Limerick For Greg

 

So, in the town of Limerick, they have an annual contest for the best limerick. For five years straight, a man by the name of Seamus McMillian won.

The contest was held in the city hall, where only the contestant and the three judges were privy to the limerick itself. This way, no one would be able to figure out what the limerick was (I’m not sure why, that’s just the way the rules are).

After each contestant would recite their limerick, they would go across the street to the local pub, and when a winner was announced, everyone would celebrate and drink like crazy.

Anyways, McMillian recited his limerick and then went over to the pub to wait for the announcement that he had won for the sixth year. Several pints later, the judges came over and announced that Sister Mary McIntosh, the local nun had won the contest.

Now McMillian was completely floored by this – he was sure he had a clinch on the contest. As he was already full of Guinness and bravado, he marched over to the judges and demanded to know why he lost.

The judges looked at him and reiterated the rules. Protesting, he demanded to know what the winning limerick was. The Judges told him that they couldn’t reveal that. Finally, McMillan demanded to know where Sister Mary was. Against their better judgment, they directed him to the convent down the road.

McMillian stormed down to the convent, fully intent on discovering what the winning limerick was. Shoving open the door, McMillan yelled out for Sister Mary McIntosh. A few moments later, Sister Mary appeared.

“Yes my child. What is troubling you?” Sister Mary asked the inebriated man.

“Sister, I won the limerick contest five years in a row. I’ve always had the best limerick, no one’s been able to beat me. I’ve got to know what your limerick was.” McMillian demanded.

Sister Mary smiled and said “but my son, is that not against the rules?” McMillian nodded, but replied “Sister, I’ve got to know.”

After several minutes of browbeating and haranguing, McMillian broke Sister Mary down. “Alright my son, I’ll tell you my limerick, but we must go outside, as some of the language is not appropriate for this location.”

Walking outside, Sister Mary continued “we must cross the street, before I can tell you my limerick.” McMillian charged across the street, waiting for the nun to catch up.

Once she reached the other side of the street, McMillian started in on her, “Sister, we’ve crossed the street – what’s the limerick?”

Sister Mary held up a hand. “Now, my son, this limerick has some dirty words in it, so I must substitute the word ‘duh-duh’ for the foul language.”

Nodding his head impatiently, McMillian spun his hands, signaling her to get on with it.

Clearing her throat, Sister Mary recited her limerick:

“duh-duh duh-duh duh-duh,

duh-diddy duh-diddy duh-duh,

duh-duh duh-duh, duh-duh duh-duh,

as they fucked in a pile of shite.” 

Writing exercise results

So I went with @genrelibrarian to a writer’s workshop tonight at the local library. The workshop was being run by the extremely talented Laura Resau (Her website here), who discussed character and setting. It was a great night, and I had a lot of fun.

One of the things that Laura discussed was a part that she excised from her book What the Moon Saw, about slug sex (don’t ask – it’ll take more time to explain than required, and by then, you’ll be fed up with it and not want anything else to do with it). Anyways, It stuck with me for some reason, and when we got to the writing exercise for the night, we had to write a scene where we described a scene using all the senses.

Now, before you guys go getting all up in arms – this is not about slug sex. I promise! As for it being tasteful, well, I never said it was going to be good, just no slug sex.

With that out of the way, I present my writing exercise.

 

Returning to the apartment, I unlocked the door, and put my shoulder to it. The oppressive mugginess had swelled the door, and it required me to throw my bulk against it twice. The wood squeaked and squealed in protest, before popping open with a damp thock!

Stepping inside, the heat was worse. All the curtains were pulled, dimming the room substantially, making it almost impossible to see. My foot collided with a mess of empty aluminum while I swung the door shut. Wedging itself at the edge of the jamb, I sighed and trudged down the trash strewn hall, the odor of stale beer and week-old pizza assaulting my nose.

As I stepped into the living room, I was mildly shocked to see the debris had only multiplied marginally. The stench, however, seemed to fill the room, much like a fat man in an elevator after a chili cook-off. My eyes drifted over the carnage of the room to settle on the source of such olfactory offense.

Kyle was sprawled along the length of the couch, reading something. His feet wiggled obscenely, flashing grotesque bits of dirt and fungus, While his shorts, once a nice pair of bermudas I had loaned him, were crumpled and stained, wadding up near his crotch. His gut lolled out from under his grey-ish shirt like molasses waiting for the signal to drip lazily onto the floor.

I had hoped to slip past him, but a pizza box caught my foot halfway across the room.

Tipping the magazine slightly, his gaze met mine. I felt a slight tickle of fear in the back of my throat. A small smile played threateningly at the edges of his food crusted mouth. I knew if I looked at the title of whatever he was reading, I would be treated to a verbal recounting of his literature.

I couldn’t help myself.

To my horror, I saw The Best Arthropod Erotica of the Year, Vol. 6.

Looking back up, Kyle opened his mouth.

“Oi! Listen ta dis!” He was off and running. “Slowly, we slid across each other, the slime trail I had laid across her back glistening wetly in the moonlight. She was a magnificent specimen, and I could feel the pressure building in my abdomen. Before I knew it, I-“

“WHOA! ENOUGH!” I shouted him down. I was feeling nauseated, and not just from his reading. A subtle crosswind had managed to blow the air from his mouth in my direction and the stench of apparent raw sewage was killing my resolve to stay in the room. Stomping off to my room, I could feel his greasy smile boring into my back.

‘If I could just get him off the lease’ I thought to myself as I slammed the door to my room.

Alright, I apologize. I guess some slug sex managed to sneak in. However, this scene actually started out with the magazine itself. For some reason, I thought of the title of the magazine, and started thinking backwards. Namely, who the hell would read something like this in the first place? What sort of demeanor would this person have? Is there really enough arthropod erotica to justify a book, much less six volumes? After laying that out, I just had to figure out who would be interacting with this type of character.

Am I going to follow up on this? turn it into a story?

Probably not.

But, you never know.

A Teaser...

So, in light of Melissa's discovery, I thought I would post some of the articles we had worked up for subsequent articles of The Devil's Advocate. Keep in mind these were rough drafts, and the political climate was much different at the time (not to mention we were a bunch of rabid, anti-republican college kids).

Soooooo..... without further ado.... some articles from the now defunct Devil's Advocate



New Virus Causing Havoc
By: Ed "Eddie" Tor

HAWAII - A new virus has apparently surfaced here of the coast of the big island. Security officials at the Hawaiian Outer-islands Anti-viral eXamination center, have discovered a new virus that they have tentatively named "E.626".

"It is actually a very strange type of viral infection". Stated Dr. L. ilo Wakawakawaka. "From what we have seen, upon infection, is that the virus releases the first part of its payload, destroying file structures, attacking the boot sector, melting wiring structures in the CPU unit itself, and stealing everyone's left shoe." Dr. Wakawakawaka pointed to her bare left foot at this time.

"Within several hours of infection, the virus managed to spread to other computers on the closed network we had set up to test for propagation. The results were just as devastating on those networks also. The virus seemed to be impervious to everything we threw at it. It literally broke our state of the art virus program in half. Our secretary had to go home early due to the fact that she had lost the left shoe of her new pair of Guiccis that she had spent two paychecks on."

Dr. Wakawakawaka pointed to another computer, sitting alone. "Now this was rather interesting. We installed the program on this computer, which is not connected to any other computer in any way. The E.626 virus actually rebult the folders and has optimized the entire system."

Dr. Wakawakawaka later stated that the virus E.626 has also been know to be bundled with several other computer compromisers, the two most common files being the J.U.M.ba trojan horse, and/or the pL.eak.L.y worm.

Apparently several researchers at the center have affectionately nicknames the virus "Stitch".

Something different tonight

Alright guys,

Normally, I'll just spew something out and let you all look at it to your heart's content, but tonight, I come to you hat in hand, to ask you a question.

I have in my possession, a story that I have written. Not that this is anything strange, I normally have stuff I have written, but I have never felt that anything is worth trying to sell. This has changed, and I would like some input from my readers (all five of ya!).

I went through and started looking at submission guidelines for several "pro" markets, and since none of them do not allow simultaneous submissions, I need to figure out which one to submit to first. Let me know what you think:

Analog
- 6 to 8¢ per word
- Response time: ~5 weeks
- Esubs only
- counts towards membership with SFWA

Asimov's
- 6¢ per word
- Response time: ~5 weeks
- Esubs only
- counts towards membership with SFWA

Clarkesworld
- 10¢ per word (up to 4000), then 5¢ per word after
- Response time: ~2 days
- Esubs only
- counts towards membership with SFWA

Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
- 6 to 9¢ per word
- Response time: ~8 weeks
- Must snailmail manuscript (no esubs)

Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show
- 6¢ per word
- Cannot republish for one year after acceptance
- Response time: ~3 months
- Esubs only
- counts towards membership with SFWA

Lightspeed
- 5¢ per word
- Response time: ~2 days for rejection, ~2 weeks for acceptance
- Esubs only

Strange Horizons
- 7¢ per word
- Response time: 70 days
- Closed to subs until early June
- Esubs only
- counts towards membership with SFWA

Tor Online
- 25¢ per first 5000 words, 15¢ next 5000, 10¢ after that
- Response time: slow (nothing more specific)
- looking for "Highly Professional Level[s]" of work
- counts towards membership with SFWA

look it over, let me know what you think.

Thanks folks.

A little light writing

So, I apparently got an excellent review on an entry I posted over at writing.com for the "It's So Bad, It's Good" contest, where the object was to write the most overwrought, one-dimensional, stereotypical, obnoxious story possible. Here's my entry.


One-eyed Bart swaggered into the bar, his hips swiveling like a diseased prostitute with an ill-fitting peg-leg three inches too short for her body, which was rather funny, as his peg-leg was three inches too short for his body.
Wobbling his way to the bar, there was much speculation about why he was called ‘One-Eyed Bart’ since he had two perfectly functioning eyes. Actually wasn’t all that fair to say he had two ‘perfect’ eyes, as one was a bit lazy. When the left eye looked straight ahead, the right was often examining the nuances to the bridge of his nose – not that it was something he always wanted to stare at, but given the circumstances, it was probably better than staring at the inside of his skull.
Bellying up to the bar, he waved the bartender over. The bartender, a grizzled old one dimensional type schlepped over, wiping out a glass with a towel that would have been considered clean five to seven years previous.
“Well, what’ll it be?” He asked, spitting into the glass and then wiping the inside some more.
“Vermouth... leave the bottle” Bart replied. He knew that when you bellied up to a bar, you always ordered whiskey. Bart wasn’t a whiskey drinker, but he felt that he needed to present a strong, dangerous veneer. He shuddered to think that anyone might discover his deep, dark secret. A secret he was willing to kill for. Not that he had, but he was pretty sure he would to kill to make sure nobody knew what it was.
As the bartender shuffled back over, he sized Bart up. “You look like a man who has a deep, dark secret that you would probably be willing to kill for.” Bart’s eyebrows transported themselves from their usual place above his eyes to somewhere in his hairline. Shocked by this relocation, Bart grunted an affirmative to the bartender’s question. Realizing he just revealed that he had a deep, dark secret, Bart fumed.
“Listen, I’ll let you fume in silence. I have to fade into the background like a poorly conceived character that the author threw in just to move the story along.” Bart watched the bartender blend into the background, taking on a sort of muted quality like the backgrounds of those old Looney Tunes cartoons.
Blowing the dust off the bottle, Bart drank deeply. He could tell it was old vermouth – the taste of stale spices mixed with the vinegar flavor of super old wine, because that’s what vermouth basically is – mulled wine. From what I’ve read, vermouth is great – when it’s fresh, which this stuff most definitely was not.
Gagging on the nasty liquor, Bart turned around to survey the bar. Across the way was a piano player with a pencil thin mustache that would have put Salvador Dali’s to shame, had Dali the foresight to wander into an authentic Hollywood rendering of an authentic western bar. On the stage, several painted women, who bore a passing resemblance to the now dead ex-wife of a disgraced preacher who was famous for defrauding his flock and boinking his secretary, who in turn did a tasty spread in Playboy that did nothing to keep pubescent boys focused on what they were supposed to be doing.
Looking annoyed at the narrator, Bart continued his examination of the bar, noticing several other groups that missed his gaze the first time he studied the room, even though the room only measured fifteen feet on a side. At one table was the local doctor, passed out and snoring loudly into the tabletop. Bart wasn’t totally sure he was the doctor, but judging from previous experience, if someone was passed out at a table, more than likely, the minute a doctor was needed, not only would he be a first class doctor, but a surgeon of the first class with hands of steel who could remove a bullet two centimeters from the human heart.
Another table had a group of rough customers, all playing poker. Each card player was uglier, meaner, and more dangerous than the last. Bart found it rather amazing as they were all sitting in a circle. As he watched, he saw one of the card players accuse another player of cheating, which was rather funny, as they were all cheating. Bart distinctly saw aces sticking out of jacket sleeves, hat brims, boots, and waistbands. The brawl quickly spread across the room, as people squared off against each other. One of the dancing floozies broke a bottle over top of an anonymous brawler that had apparently appeared solely for the purpose of the battle.
Shaking his head, Bart ducked, allowing a thrown combatant to sail over the top of the bar, only to crash into the mirror, shattering it into a million little pieces. Bart reveled at the fact that each sliver, each facet glittered and shone like the stars in a distant galaxy, only to slowly descend downward in a slivery rain of imminent injury and possible death. Bart had seen a man’s carotid artery get sliced once that way. The alcoholic doc was too slow to save the man, but the image of a bright crimson stream fountaining up and over the bar had stuck with him ever since.
Deciding that he had seen enough, Bart hobbled back out of the drinking/brawlhouse establishment. In the street, he turned to examine the sign overhead – “The Double Duce” he read out loud to himself, sounding like Sam Neil in Roadhouse. Slapping himself on the forehead, he realized that not only was he was at the wrong bar, but it was actually Sam Elliot that was in Roadhouse. Looking over, he saw the one he was supposed to be at.
Setting out, he trudge/hobbled his way next door to “The Cantina”, passing a sign stating “Welcome to Mos Eisley, a nice port town.” As he continued on, he passed a couple of deputies muttering “Those aren’t the Floyd boys we’re looking for.”

A work in progress

So, on another site, I'm in the process of submitting for a contest - I have a list of ten words, and I have to use at least 3 of them. Either a poem or short story: Poems have to be at least 25 lines, short stories need to be at least 500 words, but less than 1,000. Below is the list of words I have to use, and a early first draft of either a poem or I'll tie it into a short story.

Frugal, penchant, idyllic, comely, calamity, blasphemy, egregious, sublime, surreptitious, consolidate

So, without further ado, here's my (horribly rough) first draft:

A comely calamity of egregious blasphemy,
an angry amputee seeking sublime amnesty.
surreptitious consolidation,
a penchant for frustration.
a frugal apogee, idyllic bankruptcy,
the fall of a tyrant, the shame of a nation.

I like how it starts out, in fact, it was the "comely calamity" that jumped out at me, and the rest fell together (with some help from a rhyming dictionary). The last line was really forced, and I'm not really feeling it. As it continues to come together, I'll post updates.

Some Movie Reviews

So, with my better half out of town, I've had a chance to watch a bunch of movies that have caught my interest.
That being said, I'll be reviewing five movies, and three television shows - The movies are Dead Alive, Game Box 1.o, Ararat, Star Warp'd & Pandorum. The television shows are all (conveniently enough) anime: Bleach, Hikaru No Go & Naruto.
Well, without further ado... We'll start off with Dead Alive.

Dead Alive

Peter Jackson's last "minor league" movie before he started doing big budget flicks for Hollywood. The description is listed as A young man's mother is bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey. She gets sick and dies, at which time she comes back to life, killing and eating dogs, nurses, friends, and neighbors. A review of the film is listed gleefully as "...the goriest fright film of all time."
To say that it lives up to that phrase is a bit of an understatement. If you're familiar with Jackson's early works (Bad Taste or Meet the Feebles) you'll be in familiar territory. If not, well... be prepared for some corny special effects, non-logical logic, and the biggest salsa making festival of all time.
As the story progresses, we're introduced to an over-bearing, ball-busting mother; a 50's style greaser; a kung-fu practicing priest; a nurse whose only purpose apparently is to get it on with the priest (post zombification); a zombie baby; killer intestines, gratuitous use of a lawnmower, and some very Freudian overtones during the climax of the movie. Like Jackson's other early works, the tongue is firmly planted in the check through the entire movie, but the gore effects get a little tedious and the movie could have probably stood to lose 10 - 15 minutes of running time.
All in all, if zombies, sick humor, or a Pete Jackson fetish are your thing, check it out - if not, I won't fault you for giving it a pass.

Game Box 1.0

Following in the footsteps of low-budget films, I caught this movie the other night. Netflix had it listed as Horror, but IMDB listed it as sci-fi. Needless to say, I'm going with IMDB on this one.
For what it's worth, I actually enjoyed this movie, one I got used to the special effects. The premise of the movie is a game device that puts you into the game itself. Once inside, you cannot quit the game - you either win the game, or you die in real life. While it's been done before, there was a certain kitsch to this movie that made it, if not memorable, at least enjoyable.
As I said, the story revolves around a game tester who is still agonizing over the death of his girlfriend/fiancée. As he withdraws into his world of video games, he gets a strange package in the mail that he uses. Inside the game, he has a choice of several different worlds; a Grand Theft Auto rip-off, a generic zombie rip-off, and a third world that for some reason escapes my mind at the moment.
Anyways, long story short, the bad guy is the cop that shot the fiancée, the love interest is a digitized version of the murdered fiancée, and the special effects look as though they had been processed through the Sega Genesis x32 system. One of the best parts of the movie is when the hero shoots one of the bad guys, they fall to the ground with a poorly digitized, off-center hole in their chest three times the size of the caliber of weapon used to kill them.
In the end, if you've got nothing better to do, check it out. Otherwise, go out and live your life, unlike these neck-beard mouth breathers that infest this movie.

Ararat

So my buddy Robert was hosting an event for Holocaust Remembrance Week, and the movie we watched and then discussed was the movie Ararat; about the Armenian Holocaust between World War I and World War II. A major part of the controversy behind the Armenian genocide is that Turkey continues to refuse that the event ever happened.
Described as "Interrogated by a customs officer, a young man recounts how his life was changed during the making of a film about the Armenian genocide claims." What they don't say is that this is the overall context of the movie, but it is broken up between five or six sub-plots that give little warning as to shifts. One sub-plot is the relationship between the customs interrogator and his son, the relationship between the interrogator and the young man in question, the relationship between the young man and his lover (who also happens to be his half sister), The relationship between the young man and his mother, the relationship between the mother and the step sister, the story of an Armenian painter who was (allegedly) witness to the genocide, and the making of a movie about the painter and the genocide.
To say the storyline is convoluted is being nice. The shifts in theme often leave the viewer spending approximately five minutes trying to figure out if we're watching the movie being made, the young man recounting his adventures, or the adventures actually happening. I'm not going to bother getting into depth with logical inconsistencies throughout the movie, but I will say that I was extremely unhappy with the end of the movie.
*CAUTION! POLITICALLY INFLAMMATORY DISCUSSION AHEAD!*
There is very little dispute about whether or not the Armenian Genocide happened. While it is frustrating that Turkey refuses to acknowledge the fact that it happened, and even more aggravating that the United States refuses to take a stance on the event, the simple fact of the matter is that this movie, at its core, is propaganda. As we come to the end of the movie, we're shown scenes from the "movie" that has been shot, depicting the degradation and abuse of Armenian women and children by Ottoman Turks. As the scenes progress, it gets more graphic and blatant, further vilifying the perpetrators. The movie then ends with a statement that the Armenian Genocide did occur, based off of documents from the time period, and that to this day, Turkey refuses to admit that it happened. As the movie finished, I found myself sitting there, processing the movie, and all I could think of was "Jesus Christ, we get it. The Armenians were slaughtered. The Ottoman Turks engaged in a concerted effort to eradicate a certain group of people. Stop beating us over the head with it."
In the end, I almost felt sorry for the Turks. I will not make excuses for them, nor will I exonerate what happened. It was a dark period in the history of man, that was then used as an argument to fuel the Final Solution in World War II, but if you're going to make a movie with a strong slant to it, please let the viewer know there is some sort of bias to it - that way they can expect it, instead of having it shoved down our throats.

Star Warp'd

Worst. Parody. Ever. It would be in your best interests to die before viewing this, and even then, I would give it a pass.

Pandorum

Starts out really spooky, has Dennis Quaid in it (which in and of itself should be spooky enough), tries to hook the whole Ridley Scott Alien vibe. Fails miserably. I would give it a pass, just because you'll be wanting your almost two hours back afterwards.

Bleach

Interesting story of a fifteen year old kid who acts way older than scripted. Has been able to see spirits of deceased people since he was little. One night, he runs into a shingami (soul reaper) whose job it is to send good souls to the Soul Society, and battle Hollows (evil souls who have become monsters). Main reason I started watching this is because my eldest used to have a subscription to Shonen Jump, where it was serialized. Starts out slow, but picks up speed after the fifteenth or so episode. Definitely check out the books if you're going to watch the show.

Hikaru No Go

Another show that my eldest got me kind of hooked on. Story of a young kid (11, 12?) who breaks into his grandfather's house to steal something so he can turn around and sell it for money. Kid finds an old Go board (kind of like oriental chess). As he's examining the board, he discovers that the spirit of on ancient Go Master inhabits it, and wants the kid to help him play "The Divine Move" apparently a Go move that proves just how bad ass you really are, and will allow the spirit (whose name is Sai) to finally shed the bounds of earth and move on.
The only problem Sai runs into? The kid (Hikaru) has never played Go in his entire life, and has no plans of learning, until he figures out he can make money off of it. Who said kids aren't enterprising? He sure would give the Donald a run for his money in terms of ruthless dealings.

Naruto

Finally, Netflix got Naruto - The best thing to come from Japan since the invention of home gaming systems (allegedly). Naruto is the story of a twelve year old kid who is a total pariah in his village of the Hidden Leaf. All Naruto wants to do is pass his Ninja graduation exams, train up, and become the best Hokage (Village Protector/Elder) the city has ever seen. The only problem is that he's a troublemaker due to the fact that everyone hates him.
A damn entertaining series, later episodes really go for broke in terms of battle sequences, and the story, while excessively long, is entertaining all the way through, and definitely worth a look.
Just make sure if you're not a fan of subtitles, you get actual discs; don't stream it from Netflix. Subtitles like they're going out of style.

So anyways, that's what I've got. You agree? Disagree? want to kill me over something? let me know.

Facebook Rebuttal

During a "conversation" on Facebook, I made a crack about the Democrats loosing the House while the GOP got the Tea Party, poking fun at the fact that I felt the GOP got screwed more than the Dems. The following rebuttal occurred.
(Names have been removed. If you know who is involved, good for you, go get a cookie)

***

>Them< You say "they got the Tea Party" like it is a bad thing?!? What do you actually know about the Tea Party that you haven't been told by a liberal??

***

>Me< When it comes to the Tea Party, I haven't been told much. I'm going off of what I have seen and read myself. I know we've never met, and I'm willing to bet, we never will. However, I have the feeling that neither of us will lose any sleep over it. But, since the subject has been brought up, I might as well point out that, yes, I do consider myself a liberal. We could go into the nuances of that, but we would be wandering waaaaaaaay off the topic we're discussing here.

***

>Them< Honestly, most people that are against the Tea Party, and what we are accomplishing have little real knowledge about what it stands for, and have usually formed their opinions on based on the lies of a biased media. What specifically, do you think the Tea Party stands for and why do you oppose it???

***

>me< I have to admit that I had to research what the basic fundamentals of the Tea Party were, since it has been overshadowed by the lunatic fringe. What I found was an article written by Deborah K. Mulholand on the Daytona Daily News website. She stated that

"Tea Party patriots are normal, everyday, working people who are fed up with having to balance their family budgets while Congress and the lawyers in Washington, D.C., cook up ways to “tax the living daylights out of us” and then hire thousands of IRS hooligans to come to our homes and hit us over the head with their tax-and-spend billy clubs.

We also believe in American sovereignty — not being ruled by the United Nations. We’re not convinced that globalism is great; we want our military airplanes made here in the USA.

Lastly, we believe the Constitution is a finite document created by our Founding Fathers to limit the scope, control and power of government, not give it a blank check to drain the lifeblood out of the heartland of our great nation."^[1]

Indeed it is a noble and honorable thing to challenge what you feel is not right. There are instances of it happening all through out history from both liberal and conservative sides. What I do take exception to is the statement

based on the lies of a biased media.

Of course media is going to be biased... this is the Information Age! Compound that with the fact that we are a capitalist society (which is neither good nor bad for the sake of this argument), those that report the news are fighting for market share. Truths are going to be stretched, lies are going to be told, people are going to be smeared - the ultimate purpose is not to tell it like it is, the purpose is to get eyes on what you are saying. The more sensational the story, the more people are going to read it, the more money that is generated for the company. However, "Biased Media" is generally seen as a liberal skewing - it happens in all quarters, not just from the liberal side.

*edit* I failed to properly redress why I am against the Tea Party. My personal feelings are the the Constitution is a living document, requiring interpretation through current social issues. Ultimately, what I feel is being presented as the Tea Party is addressed below.
I apologize for the oversight.

***


>Them< The Tea Party is defiantly not what I would consider an asset to the old school GOP. They are more akin to a conscience on a corporate CEO.. The Tea Party keeps the GOP honest, it makes them vote on conservative principals, not politics. Will it cost them elections?? Hell yes!! It has already for sure!! Look @ NV Reed vs. Angle for proof of that!!

Sometimes, it has to be about more than just winning, it has to be about what is right for this country, and what is wrong for this country. That is something the DNC and Obama seem to have forgotten....

***

>Me< Ahhhh.... now we get to the crux of the problem. However, before we delve into that, I want to say that I agree completely with the statement about what the Tea Party is supposed to do; namely, keep the Principles of the GOP in line, making sure that it does what it feels is best for America, not for personal gain. And again, I tend to agree that I feel the President and the DNC have lost sight of what their mission was.
However, getting back to that pesky crux issue - which was

"Sometimes, it has to be about more than just winning, it has to be about what is right for this country, and what is wrong for this country."

Who is the final arbiter of what is right, and what is wrong for this country? We all are. We try to operate off of the concept of 'simple majority'. Namely, if a decision has to be made, we vote on it, the side that gets 51% or more causes their decision to be acted upon. At least, that's my understanding of it. Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem with politics these days is that people are taking it personally. I cannot count how many times I've had regular discussions breakdown into name calling, mud-slinging, or physical altercations, simply due to the way I vote. I'm not going to say that I am completely innocent in any of this, as I've given probably as much as I have taken. It's a weakness of character, so I ignore it as much as possible.
But, getting back to the whole "Tea Party is a Bad Thing" bit; it's not. Hate to be a buzz kill, but I think the Tea Party is a needed part of the GOP. I hope that the DNC will eventually get their own version to help slap those chuckle heads back into shape. The only way the Tea Party is going to fix their image is to get rid of the wing-nuts who claim they speak for the Party as a whole. They overshadow what good is coming out of the Tea Party Movement, cheapening the experience. It is because of these talking heads that I take a long, saddened look at the Tea Party, shake my head, and say "It could have been magnificent. It could have redirected the entire nation. It could have fixed a broken bi-partisan system. It could have brought respect back to politics, but instead, it's allowing itself to fall down the exact same rabbit hole it tried to steer us away from."

^[1] http://www.daytondailynews.com/opinion/what-does-the-tea-party-stand-for--727723.html