Tired?

"....put your hand on the arc of history and bend it once more for a brighter day....."
-President Elect Barack Obama, 11-4-2008.

Barack Obama didn't just suddenly become the President of the Untied States last week. During the the past couple of weeks he has exhibited an almost unnatural calm and an air of destiny..His grasp of the situation made it seem like this day was almost just a formality, and besides the fact that those of us who watch this stuff closely have been twisted in worry that the machinations of men or technology might prevent that which seemed a foregone conclusion, it felt done even before the states toppled.
The Obama family, along with the Bidens looked so crisp and shiny on the hi-def, and the hope in the moist eyes of the crowd ...the tears streaming down Jesse Jackson's face...the celebrating throngs jammed outside of the the white house fence; because its really ours, you know!
As an exclamation point on the historic change that has taken place, the new guys have opened up President-elect shop here. I find it heartening and touching because it is not only,as Jill says, a big hat tip to the Dean-genius grass-roots Internet explosion, but it asks us for our input and stories; it engages all Americans to reach towards their leaders and tell them something...anything....And, I don't care if its just bullshit that some secretary is skimming over in the basement by the standpipe...Its a moment in history that will exist on the Internets and in the ether for as long as this little ball falls around the sun.

Its been a long 8 years, and the trauma of it for some of us isn't gonna just rub off...celebrating the end of the Bush era and the dawn of hope, and realizing the importance of this thing; something so small and taken for granted; that in the face of fear and threats and the tight grip of a huge machine backed by big business robbing us blind, we have our vote, and with that we can do something. It is less about the top spot than it is about the landslide of defeats across the country!

Its that Chris Shays lost BIG, which is a big fuck you to Joementum Lieberman. Here in CT people were saying that Joe has been neutered....Just ask Harry Reid, and watch Joe hem and haw and squirm while he tries to explain again how it was such a hard decision for him to make to throw his party under the bus because he thinks he knows whats best for the country!..and after watching him for months, standing behind John McCain, my supposed democratic representative, ignoring every promise he ever made, in order to to step over the dead bodies of public servants who really wanted to improve the country in order to improve his own lot in life...too caught up in a doctrine that he really didn't seem to grasp...on that required him to be the Jew sacrifice in the end days scenario....Fuck Joe and fuck Chris Shays and their weak-assed supporters who knew they were bad for us but were afraid of the unknown, or who just wanted their fucking tax break to remain intact at the expense of our entire s0ciety circling the drain ! So long...don't let the door hit you on the way out. Maybe now we can get to work on real statewide health care and reforming our social services division...not to mention putting the money back into our schools!

This is where the sacrifice begins, and though President Elect Obama only hinted at it in his victory speech, I hope that he really lays it out well, so that those who expect the country to bounce right back will begin to understand how deep the hole is that we are digging out of. This is gonna cost money and its gonna take time. Its gonna require concentration and an attention span, or at least trust in our leaders to be moving us back towards being a society that serves all of its people. In a global era, Americans have to realize some stark truths; we are not on this planet alone and we don't each automatically get a flat screen TV just for being born. Credit cards are not just free money, and no one owes you anything beyond the best society that we can build as a society together, realizing that we are only as strong as the children that we educate and give a hand up towards knowledge and success.

It was a historic night, and the pessimist in me is a little voiced devil on one shoulder whispering that they're all liars while the hopeful kid is pushing forward thinking maybe, maybe, maybe...
In Jesse Jackson's face you could see the years of the years of marches, the blood of his friend Martin laying on that balcony that day, the failures and struggles and inhuman treatment that has left its enduring mark on us all, but yet still allows our society to produce this shining and beautiful moment.
Obama accepts his place as if its was always destined to be that way, and perhaps it was.

I like him. What I don't much like these days is the American people, half of whom seem content to be greedy pigs regardless of what is going on around them. There is a shamelessness in this country that has grown out of this idea that all we are good for is to be consumers and that we deserve stuff...lots of it. I think that encouraging Americans to be come producers again might just get our asses in gear. Maybe high tariffs on imported goods, like the crap at Walmart, might just snap us back into a world where everything isn't so disposable.

We are blessed with this land that used to be a land of abundance, and we have squandered our principal away at the roulette wheels of unfettered capitalism. It is not our right to be the most powerful or the richest and safest nation in the world. we have to work for it and use our great fortune in so many things to enrich society as a whole rather than just a select few who seem to have forgotten the trickle down part of this setup.

In the beginning of this bizarre nightmare, a few bright lights shone out of the Internets and the radio box, (forget the TV, besides West Wing as a total fantasy of what could never be,) as another great punctuation mark on the Bush years and all that has torn us apart, Jill had this from Crooks and Liars: Irrelevant!Well worth a look if you want to keep in mind the faces of those who dragged us down and who continue to pander to the lowest urges in the human animal.

And for those of us who have felt compelled to document this or purge our tortured souls or try to make some change by yelling like Who's on an elephant's trunk somewhere, visit the Weblogs nomination page and be either nominate a favorite blog, or look through the nominations (in the comments under each category,) and click the little plus sign or number after the blog that you want to be counted for! I'm gonna mention that Brilliant at Breakfast is nominated for Best Blog, best political coverage, best mid-sized, and Jill as best individual blogger. Also look for my all time favorite, Driftglass, under the same categories, and my little RIPCoco as one of the undiscovered gem, all the way at the bottom. Show some love, and nominate anyone who you think deserves mention! If you have a blog, snag a badge and post it, and send your readers over.
Never before have I been more grateful for these voices that have actually, literally saved me during this time...as well as for the outlet for myself. I'm not sure if I'm even going to still have the political voice in me as things settle; I'm thinking about it. Right now, I'm just exhausted and hopeful....at least there are going to be some grownups in the house this time around; how far the American people and the bureaucracy allow that to go will have to be determined.





c/p Brilliant at Breakfast

The Teen Pregnancy of Zoe 101...

I can hear the whispers of the masses rolling eyes, (and Jill screaming,) but I'm afraid that I'm gonna have to say a little something about Jamie Lynne Spears and her unfortunate pregnancy. As repugnant as I find that family's embrace of the trailer park life and their across the board misuse of a huge platform that could be used for some sort of good in the world; as stupid I think she is, and as annoyed as I am about the immediate pile on (well, Huckabee so far,) of the religi-tizing and politicizing of the issue of a young girl deciding to announce to the world that she is having his love child, as opposed to deciding to quietly take care of it, or drop out and have it and adopt it out, or pass it on to a family member, (hopefully not her mom, she seems sort of inept in the parenting department,)there are a few points that Willie Giest and Morning Joe aren't bringing to the table on this; we may have to wait for Oprah, y'know, because she tends to represent the other side of this coin....sometimes....depending on how it spins and where it lands. Heads you're a hero, trailblazer, and tails you're a pathetic victim.

It was my nephew who mentioned it last night as we talked about Christmas on the cell phone. It was a quick turn from him helping Will and Ben set up the Xbox 360 Live, and then a quick mention...had I heard? Of course I had, but 13 year old boys, (as nephew is too,) don't pay much attention, unless its an opening for a cautionary tale of stupidity; that is, unless they have a much younger sister who watches these shows. Suddenly tasked to say the right thing, I tend to do OK, because I believe in treating kids like intelligent beings who have a certain developing moral and ethical core. So, I quickly had to get past the 'stupid trailer-trash' nastiness that goes through my mind whenever certain people fuck up, and get to asking him what he thought. Ah, kids these days....The answers are not far from what you hear on every talk show, except that no one is all that surprised; they are more surprised that she got caught and that she didn't just handle it quietly.


I'm not sure how well this sort of thing goes over these days, in a world where the heroine's sister acts out so badly, and taking into account that, in some part of the culture of their people, it happens and its expected. But in this day and age, its probably worth it to scream the basic fact that these people are incredibly wealthy and they have the luxury to handle this in any way they see fit. That is definitely not true of most young girls in this country. If Jamie Lynn is to be applauded for having a child at 16, and keeping it...even marrying the father, then as much time should be given to the truth about what this situation is outside of the Disney life that these kids are living. Even the Nwe York Times didn't delve further into this than Jamie Lynn's own statement:

''I definitely don't think it's something you should do; it's better to wait,'' she told the magazine. ''But I can't be judgmental because it's a position I put myself in.''

I applaud her realizing that she put herself in this spot, but I cant see how she can just leave that hanging without more than this:

''It was a shock for both of us, so unexpected,'' she said. ''I was in complete and total shock and so was he.''

Oh really? Well, then your tutor didn't do a very good job of explaining what happens when you have unprotected sex, or the condom breaks, or you forget your pill. This was an opportunity missed. So many young girls look up to this kid, and she acts like she had an unexpected visitor from out of town or something.

In a second article, The New York Times covers how this is maybe a good thing because everyone is talking about it; cue Linda Ellerbee for a special program being developed by Nick. But its clear that who is discussing this a New York Times reporter looking on, are older kids who are concerned with their younger sibling's reaction when they find out what Zoe 101 is up to in real life, and the actual younger siblings with a concerned mom present. You see, Zoe is apparently one of the few girl's characters who is empowering to young girls; who has her shit together. As the older girls (and my sister this morning,) are hoping that the younger ones just wont find out, its probably worthwhile to point out that its nearly impossible to stop this news from passing through every school lunchroom in the country. But I'm less worried about girls who are discussing this with their Moms or any sane adult person. Its the ones out there who have to be independent too early, and who are making decisions on the fly with no real base of reality. Its the kids who want someone to pay attention to them and to love them, and who want a dress up doll like Jamie Lynn will no doubt display on the cover of OK and Enquirer. And its every kid who thinks that they are madly in love at 16 years old and who dreams of getting married to that boy. How are they supposed to parse this?


In the real world,so many people, (even blond people,) are not working, and if they are its at some minimum wage job, or jobs, because in most places no one can make ends meet on what you take home from a full time, minimum wage job. If no work can be found, welfare pays only around $350 per month, per kid, and you have to work for that eventually anyway, (like when the baby is 6 weeks old, )so be prepared for the baby to be in daycare beginning quite early. Then, if you can get section 9 housing, you have to pay rent according to what you make, which is a little too high to give you any sort of cushion for anything extra. One kid orders pay per view movies and runs your cable bill up and you're sunk for that month at least, probably much longer...forget the ring tones and all the other trouble that comes up and can totally derail your finances; forget illness, and doctor visits, and transportation, and food...forget it all...$350 per month hardly buys diapers and some food; forget the rest.

Most of the parents I know who are living in what is the inner city here, are trying very hard to watch their kids and stay involved, even though they have to work more than full time and keep house. They also have to trust dwindling government programs and charities to keep the children occupied while they work those long hours. So much falls between the cracks and so much is lost, including some of the children, who make mistakes at a much higher rate than they would if they were raised by at least one parent who has some time. Children definitely act out more and get in more trouble if parents are stretched beyond their ability to cope and if they have to endure long hours at after-school programs. I don't know what the studies say, but I do know what I see all around me, even in a more affluent area where many people work because it takes 2 incomes to make it here.

I suppose you can congratulate any 16 year old boy who wants to marry the mother of his kid, but that is as destined to fail as is the father who is only peripherally involved. It is the rarest of 16 year olds who have the patience or selflessness to take care of a baby, much less raise a child to adulthood. It must be nice to have a financial cushion so that you don't have to go to school, work, and then come home and care for your child; it must be nice.

In reality, having a baby in the best of circumstances is the hardest thing any of us will ever do. They need so much attention and require so much sacrifice. They also give alot of joy. But I cant imagine, having raised one alone but with independent income, what it would be like not to have any financial resources, trying to make ends meet, and to have to work the way I'm seeing people work, if they can even find jobs. Its a wonder that people can find any joy at all in lives that must seem pretty bleak, and its a wonder that more people aren't throwing their babies out the window, with how very difficult it is to care for an infant, even with 2 people helping each other.

I'm sure that the early tribal model of sex separated long houses worked better for raising kids because the whole society pitched in and fulfilled specific purposes, with the babies being cared for by large groups of supportive women, and the men taking the boys as soon as they got a little older. I'm not espousing any societal model, but, it seems like the nuclear family's breakdown has led to this destructive cycle of kids bound to repeat the actions that they've lived through, no matter how much their parents try to protect them. Some of this is because the education system is screwed up, and we need to infuse it with money of the kind that has been pissed away in Iraq, but more of it is the troubling truth that its unclear to kids what they can be, and where they fit in society anymore. If kids dont have a strong sense of self and worth, how can they want to go further than the walls of their own personal barrio? There are no jobs, really. What are kids supposed to aspire to anymore? We cant even offer a secure factory job, much less technical jobs...forget it. Everyone seems to be dreaming of being a star and winning the lotto. There are no more realistic aspirations for the majority of kids coming out of the government system.

So, while Nick scrambles to serve the stockholders, as sponsors jump ship, and while the rest of us talk about how stupid and trashy the Spears family is, lets keep in mind that even if we say its bad, someone out there will think that its OK and even possible because Zoe 101 did it. This is an opportunity to talk to kids about this and to have a real conversation. This is about the structure of our society; Huckabee wants the church to embrace and forgive her? How about a strong statement about how to fight poverty and stem this problem by allowing more wiggle room for parents to be with their LIVE kids, and about actual money pledged to allow the existing kids in this country to have more life experiences that indicate to them that there is a future out there and that they can make choices that effect their lives in many ways. They have a choice and they have control of deciding NOT to take stupid chances that will change the entire course of their lives. The power of making choices with an eye to the long term and the importance of critical decision making, is something that is missing in a society where its easier to redistribute society's wealth when you have a population that is undereducated, poor, and scared. In taking the easy way out, we are exacerbating the problem. Its penny wise, (and not even,) but pound foolish!

This is not about a foolish rich girl doing something stupid. Its about the reverberations that shift our culture more and more towards a helpless model of despair, (i.e. learned helplessness,) on every level of society, and which will impact each part differently, but ultimately effect us all.

The War May Well be the Least of Our Problems: Suicide in the Military; CBS Reports

Despite the best efforts of the department of defense, stories of a surge in veteran and active duty, in country, soldier suicides have plagued this war since we settled in for our long, long stay. Many have been presented as anecdotal, even though they really represented an alarming trend in what amounts to lack of treatment and understanding of what the problems of soldiers are going to be as this war winds on. Most Americans cant seem to focus for long on much these days, and the inability to view even a people magazine article as an indicator of a trend, leaves most regular people unprepared for the real sacrifices that are going to be necessary and the ground work being laid. Surely the care of thousands of depressed and PTSD citizens is not part of the grand budgeting for this war.

In this new world, where we are told to go shopping rather than make any vague sort of sacrifice, where we are not allowed to see even photographs of caskets being offloaded from military transports, where most communities are ill-prepared for their damaged brothers and sisters return to normal life, something is gonna have to give.

Now comes word that CBS has done that rare thing which we see so seldom these days from our media conglomerates; they actually did some research and dug up some information ...and then even reported a real story. So odd was this phenomenon that the method is part of the story, in that they first took the numbers from the states, then took the military numbers...then...then...Its all very fascinating and I hope that it gets huge ratings so that other M$M reporters might look up from their daily briefing from the White House, get off their asses, and look critically at some independent statistics.

According to Alternet CBS has uncovered some hidden statistics that the counters would prefer that we not know in this time of "the surge is working," (if you don't count the "crime" shootings in the front of the head, or was that the sectarian shootings in the back of the head?) Our brave soldiers are committing suicide at an alarming rate. We are talking about 120 dead per week, which is an average of 17 every day!

Anyone that has ever dealt with mental illness of any sort; PTSD, depression, or suicidal ideology, can tell you that an attempted or completed suicide comes from a place of complete and utter pain, such despair and desolation, a break from reality, and that it is not a situation usually where someone hasn't at least tried to get some relief in other ways. Blame it on the anti-malaria drug, the war, or any number of factors, the numbers are going up and regardless of the cause, its a problem that belongs to us all.

The fact that the veterans administration is not prepared for the physical injuries that this war has wrought is well documented, but the real rub here is going to be the numbers of psychologically damaged soldiers returning on top of those that are here already, that are not being treated properly, if they can be treated at all, and who are going to overwhelm a system that is unprepared for this. With the VA backlog already in the millions, how is this problem going to play out in our cities and towns? There is no money for this...there are not enough trained professionals at the ready, there is a lack of mental health care on the ground in Iraq, when some of this could be caught early, and the line snakes around the corner and back again.

The hot career path of the future may well be in mental health, folks. This is not the stuff of take a Prozac and feel better. This is not social anxiety like on the commercials. Its debilitating and disabling, and the cure is not simple. The numbers are bad enough right now, but the stories of the government propping up and shipping out anyone who isn't actively cutting their wrists on their way to the airport, are troubling, to say the least.

Meanwhile, many of those who are able to get enough help to at least document their problems, are dismissed as having "personal problems" rather than any reaction to the war, violence, long deployments and redeployment's, and a different type of percussive head injury that is probably not fully understood yet. I could also imagine that anyone in the position of having volunteered as a reservist and then realized that they were going into war, untrained for the most part, unequipped, and that the tours have been extended and are going to be repeated, might feel quite a bit of helplessness and despair. Add to that the ongoing grind of an ill conceived war that has had our forces clearing one area and then moving on, only to have to come back to the same area again...in other words, there are not enough forces there to hold any part of what they are able to clear.The frustration of risking your life every day for a policing operation that never ends, is some sort of nightmare; you roll the boulder up the hill and it rolls back down...forever...At some point it must be nice to be someone who can embrace the talking points and follow orders blindly, but it must be pretty damned hard for anyone over there right now not to see whats happening on the ground.

We can only extrapolate from CBS's numbers that many, many active duty soldiers are feeling really badly...and I mean that in a dangerous sense. How many depressed and suicidal soldiers are out there as important parts of squadrons on patrol? How many armed veterans are walking around at home with unaddressed despair?
Our unpreparedness and obvious inability to treat the epidemic of PTSD and depression in the military is not only inhuman treatment of society's bravest members, but it is actual torture. What are we going to do when the military, lacking resources to deal with this problem, is flooded with returnees? What of the outsourced army who definitely have the same sorts of problems? What are we gonna do?

I've Been Twittered, God Help Me! Micro-Blogging from Hell....

I am a huge fan of Leo Laporte and his TWIT podcasts. Yeah, I'm a tech geek girl, and one of my long term plans has been to put together a tech blog with alot of contributers. I set that one up a long time ago, but so far haven't had the time to get it going.
Meantime, I've grown the tendency to listen to these things more than I normally would, because Air America Radio has gotten so screwed up as to be...well, alot of it is unlistenable, and the truly talented, revolutionary, and interesting shows have been cut back and cut off.
Its not often that I stop the car while running around and write things down to check out later, but I do that often with the Leo's shows and Ive found some pretty cool stuff that way. I used to do that while listening to Morning Sedition when they would interview an
author or talk about an issue. They sold quite a few ipods that way via Marc Maron's slow adoption of technology and hilarious assimilation to the i-borg.

Well, in the spirit of working my way down the long list of things that I wanted to look into, I have been looking at this online social network called Twitter that Leo Laporte is all involved with. Leo loves it and its copy twins out there and has been on it for quite some time (though I cant seem to find him...thats just problem one.) I looked at it when it first began, and I used it a little, but it seemed sort of pointless and ive been so busy and caught up in the past couple of years that Im lucky to have time for my personal email much less an ongoing conversation with the internets and its denizens...beyond long form blogging,of course.

Recently Leo has been talking about it again and so, in a low moment when I was sinking beneath the family thanksgiving dysfunction, the early darkness, and the political swirl thats making my head hurt and not forming itself into a real post...yet...I went on and recalled my password and user name, which is apparently Melina Celeste because someone has Melina already.

I looked around and...I dunno...maybe its that I hardly have enough time to make it through what Ive selected for my Google reader, or that I prefer to do things in real life...often alone...but not needing to report my every move to the internets, but it seemed sort of silly.

So, yesterday I got some mail on my Treo that someone that I don't know was "following me" on Twitter. I guess that's what they do there, but it seems sort of creepy. Maybe if you have lots of friends online and on twitter who are hanging on your every movement, it is a good thing? I guess that Leo is thinking of using his Twitter time line to do a book. Could be interesting in that he travels so much and does so many interesting things. But, what civilian has time for this? I was thinking that this is probably going to be the next big thing for reaching America's youth. Doesn't it just smack of what bored college students do during class?

After a couple more emails about some men following me, I went on last night and I figured that maybe I should try to find something to use the thing for before I give up on it, so I searched for John Edwards. Sure enough he is there, or someone pretending to be him. I added him as my only friend, and was about to look for Elvis Costello or The Replacements, when something happened here and I signed off.

This morning, when I opened my email I had around 20 more people following me.
Now, knowing that my ONLY friend (in the world, at this point,) is John Edwards, he is, of course, following me, but the ones who came next were just so interesting:
First came Bill Richardson, then Ron Paul from last evening...hmmm...then some other personal emails...then all in a row beginning at midnight: Joe Biden, Mike Gravel (with video footage of his debate with himself, among other things,) Dennis Kucinich, followed quickly by Sam Brownback, and Rudy Giuilani, of all people! Then came Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Duncan Hunter, Mitt Romney, and Tommy Thompson. Bringing up the rear was Hillary Clinton! I cant tell if these are entities that are sanctioned by the campaigns or what...but it would be a good way to combat swiftboating smears (more on that later in the supposed post that is forming in my jumbled mind.)

Some time around daybreak, Barak Obama got on my tail, followed by Johnny just checking in, and then Chris Dodd and Tom Tancredo. Finally, much later, Fred Thompson Sauntered into the line....and then it stopped.

Maybe they only come out at night, or maybe I have to go onto Twitter and tell them all something to get more attention (like to go away!) But if I follow the links that they provide they tend to go to alot of input from other entities that support the person, and its unclear to me yet how the thing works exactly.

Here's the thing: This technology was originally aimed at texting on cellphones. We know that texting is very important, not just so that our kids can endlessly chat with their friends without using up all the cell minutes, but also because texting is the security system that works best in reaching large groups of young folks, like entire college campus' that have a mad shooter on the loose. Part of the reason that I have encouraged it in the 13 year old boys here is that half the time we don't have a cell signal, and so we text to be sure to reach one another.

There is nothing worse than unsolicited texts or the idea of wireless companies allowing anything of the sort, but on Twitter and its ilk, (with Twitter currently being the biggest,) you have a potentially large audience that is asking for a quick sentence about what's going on from those they care to hear from, and a huge group of what must be kids, (and Leo, of course,) telling you what they are currently doing.

The marketing potential of something like that could be fantastic, as the stumbling candidates are sorta slowly learning. But I actually think that it could be more useful as a tool by someone who could create or BE a persona that kids WANT to hear from, who can impart fun and important information to them. Like if Bon Jovi or Springsteen,or whoever is hot these days would do one for a candidate, for instance. It could also be a good way to cut through some of the main stream media crap that is being fed to us all.

The problem that I see out there now is that each message from a candidate or those pretending to be them, just sends you to a web page or a YouTube type service. I know that the personal items are just sentences, and I think that must be a much more functional way to use the service. Twitter takes URL's and automatically turns them into TinyUrl's and sends them as links, which is good if you're sitting at your computer, and if you want to follow another link...but if you're in line somewhere or in class, or at a boring performance...the sentence thing seems like it could be used in a way that wouldn't involve alot of getting your phone onto the internet slowly to look at something. I have broadband service on my Treo and I still avoid going on the Internet unless I know what I'm gonna be looking at.

I wonder how much good information can be sent out to a large group in a sentence or 140 characters? Or if announcements or puzzle pieces could be sent in a way that would make people a part of something different than the usual web site thing.

I think I'm gonna look into Twitter and see what it really can do, if it crosses language barriers, and how large of a following someone can have. Its an interesting idea to use cell phones and single sentences to communicate with large groups if people, at a rally or gathering...or even just waiting in line bored somewhere.

So, if you re on Twitter, follow Melina Celeste. You'll be in good company, as I seem to attract politicians of all stripes, or their doppelgangers....Hey, maybe its fun!...probably not, but it could be something to do and maybe more....

Israel, Iran, Iraq, Lieberman Speaks w/ Foot-in-Mouth Again...Half-Breed Is All I Ever Heard.....And Tony Soprano Through The Looking Glass.....

A couple of weeks ago I was at the bar mitzvah of a close friend's son, and had the opportunity to talk with another friend's husband from here in Stamford, and a certain not so little community of Jews in and around Revonah, from which has spawned the likes of Senator Joementum Lieberman. We were looking at the glass cases of Jewish memorabilia and I was commenting on how my grandfather has a piece of camp money just like what we were looking at, framed on his wall....an old friend or business acquaintance had given it to him when Grandpa was doing something or other for Israel in the olden days. There was something about me declaring in some way that a part of my family had done something for Israel and the Jewish community in New York that sort of emboldened him into thinking that I was of the like mind that is whispered in the Jewish community here.
The wife, a friend of mine who is liberal but who seems to draw the line in what we can discuss, at Israel (and believe me, I don't think this can be discussed, any more than any religiously driven war can,) knows most of my politics and was literally stuffing her husband into the car as he exclaimed "I hope that Bush just hurries up and attacks Iran and gets it over with for the sake of Israel, before hes out of office...."
I think I was screeching, "ARE YOU KIDDING?" as I saw her lips moving furiously behind the Volvo glass and they proceeded to wave nicely and drive away...clenched teeth probably muttering about how I'm not one of them...not really...My Mom is a catholic, don't you know!...never was, never could be...thats the heart of it; Whats your Mom?
One thing thats really gotten to me about a big part of the Jewish community here (and probably in general) is that they worship Israel as a promised land in such a knee jerk fashion, and if I ever get down to really talking with most of these people, their feelings are not based in logic and reality, but in fear and indoctrination. I know people who go there for summers as if its their country home, people who plan to be buried there, and people, like this guy, who want to go and settle the front lines there and be a human shield to protect Israel from the evil Palestinians. I should add that his wife poo-poohs that, and says that they will, of course, never do that. But that doesn't stop them from indoctrinating their kids with this deep love of Israel as their REAL country and where they should be sending their resources. And to hear her son talk about the deep spiritual feeling that he got from being in Israel with a big group from his Jewish school in the yearly trips they take, added to his other trips, and how he wanted to raise more money for Israel...well....
whatever....
I'm working with people in the inner city and busting my ass here to try to get computers and supplies to the "other America," which John Edwards speaks of, and which exists in greater and greater numbers right here, next door....people who cant get jobs and until recently, an uninformed voting block of young people who felt like they had no say in anything...so why bother voting...? That is until you lose your country twice to election fraud that made each and every vote count so much that...well, it would be a different world right now if nader had stepped back, and if every kid had voted...and if everyone who wanted to vote had been able to.

Another friend, who is much less involved with the whole synagogue world and more liberal and involved in the American community here...this community of immigrants and a rainbow of people outside of the Revonah Woods world, ...her older son's bar mitzvah project involved bringing canned foods to the poor in our town here....Social jews like I grew up with who havent gone overboard and carefully reach out to all of those around them.
My feeling is that if you are an American and you see that there are lots of problems here...you are educating your kids here and you have a career here...you pay into the system here and expect to retire here...and expect your grandkids to be raised here...then you may be an American, not an Israeli. The huge American investment in Israel has to do with many things, with fear being key to alot of the heavy support that I see. I'm talking about people who, if you question them closer, have been raised in synagogues and homes where they have been told that when there is another Holocaust, they will need a land to flee to. This is stated as if the Jews are the only group that have or will ever have a Holocaust type of crime committed against them...and, in my mind, in the same world where the Darfur genocide is happening right now, how can any of this make sense?
If, and its a big if, there were ever a holocaust here, we would all band together as Americans and fight it...not flee to another country. To expect less is a slap in the face to me and every other American halfbreed shiksa spawn, not to mention gentile and/or human being, including the Muslims, who it is said, are told by the Koran to "kill the Jews."....
When does the insanity end?

Its one thing to hear this stuff from old people in their 90's who were in the camps and who's parents fled the Nazi's or the pogroms or whatever. Its wholly different to see my peers: educated, liberal, Americans in their 40's, with careers and families, disolve into the line of "the rabbis always said..." or "we were raised to think..."
What do you think now? Where is your information coming from? And who told you that Faux news was incorrect on most issues but the ONLY network that was truthfully reporting on Israel?
These are all things that Ive heard on a daily basis around here...and things that I never wanted to go into.
Part of it is my very real hurt from the Jews in my life making it clear to me that I was not a full fledged member of my father's family because my Mom is a Catholic. But this message also came from people who are "social Jews" and who never took the time to try to officially convert us, much less to attend any synagogues regularly themselves. But somewhere there is the idea of not only having male heirs, and that sexism thing, and also having real Jew male heirs, that seems to jump across all logical reality and rest somewhere in between the cracks of the Western Wall....
"Thank you god that I was not born a woman..."
Yeah, right...good luck with that, bub!


If you are an immigrant you love and support your home country, but you also embrace your new country as your own...especially a couple of generations down the line?
I am an American out of Russia and Germany and Sweden and off the Fucking Mayflower, and Im a little tired of people funneling money to other countries for whatever reasons that are not about actually about helping people for humanitarian reasons!
Lets be clear once and for all about what our reasons are for supporting Israel or Darfur or Iraq and Iran, and if they make any sense along the way, OK?
You left your family behind to try to blaze a new trail in a country where there is more (though less and less) opportunity than where you came from? OK...
You want to spread our brand of democracy to a country that hasn't asked for it? Not OK...
You want oil, military bases, and land for your own land....I can understand that on some level, so OK...(it at least makes some basic sense from a certain point of view.)
You think that a holocaust is coming to your people and you think that God gave you the land of your God, where all sorts of religious things happened and that were written on stone and on papyrus leaves ...and then told through generations...and then some thousands of years later the UN decided in some back room dealings to GIVE you God's lands officially....and you have to flee there because you are unsafe here...?...less safe than any other group in particular?
Its a little far fetched to me....a long religious war ensues and no one will ever back down? Not OK....
I will be able to accept it all when this guy and his family, and Joe Lieberman and his family, move to Israel and give up their American citizenship in order to protect what God has left to them. Otherwise, what is it exactly that Joe is talking about here?
I cant embed the video here yet, but the link just above will take you to Joe's comments on Iran and our need to go in there and show them who is boss...not like, a ground war mind you...but use of force in one way or another , regardless of what it would mean to the balance of things, diplomacy, our inept leaders...just use this fucked up administration to carry out what is the Jewish line around here, and probably elsewhere; Iran is a danger to Israel and America needs to take it out.
Screw the crap about military bases and whatever else Joe is spewing...he is full of lies...and Mark Green has removed Sam Seder, Marc Maron, and anyone else from the airwaves who will speak out about this...(well, maybe Randi....but last I heard, she wont speak about Israel.)

I have no real dog in this fight except that I want to stop the war, bring our troops as close to home as we can, as quickly as we can...and I really want to see America start working on border security, import-export security, and re-regulation of big business and the divide between the CEO level and the workers in this country...the Two Americas as John Edwards would say....health care...and a turn towards a basically more socialist form of democracy. The unregulated, unexamined growth of capitalism has been a disaster, and its not gonna work...so, again, we have to turn this boat around before it hits an iceberg.
I think that ultimately, even in these strange times that we're living in, the human suffering involved in this piece of things already is more than is morally acceptable to most Americans.



Yesterday and last night I kept trying to write a post here that was going round and round in some fun house mirror-broken image that life seems to have become for me these days. I was talking about how maybe none of this or anything is real, and how it seems almost like a grand kabuki dance representing the deep dysfunction inherent in the human condition (yes I have been reading a very old translation of Bernard Henri Levy's Barbarism With a Human face...and yes, I know that its probably not the best thing for me to read right now...) ...and also a repeat of what this species seems to do over and over again...Which has something to do with the definition of insanity, right? But its not even the expectation of a different outcome, because this time God is real, and this guy knows what hes doing, that has me in a twist; its the weakness with which we take for granted the swarm of paparazzi on the screeching Hilton's car, her anguished face and mental illness splashed across the Post, because this picture is what WE want...we want it; and what the public wants , the public gets...the specter of McCain AGAIN given feature slot o' Sunday time to spew HIS garbage......
AND the return to negotiation of a political party that we put into power recently to go and do our bidding, as if we really didn't mean END THE WAR!....and its the very loud hole in our press coverage of how devastating the worldwide outcry against America has been as Bush makes his tour through the waning moments of "power," or whatever they are calling that particular psychopathology anymore. Lame sociopath....
Friday, somewhere between Kieth Olbermann pulling his ear piece out, because he too is 3 weeks behind on the Sopranos and he didn't want to hear the guest commentator's wrap down of the last few episodes, and midnight, I decided to stop what I was trying to do and watch a mini Sopranos marathon so I could stop humming loudly whenever it comes up on whatever new show I'm watching....and to avoid the inevitable spoilers for the rest of the week as this thing gets deconstructed.
And there, in the last episode when the three pronged death plot is put in place, and slo-mo blood flies, between the glaring mention of Sylvio being in "critical condition," (because Miami Steve keeps his options open,) and Tony going to sleep cradling his uzi (...in what I think might have been his mother's bed...?...ah, who knows?....,)I was again struck by the universality of what seems to be basic human animal instinct...and just a little bit of history repeating...
These people are not my friends and I don't think Ill miss them. I grew up with one too many people like that in Brooklyn.... and when it comes down to the cocktail party where a dazed and confused Melfi is, finally, after all of these years, looking at the situation and saying to herself..." you think so?...hmmm..maybe I'll have to check that out..." Like that was the first time she really looked into what was going on...? PLEASE!!...I just sort of lost it. If it wasn't so true to life, or what passes for MY life, it would be laughable.
You know who she reminds me of? Condi Rice!! A highly educated puppet for whatever leader makes her feel like a woman out of control and a man in control all at the same time....and she falls for it hook, line, and sinker...its fascinating and powerful and sexy and fun....and it has an ideology and intellectual basis that gives it some reason...but does that make it right? And has she or any of us struggled enough with the ramifications of entertaining the emotional basis of this type of pathological, aberrant behavior, explained away as necessity or illness or whatever...and is it aberrant behavior anyway?...and how does that make YOU feel?.... But what compels her to set aside common logic and treat this guy, even after she realized what was going on? Would it be the same if he was, say, a pedophile as opposed to a murderer and crime boss? Both types of sociopaths cant be cured and use the psychological system to strengthen themselves...so why would one be acceptable and one not?...ah, its social....:
The sleazy Bogdonovitch, playing himself, no doubt, uses Melfi's dangerous patient as a titillating cocktail conversation booster for his own bored and boring purposes. ( Hey now, there is a shrink I'd like to confide in...not!!...but then I thought he was reprehensible from the get go.) Suddenly then, in the light of her half drunk shrink friends, she could see clearly the line she had been straddling for too many years. ...or at least the need to read the fucking study...sheesh!
As is usual in these matters, the shrink is more fucked up than the patient...or was it supposed to be partly about that anyway? Like, were we supposed to take her seriously all of these years?

How does one put one foot in front of the other, moving forward with such surety, effecting the world, but not ever stopping to look at what the repercussions are?....like, what if you're wrong, or you missed something? Does it take a huge table of your peers gossiping snarkily to make you go, "hmmmm....I should look at that." What is it with shrinks these days?


And then, what of George Bush and his crew...his doctors, his psychopharmacologist, his advisors..? The bubble of yes-men has surely broken enough that he can see who is screaming at him to look closer at what the people want....or, at least to look at his own legacy, if nothing else!
What is that all about if not the ongoing delusion of a sociopath and his enablers?

So, like a count of the dead in Iraq since the Democrats decided to vote to fund the surge, maybe Melfi has to take a look at who got killed while she, a professional with a duty to report abuse or murder, turned a blind eye and, in fact, supported his sociopath tendencies.
And Melfi is not real...its the Bushies who need to take a good hard look at themselves and, for lack of a better explanation of what the fuck has happened to this country, go directly to jail...or at least step down and slither away like the snakes they are.

If this is some sorta Kabuki representing all of man's history from the primordial ooze, to the intelligent design mid-section (which people sorta halfway have to believe when the alternative is the nothing but blackness beyond this place,) to George Jetson's "Jane, stop this crazy thing!" its a slo-mo dance of the absolute ...denial and power and surety to a fault, yet all based in fear and control.

This is the ME generation's reality, which is that individual interest seems to trump even the survival of the species or planet....so ME must go on somehow and you...um...ME... should be able to take it with you/ME/I.
And nothing is really wrong with that because its instinct to feather your nest at the expense of others...and that is a great argument for Darwinism in and of itself! Self delusion about you and your kind does nothing if not move evolution along in one way or another.

But, Don't we wreck everything ultimately? ...and dont we do it over and over again in a predictable manner?
And sometimes it seems to me that its the artists, the empathetic commentators, the emotional liabilities, who are not bound to survive in the grand scheme of things. People who think and feel are probably on the way out, folks...surety is in, no matter what it takes down with it. As long as God is on my side, I know what to do...whats right...and I'll have fries with that!
That may be the base of the neocon movement and the mafia and humanity, when it comes down to it....
Ethics and morality and the endless agony of the poets...the philosophers and comics...gone!
Its hedge fund time, baby!!

I keep thinking that there is the possibility that they know something that we dont...and its probably that the niceness and order that we are trying to impose onto the barbaric animals that we really are,...impose rules by any means possible,...is folly. We are not built that way...and its not necessarily kindness and gentleness that is seen in the Bible, unless you pick and choose among some certain things that Jesus said in the New Testament...OK, OK, OK....
Maybe I'm delving a little too close to that all popular Catholic belief that mankind is born bad (bad, bad, bad!)....I don't mean that at all, (I only got that halfway anyway...the other half is Jewish neurosis; which maybe also translates to bad, but not fromt he same root....) I just mean that if we are to deny the base animal form of humans, we cant ever deal with the parts of ourselves that want to control all the oil in the world, much less the neighborhood and asbestos dumping.
As far as Tony Soprano being the everyman representing the neocon movement and their cluelessness about their own sociopath insides (...but then, I don't know how much sociopaths are really in touch with their insides at all, or how much they feel that the rules of society relate to them in particular,) I cant say much more,....
But I did want to say that that Jill bowled me over Saturday morning with her take on the state of things as seen through the Sopranos lens, over at Brilliant at Breakfast, and probably said alot of this more concisely than I ever could in my wandering wordiness.

So long Tony...if he lives or dies...well, I don't care, and I'm not so sure that is the point or if it matters anyway . It seems to me that the real essence of this whole thing with the family, the kids the pool, taking out the garbage, and living the "real life," is the image of Tony in the bed cradling his "gun"...Did anything thats happened over all these years make any difference in Tony at all? The therapy? The deaths? The attempted suicide by his son?....I don't think so...
I keep thinking that at the end of the last episode he will wake up from a long, long dream and put on his suit and go to his job as a stockbroker in Manhattan or something...wouldn't that be the cherry on the cake? The Who Shot J.R.? ...man, was this a big waste of time manipulation or what?
Have we really looked into ourselves and learned from Tony? Can you learn from a bozo sociopath?...just remember that no one ever really changes...ever...
I'm not saying that I haven't enjoyed the ride, and the cinematography and the scenery of my childhood...but I'm glad its over. Lets move on.

Big Love is back on Monday...the surge continues and no plans to pull out are forthcoming, I get the watch the entire Tudors season on DVD, and Big Brother is starting soon.
Not only that, the bird store is brimming with babies...pin feathered, half naked, squawking, screaming babies...(and Todd there at midnight feeding them, ...and hearing the squawking on the phone....and I can only equate it to having an infant human, in the exhaustion and circle running that goes on every spring in that world....)
And I need someone to come here and build me a little chicken coop (if you know of a carpenter who needs some work!) I want a couple of chickens.
And just now, in the supermarket parkign lot, a man with a "Jesus Saves" cap on came over to tell me that he could tell from my "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" bumper sticker that I would understnad about the chemical trails in the sky and the unmarked planes dumping chemicals over us...how the sky was trying so hard to rain...how he could see that I believed in the rapture and he was glad I did....and I just said that none of it mattered except that we have to end the war(s) and bring the troops home...sort the rest out later.
And he said, "you know, the first time I voted for Bush it was because I was convinced that he was a man of faith...it was completely about his religion...then I realized that he is not a religious guy. Who was it that said that when you get to heaven in the rapture the people there are not going to be who you thought would be there at all...?" I told him that I didnt believe in the rapture and that if there was any chance of any of these people being there that I will take my chances with the alternative...but that no God that I could ever imagine, determines the afterlife fortunes of one or another person based on some earthly ideal made up by...um...man!
something like that...I dunno...
The sky is full of chemicals and the internets have been down all day...and finally Dell and Cablevision have BOTH taken responsibility for the insane amount of tech problems that Ive been having here...so maybe the end times are near! I'll know when my network finally works smoothly that its time to prepare for the rapture...Until then, its just goona have to be some sort of backing up of that sucker until youre sure that its not goning to the big garbage can in the ether....(where it maybe belongs anyway...yeah!)

The Rapture of the Bees...Is Maureen Dowd Necessary?...

Sorry to disappoint any fundamentalists out there, but its about as likely that God has raptured the bees to heaven to pollinate his heavenly crops as it is that hes gonna be rapturing you anytime soon! The NY Times Science Times this week had another piece on the mysterious and alarming disappearance of whole colonies of bees, called "colony collapse disorder." As their name implies, the most likely reasonable and scientific explanations are fungus, virus, or pesticides. But the snippet about the theories that abound on the internet and that bee rapture is one of them, are just great....As Marc Maron says in his current live show (appearing tonight and for the next few nights in LA with Janeane Garafolo and Henry Rollins...its a great show...check it out if you're out west!,) how fun a day will the rapture be for those of us who are unbelievers?...How great to see those "good" rapturous Christians go shooting off into the air like fireworks!
I had read somewhere, on some blog which I cant remember (but if anyone knows please let me know so I can give credit,) that also, of course we get their stuff. They wont need it in heaven anyway where they will have halos wings and apparently ...bees! They can also take the mosquitoes, mayflies, and houseflies too...oh, and the huge wasp that is stuck in the bathroom light upstairs...ok?...are we not all God's creatures?

In all seriousness, we have to get to the bottom of this bee thing or we are going to be looking at a huge and quick change in the foods available on this planet. Earth day always does this to me...Its the day before my birthday and I remember that even when I was a little kid that my Mom would take me to fairs in Brooklyn where we would buy ladybug and praying mantis eggs to put in the garden (not our garden, but Mom kept a line of pots and bulbs planted along the fence and constantly threw things like lady bug eggs onto the cocktail parties going on over there...don't even ask about the eggs hatching in the house because she forgot they were on the windowsill over the kitchen sink!....) I grew up with this strong feeling instilled in me of the earth as a fragile thing that was, back then, in danger...Ah, the 70's, when we were so innocent. The worst thing was the gas lines or that Jimmy Carter's rescue plans went bad...
I always get more environmental around my birthday, what with the spring coming and the growing urgency of what is going on, between what we have learned from Al Gore's movie and the press that problems like this bee problem are getting.

In much, much less serious matters, Maureen Dowd has weighed in this week twice on non-issues that are probably not worth the 0's and 1's used here to transmit this into the internet tubes. And no, I'm not going to waste anyone's time by posting them because they are...um...as vapid as she has been since her little vacation, and probably alot before that too...not even snarkily clever or cute...just stupid. You can always do a Google search for where they're posted if you haven't got Times Select, but if I were a paid Times Select reader (rather than a NY Times hard copy subscriber who gets Select in the package,) I would think twice about what I'm paying for. Dowd is quickly making herself irrelevant as she consistently focuses on what she, herself, in some previous incarnation, might point out to be be the silly girly pink story.
There are so many important stories being reported and/or not reported at all, and I cant believe that Edward's hair bills and Michelle Obama's chiding her husband are the most important things that she is thinking about. I guess that its a good sign that I'm not hanging on to her solely because she has been one of the few semi-reasonable voices in the press during the desperate times over the past 6+ years. Its a good sign that so many reporters have found their voices out there and that Americans are opening up to the truth and that its being reported more regularly.
So, do we need Dowd? In my mind, she is unimportant to the current discourse, and unless she finds something that grabs her attention that isn't about sitcom marital squabbles or a candidates hair, I'm not interested.
This is the thing: It serves a certain portion of our society to keep the majority in the dark about how the monied minority lives. In a capitalist society any of us can become rich enough to go to a salon that is going to charge more or less for a haircut, as long as it doesn't hurt or inconvenience anyone else. If that person spends $400 on a haircut and never gives to charity or has an attitude that the resources are god given rather than the product of hard work and the luck of the system, then maybe we can talk about it a bit and what it means in the bigger picture to be driving a Hummer with a Bush-Cheney sticker on it.
If the poor of this country are going to be caught up in how much a haircut costs, or that Al Franken got 2 million dollars from Air America, or any of these little facts that are presented in a vacuum, as if people aren't spending billions of dollars on every little thing that you or I can get cheaper with a coupon (not to mention the war, which has no real purpose, and has served to funnel more money into the pockets of those same rich folks, and I'd like to see the production bills on that spin machine!,) then they are not focusing on the real issues. The majority of this country is supposed to be surprised that things in New York City cost what they do, and rather than ask why those people are getting a tax cut, go out and buy a lottery ticket and hope against hope that they will be the one in 10 million who can join those ranks. To focus on what you cold buy with that $400 is not the point, but its what people like Dowd seem to want you to look at. Its almost like Michelle Malkin sneering "Dont you just wonder sometimes if maybe he didn't shoot himself in the leg just to garner sympathy?"....I say, what is it that I am not looking at because I'm being told to look over there at that shiny thing!?


John Edwards is rich; get used to it. Unlike the Bushies though, he has made his money by representing cases that, if you get past the "ambulance chaser" label, were actually class actions having to do with big business knowingly cutting corners and hurting people like you and me. Those people were also compensated in as large a sense as their lawyer was. He is not a guy who has stood outside of hospitals looking for someone who just got in a fender bender ( I've known some of those and they are not John Edwards...at least they are not spending any time running the Southern Poverty Law Center or the like.) If a lawyer who takes a large class action case does so for a portion of the proceeds, and the award is huge, (as they are usually set by the jury, which is also supposedly a sampling of people just like you or me,) then why would anyone in this capitalist society deny him the fruits of that labor? Isnt it a double standard to pin that label on Edwards before looking at his record in these things? Does he really belong in the same catagory as 1-800-LAW-YERS? And isn't our anger at lawyers in this society misdirected anyway? Who hasnt sat across from a lawyer and looked at the clock counting the hundreds of dollars slippign away? Who hasnt shot the shit on the telephone with their lawyer only to see that the shit shooting time is included in the bill? It seems to me that that there are bad ones and good ones. Maybe they are overpaid in some areas, and maybe the structure of some of these all or nothing class actions is wrong...but, I think that we might not see many of those cases if the class cant be empowered by a lawyer who is willing to risk his or her time in an all or none gamble...and surely, large corporations like tobacco compaanies have not been lining up historically to release information on the detrimental and deadly dangers of their products.

So then, as a public person, in a society that is almost completely based on looks, he is criticized for having a stylist and for getting a haircut....? Dowd thinks that Edwards should go to the barber on Capital Hill, just like her dad did when it cost 25 cents to get a haircut...huh? Is that what she does before making public appearances? The guy is and was running for President of the United States....and if this is such an issue, I think that its time for us to demand the stylist bills from all of the candidates. If Edwards is going to be vilified for his cuteness, then I think we need to see all of the evidence...because, I would expect that the bills for all the rest of them are probably just as high. The difference is who holds up an entire airport by blocking a runway while waiting for a haircut, and who only spends time at spas and does nothing charitable in the world? Or, more to the point, at Dick and Lynn Cheney's totally solar powered compound in Wyoming, does the salon just come to them in a dark sedan? I expect that we are paying for it no matter if its called the Pink Sparkle Diamond Girl's Club or Joe's Head polishing and Bullet removal Service I just don't think that you can compare the life of a John Edwards, running from place to place and making public appearances, to ...me or you. And the truth is that the stylists who style TV and print are different in that they know about how color looks on screen and how to correct what would be a deathly white look under certain lights. They are also union workers in many cases and I don't know how reasonable it is to use a local barber to prepare for television appearances or if you wouldnt end up crossing a picket line at a film studio somewhere, depending on what the preparation was for. In the YouTube world, I would consider that a pretty reasonable cost. If he went to a local salon with a stupid name for highlights because he was reading washed out on camera, or his campaign wants to position him as sun washed, what is it to Dowd? Hell, 50 or 60 years ago when Dowd was a little girl, times were different in Washington...but, I would venture to say that she is part of the machine that stands poised to tear a John Edwards down for a bad haircut or unmatched foundation, so he is doing the right thing in making sure that he stays blow dried and streaked, and it is a campaign cost, just as surely as the clothes that he wears for appearances are.
I'd be interested in knowing how many consultants and stylists were paid to reconfigure Hillary's frumpiness or Rudy's hair (that must have taken an army!)...I could go on, buts lets not....
I'm not gonna link to it, so again, you'll have to go find it, but today Dowd insults her readers by questioning the relationship between Barak and Michelle Obama and if it plays well that she jokes around with him about the god on the campaign trail vs. the man at home who cant pick up after himself.
If Hillary can knowingly wink at her audience about what its like to live with a philandering egotistical man...any man...then so can Michelle. Dowd feigns concern that it might come off as too motherly and as if Barak is a young child answering to his mommy...did she actually say the word emasculating? She then goes on to say that if Michelle knows so much about how Barak should act then why didnt she know about X,Y, or Z business mistakes in the past?...huh? Is that it Maureen? Is that all you've got?




Michelle and Barak Obama might be according to Dowd, the George and Weezy Jefferson of this campaign, and though I am not supporting him for #1 I find him interesting for the future, (and of course I will support whoever the Dems ultimately come out with,)is it not sort of degrading to choose the jeffersons over the Cosbys? W
hat is Dowd exactly saying here? That young black people, or just any black people regardless of age, have to be careful not to present themselves as real people with real dialogue besides that hip hop rap or extremely silly Dyn-o-mite! image that we are supposed to have of them. If Dowd's advice is to try to not be who you are, then I would probably suggest running quickly in the other direction. It seems to me that most candidates who have tried to reshape their image or change their message as part of who they are, have failed.
Its been my feeling for years that if any of these Dems were to actually drop the artifice and just say what they think without the consultants hanging all over them, that maybe they would end their careers in one way it might begin it in another. Like Howard Dean lost everything, though it was arguably ended for him by whoever decided to turn down the crowd and release the track of just his howling voice, he was hardly ever not himself and he spoke truth to power. Most of these politicians would prefer to get into office, sacrificing some of their beliefs, however possible, in order to make a bigger change. But, many of them find that once you've begun to change things up in what you really believe in, it a slippery slope. I would prefer to see some of these people go down in a blazing glory, and have gotten something into the record for future generations, than to have pandered to the powers, cultural and otherwise, in order to shape an image that is really just part of so many sheep...
So, stop wasting my time, and your space in the NY Times, which is a pretty big platform, talking about bullshit. I understand, as Mom says, that Dowd has been out for some vacation, and it does sound like she is phoning it in while writing a book or whatever it is that these people do in their spare time. But, there are so many things going on right now, that it seems pretty damned counterproductive to tell the whole country what you probably should just be telling your friends over lunch.



2-3 eggs in the nest box so far, people....We are now 8 days into the cycle for egg #1, and if they're fertile, 23-25 days in I might hear a little peep peep. I have been ordered by my friends in the bird world to NOT look in the box...they told me quite dramatically, that the eggs would DIE a horrible death if I looked (and they know me well enough to know that that is probably the only thing that would stop me from hanging round the box making little birdy sounds to try to get the Mom out so I can peek!)....This is not easy for me....So I have to confess to shining a little flashlight into the hole on the nestbox to some pretty angry and squinting little eyes ruffling up and trying to adjust so that I CAN'T SEE!!!

And one more

thing: Ive got a great tool of the day, week, year for any of you who use eBay. This is a machine that gives you common typos for the names of things...which is how you find the best stuff on eBay. Sellers who make typos tend ot get lower prices because the search engines are not smart like...say, google, which will suggest different spellings.
Check this out: TypoSnipe

All is fair in love and eBay!