Donkeys and the GOP

Breaking news from the right wing. The blogosphere, reaching all the way to at least one English newspaper, has declared an attempted desecration by Obama. What is he going to desecrate?

The facts: The University of Chicago is planning on demolishing an old apartment building in which Ronald Reagan, as a child, lived for less than one year. They're doing this to increase their student parking space. That's it. Those are the facts.

So what has the right wing screaming atrocity? Well, it turns out that the University of Chicago might be considered as one of the places where Obama could possibly build his library sometime in the unknown future.

If this is the site chosen, and if someone comes to visit that library, and if that person parks in this particular parking space which is normally reserved for students, then the University could conceivably be interpreted as having demolished Ronald Reagan's childhood home to create a parking lot for Obama's library. Could be so interpreted. If you're a real dumbass.

(Panic not, that's ass as in donkey.)

Let's be clear, even if the University of Chicago site is chosen for Obama's future library, the library will have its own parking lots. This will not be a parking lot for the library. It would just be a parking lot in which someone was visiting the library might choose to park. And then again, it is more likely they would park in the parking lot for the library which would be close to the library. Still, maybe someone wants a lot of exercise and prefers to park farther away and then walk to the library.

Please forgive the simplicity of the paragraphs above with their many word repetitions, but it is apparently necessary to make things clear to those experiencing a panic attack about this non-event.

It occurs to me that if Republicans could just learn to laugh at themselves then they wouldn't make such fools of themselves all the time. I suppose that's just asking too much.

I see why Bobby Jindal refers to his own party as, "the stupid party".

From a Facebook comment on Republican attacks on Obama for apologizing to the Islamic world for the accidental mistreatment of the Koran by US forces:

Message to the Republican Party:

 A manly apology is not a weakness. It is a strength. An adult, secure in his position, confident in his masculinity, is not afraid to apologize. This, of course, is also true of an adult woman who is self confident and self-assured. The insecure, the frightened, those lacking in self-respect, these are the ones who are afraid to make a sincere honest, apology when an error has occurred.

As a retired elementary school teacher and principal I am quite familiar with this particular problem. Actually, I think every parent is quite familiar with this particular problem. Every kindergartner needs to learn, if their parents have not already taught them this essential fact, that throwing a temper tantrum, hissing and shrieking, and flatly refusing to apologize to everyone who dares to disagree with you is not actually the way to appear to the world to be a big boy or a big girl. The simple fact is, grown-ups apologize.

It does not hurt them to apologize. It does not weaken them to apologize. It shows that they are polite, self-assured, and secure.  It bears repeating, grown-ups apologize. Spoiled little children do not.