Saturday, January 29, 2011

Cleaning House For The Holiday.

In Jewish homes, there's a lot of preparation that goes into getting ready for Passover.  You have to swap out your regular dishes and utensils and pots and pans for sets that are only used during Passover.  You have to get all of the "Hametz" out of the house and purchase "Kosher for Passover" food.  And there's a lot of cleaning involved.  Those crumbs that have been hiding between the stove and the counter have to go.

Well Passover doesn't start until mid-April this year, so there's plenty of time yet, to think about that if you're observant.  No, I'm talking about a more impending deadline; Tuesday marks the the beginning of Dana Milbank's Palin-Free Month!  Looking back on my archives, I find that I too, have been giving the woman too much in the way of pixel bandwidth.  Excluding this post, I've mentioned her 35 times since she dropped in like the Wicked Witch of the East...only nobody had the consideration to immediately drop a house on her.

And I'll admit, she makes great fodder.  Remember the train derailment at the beginning of The Fugitive?  It goes on forever and ever, and you hope nobody will get hurt, but you don't know, and it just keeps on plowing through the forest and YOU CAN'T TAKE YOUR EYES OFF OF IT!  If you're anything like me, you can't take your eyes off of Palin and the ceaseless trainwreck that she is.  Nobody knows whether or not she'll ever be in a position to do some real damage, but in the meantime, the whole thing is UTTERLY MESMERIZING!

And this last few weeks have been no exception.  After the Tuscon Shootings, rightly or wrongly, she came under fire for some of her more intemperate statements and publications.  She had the chance to respond in a variety of ways, but chose to portray herself as the ultimate victim.  And since then, she's been on a valiant crusade to misrepresent, rewrite, alter and misunderstand World History.  I'm not accusing her of being a terrorist, but Abba Eban once said of Yasser Arafat, "He never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity".  Sarah seems to be taking her cues from odd places.

I'm not going to fill this post with links -- you can find the stories and videos everywhere if you haven't seen them already -- but the last few weeks have been a veritable feast of Sarah-rific Schadenfreude. (I've especially enjoyed Chris Matthews' televised apoplexy.) In the run-up to Passover, you might overindulge on cookies -- better to eat too many instead of being forced to just toss them before the holiday begins.  In the run-up to Palin-Free Month, we can be forgiven for overindulging.

Anyway, I'll be observing Palin-Free Month here on Polybloggimous.  And in case you were wondering, Michele Bachmann may not actually be Palin, but I'm declaring her to be Hametz also.  You won't see here mentioned here either.  Regardless of how easy a target the two of them make themselves.

P.S. When you observe Passover, you do it everywhere, not just in your own home.  But I recall, as a child, cheating and sneaking an Oreo or two in public school during the holiday.  If I happen upon someone else's writings about "The She(s) Who Shall Not Be Named", I'm going to give myself a pass and permit myself to play along in other people's homes.  I'm either a hypocrite or I've got poor impulse control.  Take your choice.


13 comments:

Megan said...

Good plan. It's actually do-able: note how many of the comments on the Spudnuts post were about potatoes. :)

Nathan said...

Oh sure it's do-able. Just like it's do-able to watch an America's Favorite Videos montage of guys getting hit in the nuts without laughing.

Do-able ≠ Easy.

Eric said...

I am tempted, sorely tempted. But I don't think I can join a formal pledge, however much I may want to: I will try to avoid low-hanging fruit, but if she does something that just has to be swatted at, I'm falling off the wagon.

Yes, I realize she's becoming a bit of a bête noire for me. But--arrrrrrrrgh. Y'know? I mean, arrrrrrrrgh with a capital "R," we're talking about.

I sometimes quote Yoda to my clients: there is no "try," there is "do" or "do not." I'm afraid I may be able only to "do not" (mmmm--creme-filled, chocolate covered do not--sorry). So I won't even say I'll try. But we'll see if I can help myself.

Shawn Powers said...

Ugh. I've never once posted about her (or anything political for that matter) on my own site, because I live in Crazy Conservative Land. If I were to post politically, I'd likely get photos of me with surveyor's symbols on my forehead hung up at the local grocery store.

So I rather enjoy everyone else's posts. Well, maybe not that YouTube wall of her breathing, which was ubercreepy, but the rest is pretty funny. ;)

Nathan said...

Eric,

I think the point is that it's all such low hanging fruit.

And Shawn, I doubt they'd put surveyor's marks on you. But you would be on the same wall where they keep pictures of shoplifters and bad-check-passers.

WendyB_09 said...

What is the date to start SWMNBN-less month?

Enquiring mind want to know AND enforce it in our carpool!

Thanks for the great idea!!

Janiece said...

I am SO IN. I'm sick to death of THAT WOMAN and also THAT WOMAN. They make me stabby, and I'm kinda tired of being stabby.

Tom said...

I'm with Janiece. I want to do this, too. Great idea, Nathan!

I have officially implemented the SWMNBN-free month on my blog.

TimBo said...

Well, that didn't last long:

"Shortest Month of the Millenium

Dana Milbank’s “No Palin Month” lasted almost 15 hours 45 minutes:

I survived Day One of my February Sarah Palin moratorium, defeating the evil plans of ABC News’s Rick Klein.

Clearly Mr. Milbank has a different conception of what “not mention[ing] Sarah Palin — in print, online or on television — for one month” means than the rest of the English speaking world.

Nathan said...

Timb 111,

There's a disclaimer at the link claiming that an editor wrote that sentence and the streak survives. The video on the link is hysterical.

Tom said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tom said...

By the way, I also wanted to tell you that your blog finally helped me to realize why all those people were talking about survivors marks. Short version, they weren't! My eyes, they short circuit sometimes. Or maybe it's farther down the optical nerve.

Sorry for the deletion. Typo hell.

Nathan said...

Ya'know...

You guys are making me comment on this post I'm not really supposed to be commenting on. On a daily basis. Here in the month of not mentioning SWSNBN.

Somehow this seems a little counterproductive.

Further comments may be met with "LALALALALA I can't hear you."