Wormtongues

I read with dismay yet another stupid story in the NYTimes about Hillary Clinton this morning. It’s going to be a long 18 months.

This time, it was about how progressives are pressuring her to kiss their asses. I wonder why she is even bothering at this point to give them any attention at all. They’re never going to like her, trust her, believe her, even if she really is the best thing they’ve got right now. They can’t see her for what she is and can’t appreciate what she’s got to offer them. It’s almost as if they’re under some kind of spell:

If you ever wondered what happened to Wormtongue, he left Meduseld “to spend more time with his family” and went to work for the NYTimes after working for a marketing research firm on Wall Street in 2008.

This sentence cracks me up:

Mrs. Clinton cheerily welcomed Mr. Sanders into the race, even as she works to deny Mr. Sanders or any other liberal an issue on which to bloody her from the left.

Are you serious? Sanders entering the race is the best thing that could have happened to Clinton. Now, there is another credible person on the left. Sanders is passionate, he speaks well, he’s rational. He doesn’t have the air of dweeb about him like Kucinich and he doesn’t come off as being an unrealistic “knit your own sandals” type who is going to make us eat a raw vegan diet with a heavy emphasis on organic beets. His concern is primarily about the very real erosion of the standard of living of most working Americans today.

He adds weight to the left side of the field. The longer he stays in the race, the better for Clinton. That means it won’t be six silly nobodies trying to out-mean each other on the right sucking all of the air out of the room and one woman defending the left all by herself. It means that issues might actually get discussed that aren’t all on the ultra conservative right. It means she won’t have to be so defensive. It means there will be a clear difference between the two political sides.

Damn straight she’s cheery.

Duh.

But the left is convinced that she’s with the enemy. In a way, I kinda understand it. They were completely taken in by Wormtongue in 2008. That was a disaster.

Still, the real enemies have almost won. It’s bad out here. And here the left is, sitting in its golden hall, lapsing into a coma like some crusty old dude enchanted by some evil wizards. Utterly feckless and hostile to the people who are begging it to get its act together and fight back. It’s almost like someone doesn’t want people with a common cause to become allies…

Suit yourselves. I’m going with the white haired guy and the blonde lady.

“Forth Eorlingas!“

Pockets of sanity in Texas

I recently discovered Hilah Cooking on YouTube.  If you love Tex Mex, you’ll love her channel.  She’s got a new gig on Tastemade called Hilah’s Texas Kitchen.  Check out the recipe for the Grapefruit Sorbet, which looks just about perfect for a hot summer day.  She also does a Hilah Talking thing where she answers cooking questions and talks about stuff.

This Hilah Talking episode from last year is hilah-rious and gives me hope that all is not lost in Texas.

I’m going to borrow a theme from Lambert.  I’m looking for a Household Remedy for an particularly aggressive honeybee.  Every time I try to clean out my flower bed and plant the

Twist and Shout hydrangea

gorgeous Twist and Shout Hydrangea I bought last week, I get strafed by this fricking bee.  Yesterday, it chased me around the yard until I ran screaming into my house.  I thought it had landed on my shirt and in my frenzy to get away from it, ripped off my shirt and slapped my neck with poison ivy tainted gardening gloves.

Ok, you guys can stop laughing now at that mental picture of RD standing half nekkid in her gardening gloves shrieking and spastic over a bee.

The topical steroids are helping with the poison ivy blotches on my neck.

One other amusing little story.  I live across the street from another Tolkien fanatic.  Yes, yes, it doesn’t get any better.  Except last night, the neighbors were having a family party.  They were pretty good at keeping the noise down and I fell asleep with the happy chatter of people having a good time in their hot-tub across the street, only to be woken up about an hour later to someone screaming “GANDALF!!,  GANDALF!!” at the top of his lungs. For a minute there, in my semi-sleepy state, I thought I was in Moria or something.  It was very confusing.

Turns out the dog had gotten loose – and his name is Gandalf.