Yet Another Message From The Next Governor Of Texas

The Kinkster tells it like I want to hear it: "We're tired of this bullshit!" If this is (fair & balanced) barnyard humor, so be it.

Dear Folks,

It's hard to believe that more than ten thousand of you have already signed up to volunteer your help with the campaign. On top of that, thousands more seem to be joining us with each passing week. At first I thought it must be because I was such a charismatic leader. Then I realized, somewhat to my chagrin, that this groundswell from all over the state may not have so much to do with me after all. It has more to do, perhaps, with timing. Simply put, we're tired of this bullshit.

Click here to contribute and help me bring down that bull:
Bring down that bull.

That's why, in fact, I'm running for governor. I want to help other people realize their dreams, and I want to be a part of all of us realizing the Texas Dream. It's not about politics; if anything, I'm running against politics and those who toil in its lush, corrupt, rarely rotated fields. I think musicians can better run this state than politicians. Hell, I believe beauticians could run it better than politicians. But I plan to be more than merely a ceremonial ribbon cutter. I intend to bring back the glory of Texas. I'm convinced that, if we all get together, we can knock down that windmill of politics as usual, and we can make that Lone Star shine again.

I'm typing this in the middle of the night on the last typewriter in Texas. My five dogs, the Friedmans, are watching me. They're very excited about the prospect of moving into the Governor's Mansion. They may not know it, but they are one of my two special interest groups, the only other being my fellow Texans. With the support of these two special interest groups, we have already achieved spiritual lift-off. We shall not fail. Together we will rise and shine and bring back the glory of Texas.

Help me make it a reality by clicking here to contribute to our campaign:
Friedman Campaign.

Love,

The Gov
Kinky Friedman
April 18, 2005
Medina, Texas

Copyright © 2005 The Friedman For Governor Committee

At Least Tom DeLay Is Consistent (A Horse's Ass)!

A friend of a friend in the Feral Cat Capital (WI) sent this item along to (F&B) Rants & Raves. The irony is delicious. The Dumbos claim that the Donkeys are blocking Dub's judicial nominees and endangering the Republic. When the shoe was on the other foot and the Slickster was sending judicial nominees to the Hill, the Dumbo senators stalled and stalled via parliamentary tricks. Flash forward to 2005, the Dumbos are raging at the Donkeys for doing the same thing. The only actor in this farce who hasn't flip-flopped is House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX). In 1997, DeLay wanted to intimidate federal judges and he's braiding nooses for federal judges today. If only, if only, Tom DeLay can end up like Jim Wright (D-TX) or Dan Rostenkowski (D-IL). Out of office in both instances and in the slammer in the latter. If this is (fair & balanced) anticipation, so be it.


[x CNN]
Clinton accuses Senate of blocking his judicial nominations
September 27, 1997

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (CNN) -- President Clinton accused Republicans Saturday of posing "a very real threat to our judicial system" by blocking the appointment of dozens of federal judges for political purposes.

"We can't let partisan politics shut down our courts and gut our judicial system," Clinton said during his weekly radio address.

Across the nation, 100 federal judgeships are vacant. The president said he has sent 70 nominations to the Senate this year, but lawmakers have acted on only 18 -- two of them Friday.

Last year, the Senate confirmed just 17 judges, which Clinton said was "the lowest election-year total in over 40 years." He accused the Republican-led Senate of deliberate stall tactics -- "the worst of partisan politics," he contended.

Clinton said the blocked nominations have delayed tens of thousands of civil cases, involving such matters as the collections of life insurance proceeds and Social Security benefits.

"Our courts are clogged with a rising number of cases," he said in the address, broadcast during a four-day Arkansas visit. "Our sitting judges are overloaded and overworked, and our judicial system is strained to the breaking point."

Under the U.S. Constitution, the Senate has the power to approve or reject the president's nominations for federal judges, who are granted lifetime tenure.

Republicans argue that the appointment of judges is more than just a numbers game, that senators are simply fulfilling their constitutional duties by rejecting candidates they believe are unfit for the job.

Republican Whip Tom DeLay of Texas said earlier this month that judges "need to be intimidated. They need to uphold the Constitution." If not, "We're going to go after them in a big way."

Copyright © 1997 Cable News Network

Three Score And Four Years Ago....

I have been 64 for two+ months now. Ol' Ellen Goodman just turned 64 (I think) and the birthday made her a little too somber. If this is (fair & balanced) geriatric melancholia, so be it.

[x The Boston Globe]
When I'm 64
By Ellen Goodman

A FEW YEARS ago, I faced one of those ethical quandaries that don't turn up in journalism class. My birthday was announced in the newspaper date book. This was startling enough except for the fact that the paper had lopped about three years off the actual number.

What's a good journalist, let alone a good feminist, to do? Did I have a moral obligation to write a correction? Was it ethical to live (a little younger) with the error of their ways?

I never had to resolve this dilemma because apparently some college classmate -- you know who you are -- outed me.

This brings me to the number of candles that now grace the cake of my life: 64. By any normal account, this is a thoroughly unremarkable birthday. There are no zeroes to attract attention. Nor any fives, for that matter. Not even Medicare cares. If anything, 64 is designated as the outermost edge of middle age as if we were all going to live to be 128. But it's unexpected numbers that have meant the most to me. I was struck by 29, because it was officially too late to be the youngest anything. I was hit upside the head at 36 because at 36 Mozart was already dead. I decided I'd rather be alive than be Mozart. I was startled by 58 because I had outlived my father. 'Nuf said.

This birthday however came humming into my mind. It's not the bureaucracy but the Beatles, not the near-senior status but the song, that imprinted 64 into my consciousness. In 1967, when the members of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and I were all in our 20s, 64 was the impossibly distant and decrepit age that raised the question: ''Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?"

Now I am just ahead of Paul McCartney himself in getting those ''birthday greetings, bottle of wine." For me, at least, 64 feels less like a slippery slope toward slippers -- ''You can knit a sweater by the fireside" -- than another adolescence, only without the acne and the hormones and the identity crisis. Usually.

It turns out that 64 is an out-of-body experience. I'm not just talking about cellulite and memory loss. The magazine articles that promise ''Look Great At Any Age" don't count my age in their ''any." I am no longer eligible for ''Extreme Makeover" -- though with friends who have survived cancer, the idea of ''elective surgery" sounds like tempting the gods.

As for the in-body experience, the goal of exercise is no longer to look buff in a tank top. It's to get the carry-on bag in the overhead bin. By 64, you finally have perspective on the 32-year-old who was so critical of herself. Ha. Do you really want to be miserable about the 64-year-old ripples and wrinkles that you will look back on with envy at 82? Fuggedaboudit.

More to the point, 64 is a kind of adolescence because, in numbers that would shock our Beatle-crazed younger selves, we find ourselves asking, ''What am I going to do with the rest of my life?" It doesn't actually matter that the ''rest" is shorter than it was, we approach it with the same sense of curiosity. Or maybe it does matter that there is less of the rest: We better get on the case.

At 64 you can still buy green bananas. At 64 you can -- and should -- plant a tree. But you also better know that there's no time to waste. And better figure what is and isn't waste.

At 64, when a 2-year-old boy calls to say, ''Grandma, there's a lion in my bedroom," I turn from the computer screen and the deadline to focus on ways to drive the lion out. At 64, when dinner with friends on a ''school night" turns intense or hilarious, never mind that I have to work in the morning.

Anne Lamott once wrote that on the day she dies she wants to have dessert. I want to have chocolate. Dark chocolate. I don't have time to waste on milk chocolate. Or on resentment, or on regrets. At least not on good days.

You don't get to 64 without losses. Huge losses. So this adolescence is also about resilience in the face of loss and gratitude in the face of bounty.

At 20-something the Beatles sang a love-and-fear song. I wish I could have told the younger me what the older me knows about love and fear. At 64, I do have people who need me, feed me. And I have people I need and feed.

Here's the funny part. It looks like -- who knew? -- these are my good old days. OK, my good and not-quite-yet-old days.

Ellen Goodman writes a semi-weekly column in the Boston Globe. e-mail address is

© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company