getting the boot

i was over in lower buttermilk because i had some time to kill before going up to the college for larry's last class and there was the first stage of a geocache there i wanted to find which i wasn't having any luck at but then i decided to go across the street to that parking lot to see if there was maybe an electrical outlet to plug my computer into and i saw the bean boot.

they drive around in this thing for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, but if you see them, they give you some stickers.

it's cool enough just to see it, but hey, i like stickers. i don't know why; i never put them on anything.

but yeah, i saw the boot!

cranky

let's start here: i lost nearly ALL the video i took on my roadtrip because of my failure to notice a computer glitch by which canon's camera software doesn't actually download videos you take WITH YOUR CANON CAMERA onto your computer, so when i put all my photos on the computer (you know, for safekeeping) i just assumed that the videos got loaded too because it used to do that with an older canon camera.

so basically the only video i have is from the two days of images that i saved to dropbox (which works awesome but i only have limited space because paying for an account just isn't in my budget) or from the day that i had on my camera when i got home and loaded directly onto my mac.

so i lost the video of the snapping turtle trying to kill me. and i lost the video of me hopping like a deer across a road. AND I LOST THE VIDEO OF THE ETERNAL FLAME.

WHY would canon make image downloading software that doesn't download the videos you shoot with a canon camera?!?!?!?

that is about four different kinds of wrong.

it is very, very wrong.

and i KNOW birds shit on windows, but why did one have to shit, right now, on the window i am looking out of?

that's just more wrongness.

and i'm cranky.

bird, when the neighborhood cat is looking to eat you i will hold you down so she can get you more easily.

canon, if i can find a big enough cat to eat you, it'll be the same thing for you.



now i need a paper towel.

and a nap.

home for the rover

i am home.

i have been home sine saturday afternoon, but it is the tradition of this blog to tell stories at least a day late, so we're running right along here.

today's highlights: i used TWO real actual flush toilets, one of which IS IN MY HOUSE.

i also discovered that while my turnip is dead, my potatoes have thrived (throve? thriven?) in my absence and will continue to live in benign neglect on the patio.

i did a whole load of laundry and put spankin' clean sheets on the bed. i have begun to unpack. since unpacking also means spreading crap all over the house to air out before i put it away, i am not in a big hurry to empty the car.

i have begun the (extremely) long process of transferring all the photos and videos onto my desktop machine.

i was gone 17 days and drove over 2300 miles. later on, maybe, there will be a count of how many parks, cemeteries, and state and national forests i visited.

i was not out for all of the month of may but let's face it: at some point driving around in a car containing THAT much dirty laundry loses its charm and you just feel like having a real shower and sleeping in a bed maybe.

there's no point in staying out just to stay out.

at some point the idea of coming home seems nicer than staying out and that is exactly the moment to head for home.

one day in ithaca

thursday was the great ithaca write in.

this is the entry i sent in:

i have only just left ithaca. i'm sixteen years old and i had to catch a ride to get there for an audition at the college and it was cold and the kind of january morning when all the streets that go up and down get right of way because there's no other way to do it but i'm used to the cold and i hope i will come to school there.

i have only just left ithaca. my mom and i are on our way home from freshman orientation and we are in dryden and there are seven and a half hours ahead of us in the car and we only have one cassette tape to listen to. i am terrified.

i have only just left ithaca. i am twenty-one years old and i don't yet have a job but i am young and talented and everything seems possible. i am going to be a music teacher and i hope i will get a job in northern vermont, which is where i'm from. i realize that ithaca is the only place on earth besides my home for which i can be homesick.

i have only just left ithaca. i am thirty-five years old and i have been teaching music in the same school in northern vermont ever since i graduated but every year i take a personal day and come out to ithaca for a weekend and every year when i spill over triphammer road and see the city appear beneath me i turn off the car radio and have a moment of silence and catch my breath to see it and i shout woo-hoo! and i try to remember to change lanes in time on route 13 so i don't end up halfway to elmira just caught in traffic. leaving the same way i cry a little every year and i know that someday when i leave ithaca i will not be coming back.

i have only just left ithaca. i'm almost fifty, and in may or october each year i pack my car and leave home and i travel without plan or itinerary but i keep ending up in ithaca. it is beautiful, stunningly, spinningly beautiful and i know how to get through the octopus in the late afternoons and i know the back roads and tiny parks much better than i did when i was in ithaca most of the time.

i have only just left ithaca. i am on my way to get a pizza in trumansburg and then on to a campsite in hector and i MEANT to go somewhere else but it is springtime and in ithaca i can remember what it felt like to be young and talented and have everything still be possible. you wouldn't notice me passing through because a car with out of state plates doesn't look out of place, and my bikes don't look out of place. it's hard to look out of place in ithaca.

i have only just left ithaca. this morning i woke up on a campsite in hector and realized i was ready to go home so i drove into town to say my goodbye and to buy some things to take back with me and right now i am stopped in a parking lot in the adirondacks. i am halfway home and already thinking that soon i will want to come back to ithaca because even though this morning i was ready to leave, i am just as ready to return.

i have only just left ithaca.

i have only just left ithaca.

i have only just left ithaca.

who is going to jail?

i am assuming that when this posts three or four days from now john boehner and the other fools in washington will still be all talking about it.

that thing with the IRS and the tea party?

when i heard about it i was all like "government abuse of power!" and then i heard a sane commentator explain it as probably a marginally legal and mostly harmless attempt at government functionaries trying to find a way to sort through a mountain of paperwork.

government employees do this all the time. they profile us by race or nation of ancestry or affiliations with groups.

and the thing about the tea party and patriot organizations is that those words ARE good indicators that an organization is walking that fine line between a tax exempt thing and a non tax exempt thing.

i'm not saying it's ok, whatever happened.

but here's my deal.

do you remember that little ole thing where some big banks engaged in ACTUAL criminal behaviors and collasped the economy?

oh, but we can't try them or punish them because reasons.

but we can have political theater around essentially non-events and demand that paper pushers go to prison over it because we're so busy with the 2016 elections that we can't be bothered to govern the country.

hatwipes.

wardrobe change

i think in an earlier post i sort of suggested that i'm all about shoes.

today before lunch though, i managed to change shoes five times, change clothes three times, and wear five different hats.

life's like that sometimes.

after my morning bike ride (which involved a five mile uphill climb against a headwind at the end) i went into tburg and stopped at the good to go market where they have all kinda awesome things to eat at pretty good prices.

i got the breakfast burrito because the nice young lady at the counter said it was her favorite. it was a fried egg and bacon in a spinach wrap with black beans and rice and sour cream and salsa, as big as my head and only six and a half dollars.

and this place sells mostly local foods and things made with local and/or organic stuff, so that's food you can eat and feel good about.

later on i will have things to show and tell you, but it's just too hard to get all that organized while i'm living in my car.

because there will be pictures.

and links.

today i am headed out to a museum and tomorrow i will ride a nice rail trail.

it's nice out here.

Month of MAYhem Residential Neighborhood Blogging challenge™ day 16

it is day 16 of the Month of MAYhem Residential Neighborhood Blogging challenge™   and today's activity is #11 from the list.

16 duck brook circle, west bolton , vt is too far out of town for there to be any pizza deliverability.

here's how far it is from the house to the nearest pizza place.



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Month of MAYhem Residential Neighborhood Blogging challenge™

it is day 15 of the Month of MAYhem Residential Neighborhood Blogging challenge™   and today's activity is #2 from the list.

here is a photo of #15 railroad street, richmond.

hey, lady!

hey, lady! yes, you. the lady in the blue SUV who pulled into the trumansburg library parking lot at ten o'clock sunday morning to return books.

i made a snap judgement about you and your moral character.

i assumed you were thinking about stealing my computer until you noticed that you were not alone in the parking lot.

this is not going to be one of those heartwarming stories about the pitfalls of jumping to conclusions. i'm going to stand by my assumption that you are a moral reprobate and here's why: when you got out of your big SUV you had a library book in your left had and a candy bar wrapper in your right hand.

i watched you drop the candy bar wrapper on the ground. you did not do this accidentally. you casually let it slip in the practiced fashion of entitled litterers.

can you explain to me why you could not have kept that in your pocket until you got to the next trashcan?

if i had been closer and not looking for my hat in the back seat of my car i would have just handed it back to you.

but then i noticed something.

you had not just gone to the book return box. you went over to my computer and you shut the lid. and because you are a litterer, i assume you would have stolen it if you thought you could.

and while we're at it, i was sitting here on the patio writing this and a woman came and parked in the handicapped spot. i am not sure why she did this other than she is lazy and feels entitled. apparently it is a moral handicap.

barbecue day

apparently the second saturday of may is traditional barbecue day all throughout the finger lakes region. somehow it doesn't seem to me to make economic sense for every church and civic organization that dots the land to have a chicken barbecue all on the same day. it there are three chicken barbecues going on in one small town, it strikes me as unnecessary division of market share.

in other news, i saw some spectacularly bad driving along route 20A west of warsaw last week.

the posted speed limit is 55 and i confess i was doing 65, but even so i was seriously holding up traffic, along with some other cars. drivers kept coming by us and passing us THREE AT A TIME and apparently traffic in the oncoming lane is simply not thought of as a big deal out here.

while that was interesting, it wasn't the really alarming driving.

the alarming driving was the part where the car in front of me was turning left and a driver three cars back decided to use that moment to pass the whole line of cars and so passed me and the cars behind me on the left, nearly plowed through the car turning left and then merrily swerved suddenly to pass that car on the right.

did that driver maybe slow down after nearly causing a horrific accident at speed? no, he did not. he sped up and passed two more cars, arriving at the traffic light so that i waited in line just behind him.

so he didn't have any net time saving by all that. probably he was sitting there congratulating himself on being such a great driver.

i'll tell you who the great drivers were: me and anyone else in that line who saw that bozo coming and realized he was going to try to pass the car turning left and gave him enough room for his escape maneuver.

no soap, radio

i am in an area of new york state west of the finger lakes and about the middle of it, if you're looking at your map vertically.

there is excellent cellphone reception.

it is hard to use my ipod in the car because of interference from way too many radio stations.

because of this, i have had my radio on "scan" for the better part of two days.

here is my short inventory of the radio stations available to me, by type:

• two NPR stations that are apparently on the same frequency and therefore cannot be made intelligible because they are not playing the same programming. if you are on one side of a hill, you get one. if you are on the other side of the hill, you get the other.
• christian stations that play crappy christian music
• christian stations that play christian weather and christian news
• christian stations that play wholesome hymns and rousing sermons and the christian music of elderly white people
• ultra conservative christian stations that feature very much bible "study" and commentary.
• stations that seem to play nothing besides "piano man".

no traction

this is my confession: when i find crappy religious tracts in geocaches, i just take them. i take them and i burn them.

yes, i know, jimbob the ultra christian asshole, you spent money getting those things printed up and you leave them in geocaches all over as some kind of misguided signature.

quite frankly, i am totally good with you placing a signature that speaks of your religious identity and all that, but here's where i draw the line: your crappy religious tracts that i have been seeing all day go so far as to tell OTHER PEOPLE that they are somehow at fault and that you are the arbiter of what is good for other people and i know you think you;re doing everybody a big fat favor by "saving" them when in reality you're just being a big pushy asshole who thinks the states of other people's souls are somehow his business.

it is not a favor. you are wrong. you are wrong because it is not your place to direct others, nor to judge their souls, nor to instruct them that they are flawed.

if they ask you, you may deliver your opinion.

if you give your opinion unsolicited to strangers -or worse- leave this message out for strangers to read thereby littering the landscape with your claptrap that just uses resources and takes up space, you have stepped over the line and not only do i take your crappy tracts out of caches where i find them, but i save one copy to ridicule and burn all the rest.

have a nice day.

evening at the library

right now i am sitting on the patio behind the ulysses philomathic society.

it is more commonly thought of as the trumansburg public library, which is what it is.

trumansburg's proper name is ulysses. everybody just calls it trumansburg.

or tburg.

but back behind the library they have good strong wifi and a lovely patio and it is a very pleasant place to sit and have my pizza and listen to birds call.

above me some bird is ripping bits of bark off a birch tree, presumably for nest building. and a little grey bird of a species i can't identify in this light keeps posturing and showing off his wings and i can't see to whom all this is addressed, but i imagine she is very pretty in a species specific sort of way.

they also have electrical outlets out here on the patio, so i am charging my little appliances.

the sun is about to go down so i ought to be getting back to my campsite.

a week from now this post will roll up up my blog and you will be able to read it, but by that time i will probably have moved on to some other town.

may day! may day!

ok, so you're reading it a week later, but last wednesday i left my happy little home to go live in my car for my may roadtrip.

or at least i started to.

because i got as far as shelburne road and all my check engine lights came on. and since i wasn't out of burlington yet, i turned around and went to see my mechanic to ask if maybe they could squeeze me in and do a little diagnostic?

you know, before i hit the road for a few weeks?

and they did.

only mechanic guy (whom we'll just call bob because it's not his name and even though if you look a little you can find out his name, i think he'd just as well not have his name on this story so...)

anyway, bob comes to get me and he says he wants to show me something and it is the kind of conversation you start with your mechanic when you bring it in for a tire change and inspection sticker as i did last fall and bot discovered i needed a new headlight assembly.

and a new head gasket.

and he starts of telling me that they found the problem and fixed it cheaply and then he says "now we get to the bad part, the part that's ruining my afternoon and is about to ruin yours"

and i am desperately trying to think what thing he might have found wrong with my car that he is describing that way because "ruining my afternoon and about to ruin yours" is not how he described three days worth of repairs that ran me about two thousand dollars and my mind is spinning, unable to figure WHAT COULD BE THAT BAD????

and then we are nearly around the corner when he gets to the part of the story where the technician (whom we'll call mike) started to pull my car out of the bat not realizing that the door wasn't all the way up and my bikes are still on the roof and just then i come around the corner and i can see it:

my rear window exploded and my mountain bike lying twisted and hanging from what's left of the rack.

and i just started to cry.

oh, god, not my bike, please not my bike.

because if you follow my story at all you know how much i love my bikes. and this bike is my best bike, my racing bike, the best bike i have ever ridden and i just collapse to me knees in the parking lot, crying.

i gain composure after a minute or so; it must have seemed an eternity to bob, who is kneeling beside me telling me he will make this right and as soon as possible and he will repair my car and i think he still doesn't get that i am far less concerned about the car than the bike.

and i get up on the ladder to take the bike down and we get it down and THE BIKE IS UNDAMAGED!

i am going to have to ride it rough to see if it still performs but i think it is fine. there isn't a scratch on it, and the brake rotors aren't even out of alignment.

tally of damage: destroyed bike rack, easily replaced. exploded rear window and dented tailgate.

bob determines that he can just replace my tailgate and he has found one that matches my paint code and everything and quite frankly i'd been noticing that my hinges and handles had not been working so well these days because they're getting old and i live on a dirt road, so i'm probably coming out ahead on that count.

i have to unpack a lot of my gear and repack it in order to remove all the glass because when a window explodes, it explodes.

and i am missing a day of my trip, but it could have been SO much worse.

and bob is totally taking care of everything because he is a classy guy and he runs a classy business.

the thing about the accident? everyone who transports bikes frequently has done that exact bonehead thing at least once. i myself have done it twice, so there's no point getting all mad at mike for a thing that we all do sooner or later.

it is a terrible feeling when you do it to your own car and gear. i imagine it is a very terrible feeling when you do it to somebody else's car and gear.

so. in a couple of hours they will call me to tell me that the body shop has delivered my new tailgate and a couple of hours after that i'll be on my way.

as crashco always says, you're either having a good time or you're having a good story to tell.

a failure to care

recently i was in the vistor parking lot at a large university.

ok, let's say it was UVM. there's no point pretending it wasn't.

anyway, the visitor parking is not for employees (there are staff spots in that lot, so staff can park in THEIR spots) and the lot is fer sure NOT FOR STUDENTS. there are a lot of parking lots at UVM and for most of them you have to have an appropriate staff or student pass but there are these couple dozen spots in the waterman visitor lot for VISITORS. it's a metered lot, but it's for visitors.

the UVM police will ticket you for parking in the visitor spots if you have a student or staff parking permit. especially a student permit.

i only mention it because i was parked next to a young woman who apparently did not care. it was pretty easy to identify her  SUV as belonging to a student, and her vehicle was visible from across the street, painted on three sides the way it was.

i am guessing that since she's graduating in a few days she just doesn't care.

it made me giggle.

open letter to brooksley born

dear ms. born,

you are an american hero.

love,
flask.

wiki
the warning

ramps and oysters

holy honkin' hounds of hades.

i do not know what you had for dinner tonight but i will bet odds-on it was not as good as my dinner. this is not just my characteristic immodesty talking; your dinner wanted to be as good as mine, but it wasn't.

it's not your dinner's fault. it's not your fault. my dinner is just so awesome that very little has a chance against it.

i am going to pause here and say that it is no secret that i am posting pretty far into the future here. if you follow my story at all you might already be saying but flask! isn't it may already? aren't you off in some remote location, sleeping in your car?

why, yes. yes i am. i left home last wednesday and it is my habit to do two things: the first is that i do not tell people where i am going or where i am. this is partly because i may know where i am, but not where i'm going or when i'm coming come, barring the start of race season.

the other thing i do is that i write blog posts pretty far into the future because i never know where i'm going to be.

ok, ok, ok. you can tell actually which posts i write ahead of time (if you care about that kind of thing) because i schedule all posts i write ahead of time to run at seven or seven thirty in the morning. if the post has a time that doesn't end in 00 or 30, i wrote it same day.

i like to post at least one day ahead of time so it gives me time to put stuff together and i just have a lot of stuff i want to say and we can't have me out in some wilderness with no show-and-tell so in the weeks leading up to my departure i sometimes go into overdrive.

so really it's 27 april just after dinner.

which brings us back to my awesome dinner.

this morning i noticed that a whole bunch of my mushrooms were ripe. so i planned to make some version of this thing. but then i was in the grocery store because i needed to buy an onion to do that and they had RAMPS!

ramps, my friends. that springtime delight. i have never found ramps in the wild although i hope one day to do so.

but at the tiny grocery they sell ramps, which are not a domesticated species and therefore have to be gathered in the wild. ramp season is fleeting, and spring greens are a primal thing. back in the day when we ate from our root cellars all winter, anything edible and green that came up in the spring got et.

the people of the supermarket have lost the traditional desperation and relief of late winter and the spring greens, but in some communities and among some individuals this vestigial memory runs strong.

so i had mushrooms grown in my kitchen and ramps gathered out in the woods and i made a light pink sauce and put it over angel hair pasta.

short version: all parts of the saute done separately to capture the flavors of the mushrooms and the ramp greens. white parts of the ramps go in the sauce.

it is past good.

turnip farm

i'm growing turnip.

just one.

i had one turnip that was going bad before i used it, so i cut off the bottom and tossed it into my stock bag and i stuck the top into some dirt, which i'm told will get you a new turnip.

we'll see.

here's a thing you may never have considered: turnip as entertainment value.

proper scrambled eggs

several months ago i read an article about how to make "proper scrambled eggs".

i want to caution you against anything that purports to tell you what the proper way of doing things is.

this recipe was very time intensive and labor intensive and used something like a tablespoon and a half of butter for EACH EGG being cooked.

but i tried it, because the person seemed to know a thing or two about deliciousness.

well.

here is how to make proper scrambled eggs in my house:

start off with fresh eggs from chickens who spend their days outside having nice chicken days. just because we're going to eat their offspring and later them doesn't mean they can't have nice lives in the interim.

plus the eggs just TASTE better. go on, try it and see.

put a tiny bit of olive oil or butter in the pan. jest barely enough to grease the surface. when the fat is hotted up, pour the eggs in.

stir 'em oncet or twice before they set and when they are at your preferred degree of firmness, put them in a dish and eat them with toast. i like mine with english muffins.

i do not bother to butter my toast.

because it's perfect just that way.

democrats 2014

i'm going to come right out with the full disclosure. i'm not a democrat. for many years i have voted alsmost entirely for democratic candidates because i am more afraid of the repbublicans than i am of the democrats, and i support in principle at least a lot of what the democrats are saying.

but the democratic party isn't doing much for us in terms of civil liberties, or privacy rights, or even the right to due process and certainly not anything about working on the problems of poverty and unemployment.

news from financial analysts released this week tells us that the rich are still getting richer.

are the democrats actually talking about any of those problems? no, they are not.

instead they are talking about how important it is to beat and humiliate the republicans and i am NOT on board with that.

here is a selection of emails i get from the democrats every day:

I am so grateful for all that you have done to help build a strong infrastructure that enables Democrats to fight back and go toe-to-toe with the onslaught of attacks led by the billionaire Koch Brothers and Karl Rove.
But if we want to continue exposing the records of the most outrageous and extreme Republicans in the country, your support is needed urgently.
That’s where House Majority PAC’s GOP Rapid Response Fund comes in. They use it to target advertising that exposes the GOP’s extremist records in ten of the top districts nationwide. They just need 42 more members from Vermont to contribute before the April 15 deadline -- please give now.House Majority PAC is dedicated to winning a Democratic Majority in the House. They need your help today.
Your support matters – thank you! Please act now.
Yours truly,
Nancy

(my name) -- We have to move fast so I'll keep this quick:
There are only THREE weeks until Elizabeth Colbert Busch faces Republican Mark Sanford in the special election for South Carolina's 1st congressional district. The latest campaign poll has Colbert Busch up 3 points against the disgraced ex-Governor -- pretty impressive for a district Mitt Romney won by 18 points!
But now, national Republicans have taken notice. With their deceptive attacks and a sizable cash advantage, Sanford's backers could do some real damage to Elizabeth's campaign. In a race this close, we can't let Republican attacks go unanswered.
Will you donate $3 or more right now to help us fight Republican attacks like these?
We have three weeks left to try and put a Democrat in a seat that's been Republican for over 30 years. This is when we need you most.
(my name), stand with us right now and chip in $3 or more today:
http://dccc.org/Fight-Back
Thanks,
Kelly
Kelly Ward
DCCC Executive Director

(my name)--
This is it:
Tomorrow is our ad buy deadline in the South Carolina special election. Elizabeth Colbert Busch (yeah, Stephen’s sister!) has a real chance to become the first Democrat to represent this ruby-red district in 30 years.
But right now, Elizabeth is in danger of getting drowned out by misleading Republican attacks. We can’t let that happen – especially in a tough district like this. We need $200,000 by midnight tomorrow for our Democratic Rapid Response Fund to fight Republican attacks like these and set the record straight.
Name: (my name)Supporter record: 13550910Suggested Support: $3.00
A win here would be huge! Picking up a district that Mitt Romney won by 18 points would be a giant thorn in the sides of Boehner and Cantor.
But the Republicans still have three weeks to blanket the district with lying ads aimed at tricking voters. And it could work in South Carolina and around the country if we don’t fight back. Don’t let that happen.
Donate $3 or more and help us fight Republican attacks like these before tomorrow’s deadline: http://dccc.org/Support-Elizabeth
Thank you for your support.
Democrats 2014

(my name) --
Well, this is embarrassing:
When John Boehner endorsed Mark Sanford, he must’ve thought the South Carolina special election would be a cakewalk. After all, this district is about as red as it gets.
But Elizabeth Colbert Busch (Stephen Colbert’s sister!) could prove him wrong. Elizabeth is up by 3 in her latest campaign poll!
Now Sanford’s flooding the airwaves with every smear in the book to tear down Elizabeth’s campaign. We can’t let an ad blitz like this go unanswered. We’re just $115,000 short of what we need to fight Republican attacks like these right away.
Name: (my name)Supporter record: 13550910Suggested Support: $3.00
(my name), can you chip in $3 or whatever you can to help us immediately fight back against Republican attacks?
Mitt Romney won this district by 18 points and a Democrat hasn’t held it in 30 years. Can you imagine what an embarrassment it would be for Boehner if Elizabeth won this seat?
But that also means that winning seats like this is going to take everything we have. We have to stay strong and meet every Republican attack with the truth. Can we count on you?
http://dccc.org/Fight-Back
Thanks for your support!
Democrats 2014

(my name) --
Think of how humiliating it would be for Republicans to lose one of the reddest seats in the country.
Well, Elizabeth Colbert Busch has a real chance to knock off Mark Sanford in South Carolina's special election two weeks from today. That would be quite the upset for a district that Mitt Romney won by 18 points.
Even Republican leadership is getting twitchy about this race. Senator Lindsey Graham just said that losing this ruby-red seat would “undercut” the GOP House majority. We agree! Will you help us raise the $77,000 we need by tomorrow night's deadline to defeat Republicans like Mark Sanford?
Name: (my name)Supporter record: 13550910Suggested Support: $3.00
DEADLINE: Give $3 or whatever you can today to help fight back against Mark Sanford and Republican attacks >>
If Republicans lose this seat, it will have national implications for Boehner and his teetering majority. But there's only 14 days left.
Help us get the truth out and fight back against Republican attacks like these: Chip in before tomorrow's deadline.
http://dccc.org/Fight-Back
Thanks,
Democrats 2014

(my name) -- You know what would make John Boehner furious? If Stephen Colbert's sister, Elizabeth Colbert Busch wins the upcoming special election in South Carolina's first district -- that's one of the reddest districts in the country! We're only 13 days out, so we need to go into overdrive to fight Republican attacks in races like this. Name: (may name)Supporter record: 13550910Suggested Support: $3.00 Will you chip in $3 or whatever you can before tonight's midnight deadline? We have a real opportunity to defeat Republicans on their home court -- that would have national implications for Boehner and his party (and it'd be unbelievably embarrassing!). Will you chip in before midnight? http://dccc.org/Fight-Back Thanks, Democrats 2014 and you know what? i am sick to death about this being about showing each other who has the bigger dick instead of making laws to benefit the nation. so i sent them this letter. of course it won't make a difference, but i feel better.

dear democrats 2014,

every day i get something from you about humiliating the republicans.

wouldn't your time be better spent, um, working for civil liberties and marriage equality and income equality and tax reform and keeping medicare?

it seems to me very much like you are not the party of helping people but the party of beating and humiliating republicans and i haven't the stomach for it.

i am keeping count of each time i read the words "embarrass", humiliate", "fight" and "beat"  and for every time your campaign materials have the message of humilating anyone, i will be sending $3 to the campaign of a candidate you wish to humiliate, along with a copy of this letter.

i am betting they will be able to use that to their advantage.

bear in mind that while i used to be a likely democratic voter, you guys have just turned into too much assholes and the only way i can think of to stop you is simply to send my money to the republicans with an explanation as to why.

love, flask