Motley Moose – Archive

I am what you might call a “recovering Catholic.”

Raised in the Catholic faith my whole life, after a recent experience with a priest who ended up getting arrested for statutory rape (no, don’t worry, not with me) and a church hierarchy that is more hypocritical than Snoop Dogg telling kids not to smoke weed, I’ve begun to realize that the Church does not share all of my values. While I have many Catholic friends and idolize President Kennedy, I think it’s about time I found a new “religion”–I believe in God, but as you’ll see, I don’t believe in hypocrisy and lies.

Dear Governor Palin,

The economy isn’t doing so well, but I won’t ask for money to pay off my debts this Christmas.

My running shoes are falling apart, but I won’t ask for a new pair this Christmas.

There are so many wonderful books to read in this world, but I won’t ask for any this Christmas.

Hell, Governor Palin, I’m not even going to ask for world peace this Christmas.

All I really, really want for Christmas this year is simple:  Would you please stop talking?

Before Franken-Coleman, there was the 1974 open-seat US Senate race in New Hampshire that pitted Republican Louis Wyman against Democrat John Durkin.

With Watergate fresh on voters’ minds, running as a Republican was not an easy task (man, this really is eerily similar). Still, New Hampshire remained a light “red” state, and the name of Wyman was a respected one in the region.

On election night, it appeared as though Wyman had won by 355 votes. Insurmountable, right?

Something occurred to me today as I was snowed in my house for the third consecutive day.

You see, that’s the curious thing about snow; a good lot of it will lock you down with your family, your books, your pen and paper. We’ve got a different kind of faith here up in the Snow Belt–a faith that’s just as strong as the Bible Belt and just as vibrant as the Sun Belt. The Snow Belt is nothing less than the center of New York’s existence and the heart of its politics. (Apparently, according to a bunch of richer people than I, the “brain” of such politics resides downstate on Long Island or Westchester County. Yeah, explain that–I don’t make the rules.)

In a global media era, just how far can one pair of shoes go?

Going along with my previous post highlighting Jon Stewart’s performance against Mike Huckabee last week on The Daily Show, I decided to look for all the reasons why my fellow heteros oppose gay marriage. What I stumbled upon was an essay written by Scott Bidstrup, so Scott, if you don’t mind, I’m going to include your excellent words below:

Some elections are amazing. Some are intense. Some are mind-boggling.

And some are simply forgotten.

Please join me in remembering a few of these elections every week. I promise that it’ll be amazing, intense, and mind-boggling…or your money back.

So, some Iraqi journalist took off his shoes today and threw them at President Bush. According to a witty Bush (ha, ha) they were “a size 10.” Awesome. That doesn’t even come close to the hilarity that was watching the supposed leader of the free world ducking for dear life from a shoe onslaught. It was horrific and hilarious at the same time…does that make me a horrible person?

That prompted me to wonder–how far have we come since the days of the woman who lived in a shoe with too many children (or however the fairy tale goes); or Wynken, Blinken, and Nod who mysteriously sailed off in a wooden shoe; or since Cinderella’s glass slipper (speaking of which, how the hell do you walk in shoes made of glass? Ouch?)? The following is a brief chronological tale of the role of shoes in political or social defiance.