You Could Look It Up

Well, the Tea Party movement got some fame over the weekend. Payin’ Sarah Palin a hundred grand paid off for them. But now there’s this weird controversy over the word “teabagger,’ that I haven’t been able to understand. Apparently at the urging of Fox News, people started using teabags as a symbol of this protest movement. Hanging a teabag from their mirror in their car, or from the visor of their baseball cap. And the phrase “teabagger” was born. Or at least that’s what I thought. But then some of these participants started objecting to the label, saying it was derogatory. Had to do with some strange sexual practice.

“Derogatory? What’s up with that?” I thought. “Have I been living in a cave, or what? I’ve never heard of that.”

Well, I wanted to find out if I was the only person left in America who didn’t know what that was about. So I called my friend Tom. Tom’s a man of the world. He knows stuff. Nope, he’d never heard of it either.

So I Googled it. Uh oh. Blush. I found the definition of it at a website called Urban Dictionary. You can look at it your self by clicking here. Warning: This is mostly an “R” rated site. I’d skip over Definition # 1 and go right to Definitions #2 if I were you. #2 is worth looking at. And then skip the rest. Too much information.

Frankly, I guess I thought using the phrase teabagger for the people who were part of these parties was a good name. I mean, it’s much easier to say than Tea-Partiers, or Right Wing Malcontents. And catchy too.

I didn’t know about that other weird meaning that those Tea Party participants are objecting to. Which got me to thinking: How did THEY know?

Well, enough about that. I have some other stuff I wanted to share with you today, some things I read, or saw, or heard lately, that I liked. Some serious. Some not so much.

“I thought he was more fiscally cautious than he needed to be (and) unreasonably afraid of disasters that might occur in the future. I think North Dakota would be better off if he had voted with me at least 10 percent more frequently.”

--Representative Eliot Glassheim, a Democrat, commenting on the retirement of fellow Grand Forks Representative Ken Svedjan, a Republican

“They're not knowin’ what are we gonna do if we don't have Tea Party support"

--Sarah Palin in her speech to the Tea Party Saturday night. And no, I have no idea what she was talking about.

“ . . . unknown state Senator wins U.S. Senate seat in shocking upset.”

--State Senator Tracy Potter, in his announcement speech for the U.S. Senate, quoting the headline from the recent Massachusetts election, and commenting on what the North Dakota headline might be on November 3, 2010

“Don’t walk away from reform. Not now. Not when we are so close. Let’s find a way to come together and finish the job for the American people. Let’s get it done. Let’s get it done . . . To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills.”

--President Barack Obama in his State of the Union speech

“The thing is, most of the time when you're coming pretty close to doing it with a girl, she keeps telling you to stop. The trouble with me is, I stop. Most guys don't. I can't help it. You never really know whether they want you to stop or whether they're just scared as hell, or whether they're just telling you to stop so that if you do go through with it, the blame'll be on you, not them. Anyway, I keep stopping. The trouble is, I get to feeling sorry for them.

--Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye,” whose author J.D. Salinger died last week. Did Salinger capture teenage angst, or what?

“A man died and entered heaven. On his first walk about his new abode he noticed several men fettered in ball and chain. His inquiry of a passer-by brought the reply. ‘They were from Leeds, North Dakota, and if they weren’t chained they’d go back.’”

--1950 edition of the WPA Guide to North Dakota

"The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring them (our troops) home.”

--Congressman and decorated Vietnam veteran John Murtha, November 17, 2005. Murtha died Monday. The troops are still in Iraq.