Beware of Momma Grizzlies and Celtic Warrior Queens
By: Ed Farnan | Published Saturday, February 5, 2011, 8:35 PM | Updated Friday, September 9, 2011, 10:03 PM
Anyone that has spent time in bear country learns to be on the lookout for momma bears and their cubs and most importantly to never get between the two of them. Often it is a good idea to make a lot of noise when going through these areas to let them know you are nearby, this can avoid very unpleasant confrontations. I used to put a bell on my walking stick so they could hear me. But even with my bell, in the Alaskan bush I would carry a heavy caliber firearm.
Many Native American Peoples legends center around bears and how they are reincarnated spirits from ancient tribes. One in particular I encountered years past was known throughout the land as the "Phantom of the Hoback", a silver backed old bear who bedeviled many who crossed paths with it. Like many ancient tales and lore passed down from our past generations, most can be found to have some fact attached to them.
When Sarah Palin used the Mamma Grizzly metaphor to describe herself and her fellow female candidates in the political arena, I thought it was a beautiful and powerful graphic reality. I have seen more and more powerful women on the right standing up to protect and defend what they believe is their family, our country the U.S.A..
The main stream media descends and savages any right of center female candidate who dares enter the political arena. They are attacked for their looks, for their religious beliefs, for their educational backgrounds, for any imperfections in their family. The press will focus on their pasts with the enthusiasm of a pack of jackals, looking for ANY past indiscretion going back to their elementary school years and even earlier. If that same press would have used its resources and zeal to delve into the background of our current President, I wonder if he would have stood up to the scrutiny, would he have even made it to the nomination stage?
Any right wing female candidate will have to be tougher than her male counterpart in order to survive the slings and arrows tossed at her. Sarah Palin has survived unprecedented attacks on her character over the past 2 1/2 years, that no one running for public office should be subjected to. Our editor, Niall O'Dowd wrote a great piece on that very subject a while back noting the savagery of the attacks on Sarah.
But the reality of the Mamma Grizzly shined last night when I saw Michelle Bachman deliver the Tea Partys rebuttal to President Obamas state of the Union speech. She has taken a stand and is going to fight to protect and defend what she believes in. She is not only a Momma Grizzly, but she has put her Celtic Warrior princess armor on. She is in this fight to the finish. No matter what your political beliefs, you have to respect that kind of strength and determination.
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.hancock | Jan 31, 2011, 07:38 AM EST
Naive Socialist children.
OurselvesAlone | Jan 31, 2011, 04:03 AM EST
DennisQ You are obviously some type of economic Forrest Gump if you believe that SELLERS lose money in bear market. Short sellers, in fact, take their positions solely to profit from declining (i.e. "bear") markets. Before you seek to become a linguist by analyzing a word or phrase, "bear market" in this case, do some research. Then again, if you were financially astute, you wouldn't be a Democrat.
maloney | Jan 29, 2011, 09:03 PM EST
If obamacare is so great why are so many people & places getting wavers granted to them by obama? For every good thing in the health care deal there is something bad. The unions kiss obama's feet but they want & get wavers, not supporting obamacare. There are many things not included in obamacare that need to be done to save billions. There are many things in obamacare that have nothing to do with healthcare. The CBO has said the cost of obamacare will be much more than the advertised cost. Kill & start from scratch one item, one bill at a time. There are still million not covered by obamacare.
Monsoonman | Jan 29, 2011, 08:31 PM EST
The cheapest form of insurance for who lad? We all know you get what you pay for. You get cheap insurance you get cheap healthcare. That's why all of the socialists with money come to the US when it means their own personal healthcare. If your hero Castro would have come to the USA for his gastro intestinal problems in the first place, he wouldn't have had to lose 80% of his intestines due to the quckery that cared for him in cooba. You pay more you get more.
seanomelbourne | Jan 29, 2011, 06:32 PM EST
Children!!! stop all these nonsensical silly arguments. Point scoring proves nothing. The rest of the world knows that a universal health care system where every tax payer pays into a fund is the cheapest form of insurance AND the profits go to health care and not greedy Wall Street types or lobbyist. You have to decide if you prefer wall Street makes billions out of the sick or the sick benefit from the system.
maloney | Jan 28, 2011, 09:22 PM EST
Not a crime but I sure as hell don't want to have to pay for it as you would have me do Dennis. The crime was your mother not aborting you. I am pro-choice myself but I prefer the choice of life. Schools taking 13 to 16 year old girls to get abortions without the parents knowledge should be a crime. I didn't say I was conservative but since you brought it up try constitutional conservative libertarian.
DennisQ | Jan 28, 2011, 06:34 PM EST
Welcome aboard, maloney! When you call yourself "conservative" it sounds like you want to make abortion a crime. Glad to hear you're pro-choice.
maloney | Jan 28, 2011, 04:21 PM EST
Other than life & death most conservatives don't give a flip what you do as long as you don't try to shove it down other peoples throats. It's the liberals who want to control & tell everyone what & how to do everything. Including telling us how our money will be spent which means you will spend it for us.
DennisQ | Jan 28, 2011, 01:48 PM EST
Has anybody studied the political leanings of people who seek an abortion? Despite maloney's claim that it's only liberals who get them, it's not a political decision.
And here's another question. Are right wingers as committed to freedom as they say they are? They don't support other people's decisions in matters of conscience. Instead they insist they are right and the rest of us are wrong.
maloney | Jan 28, 2011, 12:19 PM EST
maireadofrooland..there is no question that conservatives are pro-life & liberals are pro-choice. There is no debate in who's killing babies, liberals are.
maireadinmelb | Jan 28, 2011, 04:42 AM EST
Maloney your generalisation about liberal women is disgraceful and until you have grown a child in your body or lost a child growing in your body do not make such generalisations! The birth of any child especially a child with special needs is an intense experience for any women and for those who do not have the support of the father or their own families the decision to abort a child is something they have to always live with!! Do not presume to understand what any pregnant woman has thought or felt! I may not like Palin or her politics but her personal decisions in relation to her family are none of our business.
DennisQ | Jan 27, 2011, 10:46 PM EST
Eventually someone who has been turned down for life-saving medical treatment will surface as a supporter of insurance companies' "freedom" to find ways to avoid paying claims. Such people are bound to exist; I just haven't met any, that's all.
The more tragic victims of insurance company predations are children with pre-existing life threatening conditions. Maybe they'll have better luck in the next world, but in this one they'll have to contend with the likes of Michelle Bachmann, people who take delight in upholding the economic freedom of corporations. These unfortunate children are neither nameless nor faceless in reality. We just don't know who they are.
Ask Monsoonman whether anybody is really being denied treatment because of corporate greed. He'll tell you it's not happening, and the reason he's so certain is that it's not happening to anyone he knows. That's a right winger for you. That's how to recognize them.
Monsoonman | Jan 27, 2011, 04:23 PM EST
You're right Maloney, Dennis would have the afterburners on and probably set a new human land speed record.
maloney | Jan 27, 2011, 02:14 PM EST
Monsoon..Dennis would out run a grizzly with ease no matter the speed of the bear. The bear couldn't get near him for the slipping & sliding in the boys dung. You say the conservative ladies are responsible for killing children Dennis, but a liberal woman would have aborted Palin's last child instead of preserving life. There is also a place in hell for liars like Dennis.
Monsoonman | Jan 27, 2011, 01:57 PM EST
Dennis, I am always patient with you whenever you stat to get us into these interminable circles. You want to paint the US healtchcare system as below the level of bangladesh with people dying in the streets. You are utterly wrong and there is no reasoning with you, just like your record is stuck on the conspiracy theory that Bush was somehow behind the Trade Center disaster. We are on two different plants, I am on earth. You are in uranus.
DennisQ | Jan 27, 2011, 12:59 PM EST
Speaking of good faith gestures . . . I'd like to see some concern for the people who are dying from treatable illnesses but have no health insurance. Monsoonman's contribution to the discussion is to deny that they exist.
When you lose your job you generally lose your employment-based health insurance as well. You don't need an actuary to explain the mathematics - when there are millions out of work, there are millions without health insurance. Tragically, this number includes young families, the fastest-growing group of American homeless people. Nearly half the number of homeless children are under five years old.
Stand and deliver, Monsoonman. What do you think we ought to do for children the age of Saoirse Heffernan who are dying of treatable illnesses? If you simply deny that they exist, you are not really addressing the problem.
Monsoonman | Jan 27, 2011, 11:26 AM EST
Dennis: Even the independent actuary from medicare, the final independent economic expert on obamacare gave absolutely devastating testimony yesterday before the House Budget Committee. In essence, he placed the president and his party in the uncomfortable position of having to explain why they lied to the American people about the two main selling points for the program. 1. That it will bring down unsustainable medical costs and 2. It will let people keep their current health insurance if they like it. Both were proven to be lies and these were what were fed to the American people. It was all a big lie. So enough said, repeal it and start over. This time start with the biggest expense of all in the medical system: Lawsuits. If they tackle legal reform and do it in a meaningful way, we will know they are serious, otherwise it is all smoke and mirrors.
DennisQ | Jan 27, 2011, 05:18 AM EST
The tight-fisted legislation that right wingers are calling "Obamacare" is indeed flawed because it doesn't make health care a basic human right. We do not have socialized medicine and we ought to have it, because it is just as badly needed as other government services which are already socialized - such as police and fire services, and education through high school.
The fact that some needy patients are served at no cost to them does not imply that free health care isn't almost completely unheard of. You make it sound as though all it takes to find health care is a little persistence. Who's picking up the tab for your friend's heart surgery at Stanford Medical Center? They're certainly not doing it on the arm.
Right wingers ought to be honest about what they're promoting. It's not freedom; it's maintaining a status quo in which many people - including lots of children - are left out completely. It's true that emergency rooms won't turn anyone away, but growing children need diagnostic and preventive care . . . which they certainly won't get in an emergency room. You've also disregarded the numbers of homeless children in America, a figure that's already over a million, did you know that? Nearly half are under five years old, putting them at risk for dozens of preventable childhood illnesses.
Michelle Bachmann is no Celtic Warrior. That's a wildly inappropriate analogy, given the causes she commits herself to.
Monsoonman | Jan 26, 2011, 11:48 PM EST
Dennis lad, I have other factual cases of amazing healthcare for uninsured Americans as well as non citizens, I have facts and names. You have generalities and as usual claim, because my facts don't line up with your dogma, I am in denial. If obama and his cronies had eliminated lawyers from the healthcare sytem in their so called "reform" it would save 800 billion a year. But not even a mention of tort reform in the healthcare boondoggle. That's why this corrupt piece of legislation needs to be put back and redone.
DennisQ | Jan 26, 2011, 11:35 PM EST
Please do not address me as "boy," Monsoonman; I am not a child.
You are in denial about the state of health care in America, possibly because of limitations of the number of people you know. While this lets you off the hook, it doesn't allow political leaders to deny the extent of the health care crisis in America. The "freedom" that Bachmann et al. are upholding is costing lives. It's wildly inappropriate for Ed Farnan to suggest that there's something noble about this. It's actually a disgrace that people should go without health care in a wealthy country like this.
And don't deny it! It's reprehensible to claim ignorance of the extent of this problem. I side with the Catholic Church on this one. Oppression of the poor cries out to heaven for vengeance. And there's a special place in Hell for people who refuse to learn the extent of a problem. A joke's a joke, but you, Monsoonman, are not at all funny when you wisecrack about the lives of the poor.
Monsoonman | Jan 26, 2011, 10:58 PM EST
Dennis me boy, for every Saroise, there are hundreds of thousands of other American citizens who get life saving state of the art healthcare, even though they might not have health insurance at the time. A friend of mind just had major heart work done at Stanford Hospital and he did NOT have insurance, he was treated and healed. I am acquainted with a local family who has an illegal alien uncle living here with no insurance, he has kidney failure and is receiving dialysis every few days at the local clinic free of charge. My Sister treats and cures people who have cancer, they get treated whether they have ins. or not.
DennisQ | Jan 26, 2011, 09:05 PM EST
We all felt bad when little Saoirse Heffernan passed away, but children her age are dying in America for want of health care that their parents can't afford.
I'd be more impressed with Grizzly Momma analogies and Celtic Warrior imagery if I thought Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann were fighting to save dying children from the consequences of America's profit-driven health insurers. In fact, however, the battle as Bachmann and Palin see it, is to defend health insurers' putative right to allow children to die from treatable illnesses.
Farnan describes Bachmann as in this fight "to the finish" and it's a glorious image. I am sure he's not applauding the death of children, but that certainly is the effect of policies that Bachmann advocates. The freedom that she stands for is not an abstraction. Under the circumstances, these glorious analogies are inappropriate.
pilib04 | Jan 26, 2011, 07:51 PM EST
Michelle Bachmann is more like Atilla the Hun. By the way, there are two n's in Bachmann!
Monsoonman | Jan 26, 2011, 07:34 PM EST
The Grizzly Bear (Ursus Horriblis) has a top speed of about 35 miles an hour. Very dangerous on a 'rush'. Can you run that fast Dennis? I understand they can maintain that same speed as they climb up the same tree you climbed up thinking you were safe. But not to worry Dennis, just play "dead" and they won't hurt you...LOL!!!
DennisQ | Jan 26, 2011, 05:35 PM EST
A bear is a big, lumbering, somewhat stupid animal that is generally not favorably compared to anything typical or normal. We talk about a bear market, for example, as one in which both buyers and sellers lose money. The Russian bear is not a figure of admiration either. It's solitary and antagonistic - hardly qualities that we look for in a politician.
Fortunately, Sarah Palin is simply an entertainer, not a political leader. She's a sort of Zsa Zsa Gabor who endorses candidates and is good for a quote. The bear analogy does work, however. She's lumbering and stupid, and she forages the woods looking for grubs. It's a good thing that she's as solitary as she is; I'd hate to think that she was electable!
McNamara31 | Jan 26, 2011, 04:56 PM EST
I wish you a pleasant life in your world of "Oz" with Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman at the helm. As for the rest of us who truly value a working democracy governed with wisdom rather than gun toting political hacks inferring the smear of the day; I hope either one of these opportunist's run for they will provide a very easy re election for Obama and sanity.