slice of pizza contains three ounces of tomato paste
  3. A tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable
  4. Frank Wolf is a member of the House Appropriations Committee, the committee responsible for the original bill content

If you are as astounded as me, you should see what Kermit had to say on SNL, “what next are twizzlers and a a grape soda a ‘fruit salad'”?  if you have time, please send a note to Congressman Wolf thanking him for favoring agribusiness over the health and well being of school children.

A public service announcement for “hack”

Commenting on a year-old post about something that has nothing to do with your cause du jour is not a good way to ask us to write about something.

It IS a very good method to make the moderators (or, at least, THIS moderator) grumpy.

I realize we don’t make it easy for you to contact us with ideas for posts. My contact information is, at least, available at Doorbellqueen.com. Alternatively, you could create an account here and write your own post. I might even promote it!

Keep in mind, though, that now that you’ve annoyed me, I’m much more sympathetic to the Raspberry Falls folks point of view, so it would have to be a thoughtful, well-written post, full of insights, and containing no typos.

Are you up for the challenge?

Pop and Politics

The clearing of Zuccotti Park in NYC, the violence against the peaceful protesters on the Berkeley campus in California, and the violence against the protesters in Oakland have made me think of this song:

Banks of Marble by the Weavers

It’s not personal

Students riot Nov. 9, 2011 in State College, PA. (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

I think that must be what the rioting Penn State students and anyone else making excuses would say to the victims of child rapist Jerry Sandusky, if they felt the need to say anything to them at all. Sorry you were raped, but our team is winning national championships and that makes us feel good and we don’t want any interruptions. It’s not personal.

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Veteran’s Day

Remembrance Day.
Armistice Day.

Thinking of the men and women who have served, and those who are serving.

May all who are serving now come home safe.

“Not a peep on Loudoun Progress” (Edited to add what I said on DBQ)

Well, that’s because I’m making noise at doorbellqueen.com. I’ll post some thoughts here later, but the thoughts I’m expressing at the moment are not appropriate for this space.

Earlier this year I resigned from the LCDC because it was the right thing to do. I knew I would not be supporting Andrea McGimsey for re-election and Party politics being an all-or-nothing proposition, I knew I must step away.

Shortly before my resignation and for the months thereafter I sat saddened as the current LCDC leadership often paid more attention to petty personal squabbles then they did their candidates for local office. Fundraising was non-existent. They failed to take advantage of the Loudoun Republicans making international news with their Obama Zombie screw up. They sat quiet as Republican Supervisors openly accepted contributions from corporations with business before the board. They felt it was more important to punish dissenters than to fight for a common cause. And, of course, the redistricting debacle.

The LCDC is so fractured that they couldn’t agree on one single location to have a watch party. Each faction had their own gathering: one in Leesburg; one in Cascades; one in Sterling.

Loudoun County being what it is, Republicans would probably have won pretty big this year anyway. But it is due to the leadership of the LCDC that the Republicans won all but two and a possible third. The LCDC leadership forgot what its mission is: which is simply to elect Democrats.

In May, I resigned from the LCDC because I should have. After the results yesterday, I hope Mike Turner, Ellen Heald, Bob Moses, Denis Gordon, Evan MacBeth and Jenniffer Denegris-Kalinowski do the right thing too. It’s time for them to resign.

I will not be rejoining the LCDC, since it’s pretty obvious that my focus and that of the committee often diverge. But I hope that whoever steps up to take the reins will be someone who can woo back some of the good people lost during the past two years and who will make the LCDC into an organization even people on the outside can view as energetic and effective.

This is what hate speech encourages.

Photo credit: John Wright at The Dallas Voice

This is what hate speech gives people with violent inclinations license to do. When they are erroneously told, by someone like hate group leader Eugene Delgaudio, that gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people are threatening to something they value, such as their children or their right to worship freely, such people feel justified in resorting to violence. They are fearful, and feel that they are acting to protect something of great value.

Engaging in hate speech is not illegal. Lying is (usually) not illegal. But when hate speech is used to motivate people to make donations or to vote in a particular way, there are unintended (or perhaps intended) consequences. Anyone who engages in such behavior is unfit for public office, by definition. Such a person does not serve the public, by definition.

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A “new, dark legacy” that should be decisively rejected

The following letter is online at Leesburg Today. It presents even more troubling information about the threatening political climate that came spectacularly into public view with the exposure of two violent images sent by Loudoun Republican leaders.

This is the first I’ve heard about the threatening phone calls to League of Women Voters members, or the harassment of the Electoral Board.

Where are our investigative reporters?

Like Sarah Palin’s bull’s eye on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’s congressional district, the Loudoun County Republican Committee’s image of President Barak Obama with a bullet hole in his head adds to the violent imagery that has increasingly taken over public discourse in this nation.

This is not a single, anomalous event in recent Loudoun politics. A significant factor behind the Loudoun League of Women Voters cancellation of a candidate forum for this election was threats made to LLWV members by phone at their homes by advocates of concealed weapons, and the League’s concern about the cost and adequacy of security for what has been a regular voter education event.

Sterling District Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio’s bloody handprint in literature denouncing homosexuality is another item to add to the pile.

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