Has Ann really ever worked a day in her life? Depends on your definition of work.

I’m playing catch-up here after losing our furry friend. So forgive me if this brouhaha isn’t really as current as it might be. Hilary Rosen said something that is objectively true, that Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life. It’s true–Ann Romney has never worked a day for wages. Ann Romney countered that she’s performed the most important job there is, being a mother. Huff and Puff! Oh, you horrible person, Hilary, you apologize to her. Even President Obama said so.

Myself, I’m thoroughly sick of this tactic working. One side criticizes something. The other side accuses them of making a totally and deliberately misconstrued slur on mom, apple pie and the flag, forcing them to apologize and delegitimizing the original critique in the first place. It’s time for liberals to STOP APOLOGIZING for things they never said.

Yes, being a mom is the most important job in the world if you don’t count brain surgery, leading a country, or being a professional athlete in the United States. And Ann Romney has certainly borne and raised five children. And five kids is a job and a half. Now we know she didn’t perform a job for wages. But the question is, has she performed the same amount of WORK the rest of you mothers out there have?

Who took the kids to school? Granted most of your kids took the bus, but if the kid got sick in the middle of the day, who had to pick him up? You did. Who did it at the Romney household? Ann? or the chauffeur? Who took the kids to soccer practice, piano lessons, dance class, boy scouts, girl scouts, Tae Kwan frickin’ Do? Ann? or the chauffeur? Who helped with the homework? Ann? or the NANNY? Who cooked and cleaned? Ann? Or the cook? Or the maid? Who shooed religious fanatics who wanted to talk about God from the front door? Ann? or the butler? Who had to keep the budget? Ann? Or the accountant?

Being a mom is a heckuva lot easier a job when you have a staff. In fact, it hardly seems like “work” at all, doesn’t it? The same relationship to real work that being a CEO has. You get the fun parts–playing with the kid, acting proud at graduation. And some of the not-so-fun parts–worrying while they’re sick or have had an accident, grieving if they die. But the day-to-day nitty gritty? Someone else handles that.

So let’s go one more step. Who got a job when her husband’s job wasn’t paying enough for the family, who had to work when he was laid off, who had to make the mortgage payments when he was in Iraq fighting for the country (especially with banks not paying attention to their agreements about military service), who had to support the family when he died? I’m not saying these are the only good reasons for a mom to have to work outside the home, but these are just a few of the “good” reasons even a Rush Limbaugh would accept as legitimate. Come to think of it, Rush wouldn’t. He assumes all single mothers are welfare moms without husbands. But certainly Ann Romney would agree.

How hard a job is being a mom in the real world as opposed to being a mom when you have more money than God? I stand by Hilary Rosen’s statement. Ann Romney HAS never worked a day in her life.

And she knows it. I think the “real” motha’ in all this is the strategist who told Ann what to say.

Hey, Wall Street, We’re Fed Up With Your Bull!

Well, I’m more or less recovered from InterventionCon over the weekend. Thanks to Onezumi Hartstein and James Harknell for their work in creating this fun convention. Shoutouts to Ari Pramagioulis of Success Communications Group, Murder Nurse, Moxie Cat and all the other great people of Cosplay Burlesque. Congratulations Mookie, creator of Dominic Deegan on your impending doom, err, I mean marriage. Fellow artists Elaine Corvidae of Rivensol, Jennie Breeden of the Devils Panties, the gang at Interrobang Studios, my next table neighbors from Singed Cat and other studios. Good luck to First Law of Mad Science and Ninjas versus Vampires. Hi Andi from a table whose weblink I can’t find. And thanks to all the people who attended and especially those of you who bought something from me!

Now, back to business. I thought I might do something about the incredibly tacky game show beauty pageant known as the second Republican Debate last week with Wolf Blitzer seemingly oblivious to his role as successor to Bert Parks (There they are–the next US Presidents!) Bob Barker or Monty Hall. Was that a debate? Then I thought, oooooooo the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, a much more IMPORTANT thing to celebrate. Darn, we finally will let patriotic Americans fight for their country without prying into their private lives! But then something that seemed to be slipping through the cracks came to my attention. SOMEONE FINALLY decided to protest against WALL STREET.

Due to getting ready for three conventions on three successive weekends, plus the disaster of the basement deluge (not to mention the death of my printer), the knowledge of the existence of OCCUPY WALL STREET seems to have slipped past me. As well as most of the mainstream news! As anyone with any common sense has realized, Wall Street went through a recovery after the banking bailout, but Main Street never did. That’s because Wall Street has usurped the reins of power in the United States and the common people no longer have a voice. President Obama promised to be a force for change, but his moneyed advisors led him by the nose to ignore the plight of the people. The Republican Party fights tooth and nail to protect each and every dollar of them, their true constituency, calling tax hikes on the luckiest of us “class warfare” when the REAL class warfare has been waged on the American middle-class since the days of plaster saint Ronald Reagan. The Democrats are little better, since our endless campaign season requires them to be funded by the money boys. Too long have the media paid attention to the faux populism of the Tea Party which is more intent on punishing their neighbors for a crust of bread than taking it from the bankers who have repossessed the bakery!

I am not anti-capitalist. Bankers and brokers–like the bacteria that live in the body and are necessary to digestion–they are a good thing when regulated. They provide the grease that the wheels of commerce need to turn. But when unregulated they turn into a cancer that sucks the life from the body, from the hearts and minds and hands of the American people. And that’s where we are today, and we’re dragging the rest of the world down with us. It’s about time to stop, to re-regulate commerce, to prosecute the miscreants for the crimes they have committed, to return power to the “little people” like you and me. Whether or not you agree with me, I urge you all to watch what is happening on the streets of New York.

But you might have to really look for it–it ain’t making front page. The money boys don’t want it there.

Raise High The Debt Ceiling, Carpenter…

To our Christian friends, Happy Easter! To our Jewish friends, next year–in Jerusalem! To our pagan friends, Happy Easter too! And to our atheist friends …

So what’s the next crisis threatening our Republic? Oh, the debt ceiling? AH! the debt ceiling! WTF is a debt ceiling? Supposedly it is the limit beyond which we as a nation cannot, statutorily, owe any more money. Theoretically, that’s the point where we have to either stop spending, or, as the Teaparticans hope, default on our debts and bring the whole castle built on sand crashing down. If we do that, then the whole world economy crashes with it and we hope you’ve been investing short.

This isn’t the first time, we’ve hit the debt ceiling–it’s a fairly regular occurrence. What happens? We raise the debt ceiling and the world’s economy goes on truckin’ along as usual. After all, none of this money is real anyway, just zeros written on paper (and since the arrival of the electronic transfer, in electrons) and the world economy is built on the agreement that these zeros really do exist and say it really loudly or Tinkerbell will not get better, “I DO believe in dollars”.

Funny thing, our 21st century nation doesn’t seem to work anymore. Instead of working together, every issue becomes a crisis, a major battle which must be fought between the powers of good and evil. It wasn’t always like this. When I was a lad, Republicans and Democrats could actually work together. To go back to the religious theme of the first paragraph, they were not like two religions duking it out, but more like two congregations of the same religion having a joint Memorial Day picnic playing … a softball game. Okay, maybe one was High Church and one was Low Church, they agreed on most of the same things, they just disagreed on the mumbo-jumbo needed to get there. It’s different today. About the only things our elected representatives and senators and President can agree on is, don’t upset the banks because we need their campaign contributions and the only action you can take on our War Machine is keep feeding it more and more money. Everything else can get thrown under the bus.

And that’s where we are today. So Happy Easter, Chag Sameach, Happy Easter and …. Let’s join together in a vast chocolate and sugar high and try to forget that we’re no longer on the sidewalk…

It was all Boehner could do to stop Mike Pence from holding his breath til he turned blue…

Our country is in a world of hurt. Seriously. In one party, we have a bunch of two-year-olds who demand everything and won’t be satisfied without sugar on top. And on the other hand, we have a chief executive who has the backbone of a sponge. SpongeBarack. He sucks in all this abuse, giggles annoyingly, and then declares it a great accomplishment for the American people. OK, Barry doesn’t giggle annoyingly, but it would be better if he did.

Now I understand narcissism. I was an actor once. And that’s possibly the one profession which is more narcissistic than politics, but it’s a close race between actors, politicians and strippers. Politicians see every deal as an accomplishment–even turds that have been spray-painted gold. And this budget deal is a turd so moist the paint can’t even stick. Yet President Obama goes and describes it as some kind of rosey-hued vision of democracy because “Americans of different beliefs came together,” to avoid a government shutdown–when the tyrannical threat of a shutdown should never have existed in the first place! Then he went to the Lincoln Memorial to celebrate the fact that it was still open, but don’t worry, your tax dollars will help pay for those tax cuts for the upper 1% we caved on back in 2010. My, how long ago was THAT? Oh, by the way, we’ll have to cut out some government jobs–like 100,000! (But the stock market is doing great, isn’t recovery grand?)

And immediately after the deal was struck–we get assholes like Mike Pence intoning that the deal was probably not good enough. Not good enough? According to one Republican, they got 79% of what they wanted. What does Mike Pence want? 100% capitulation, an apology for not surrendering sooner, war reparations and Obama, Reid and Pelosi committing seppuku on the steps of the Capital?

As a wise ‘possum once said, “We have met the enemy and it is us.” God save the United States of America–’cause nobody else is trying.
__________

The awful tragedy in Japan is continuing–hundreds of thousands of people have been homeless for a month now and agriculture in the area–particularly rice farming–is non-existent. Many people kept their money at home rather than the banks, and now are penniless. So a reminder, please give generously for Japan relief in this time of need

Text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 from your phone
Text MED to 80888 from any mobile phone to give $10.
Text ‘JAPAN’ or ‘QUAKE’ to 80888 to make a $10 donation or visit SalvationArmyUSA.org.
Also Save the Children
Japan-earthquake-tsunami-relief @ Global Giving
Doctors Without Borders
Americares
Shelter Box
Peace Winds
Operation USA
World Vision

keep looking »

ABOUT MEH

Cartoons and text by Greg Uchrin (aka Gregorius alexandrinus), with the able assistance of Fred and Bert Squirrel, with special appearances by George Dymme. Published once a week on Mondays.

And check out my DeviantArt gallery:

GregoriusU @ Deviant Art

SEARCH

CALENDAR

May 2012

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
« Apr
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

NOTE ON COMMENTS

98% of the comments I received were from spammers--you know, "Great post--it has really changed my life--see this ad for penile enlargement." So I've decided to abandon comments. In the meantime, if you want to send me any missives, pro or con, write to me at gregu (at) ivcaffeine.com. You know what to do with the (at).

Be There! Do That! Buy The T-Shirt!

Available at http://253056.spreadshirt.com/

SEE MY OLDER CARTOONS AT

My Favorite Printer:

And Bookstore:

BUY BLECCH! NOW

BUY BUSHWHACKED NOW!

VISITORS

Dissatisfied customers since 2003
(includes Hail Dubyus!)


Caffeine Suckers Since 2009