The New York %&#@ Times

I'm sure I'm not the only person who is perturbed at the Times' new pay-for-content site.

I used to troll their site several times a day, but now I can't get Frank Rich or Maureen Dowd without paying $49.95 a year. That just sucks.

I guess I've been spoiled.

*sigh*

It's Not an Altar Boy, Stop Abusing It!

The language, I mean.

When did it become okay to speak like a moron and still be taken seriously?

Smirking Chimp (aka GWB) said this yesterday: "...we can all pitch in by using -- by being better conservers of energy."

Deep breaths. Conservers? CONSERVERS?

Every day I am bombarded with evidence that the English language, which I love in all its nuttiness, quirkiness, and fluidity, is doomed to irrelevancy by people who don't care enough to use it properly. Yes, I know, the lexicon changes constantly, but still, there are things that drive me absolutely bugshit.

For instance:

1) Turning a noun into a verb. Example: Scrapbook. It is, was, and ever shall be a noun. How it became a verb -- there are television shows devoted to "scrapbooking," for the love of Mike! -- will remain a mystery to me until I die. I think I'll try an experiment in opposites and turn some verbs into nouns. "Every morning I get up and put some of my writes into a journal." Does that work?

2) Using too many words when one will suffice. Example: Mission Critical. I used to call talk like this "Wanker Speak," because at the height of the dot-com boom, self-important college graduates making 100K a year in the tech industry (aka Wankers) used to use phrases like "mission critical" when the more concise "important" would have served just fine.

3) Making up words when there's already a word for the word. Example: Uncomfortability. During my 90-day experiment, I used to hear the self-flagellators use this one a lot. And while I was supposed to be listening empathetically to yet another tale of woe with the self-aggrandizing coda "but I didn't have a drink," all I wanted to do was jump to my feet and scream (while tearing at my hair), "The word is 'DISCOMFORT!' 'DISCOMFORT,' you fucking moron!" As a matter of fact, maybe I'll just start making shit up, too. Isn't that ungusting? It makes me so dishappy.

4) Using a word you think you know, but getting it all wrong just makes you look like an idiot. The point is "moot" not "mute." George Bush is a "warmonger," not a "warmongrel." (though there is a certain Mrs. Malaprop charm to that one.)

So, as a devoted conserver, I'm going to go home via public transportation and dewind.

Now That's Just Mean

Janey, Janey, Janey --

*sigh*

I've tried diligently (and mostly successfully) to refrain from any kind of judgement about you. I don't even know you! And if I were to judge you based on the little I know firsthand, I'd have to say, she's a very nice woman! (you were very nice to me the one time we met. of course, that would be because you don't know that I'm the one who sucks on your husband's dick). Otherwise, the only thing I know about you is what your husband tells me. And frankly, most of that is just bitching, so I take it with a grain of salt. Since I'm well aware that he has his side of the story and you have your side of the story, I'm also aware that the truth of your marriage probably lies somewhere in between your stories.

But.

First, yesterday I asked him how his weekend was. And for the first time ever, he came right out and said, "Not good." And he looked down and shook his head, and looked so sad. So I jumped right into CheerYouUp mode and said, "Well, at least your birthday is coming up this weekend -- do you have nice plans for that?" And he said "Well, I don't know if my family is going to be around to do anything for me. I think I'm just going to go up to West Point by myself."

WHAAAAT?

Now, birthdays don't mean all that much to me -- at least mine doesn't. If someone says, "Happy Birthday" to me, that's enough for me. I don't really need all the hoo-hah and fussing. I go through the 364 other days of the year feeling like I'm pretty darn blessed to have the friends I have, so the big birthday celebration doesn't need to happen any more (not the way they used to, anyway). I mean, a few years ago, I didn't even mention my birthday until the day OF, when a friend called me to wish me the big HB and asked what my plans were. I was, to be honest, surprised. I was just going to go home and have a quiet evening. Well, as the day went on, more and more people called and wanted to know What Are You Doing For Your Birthday? Finally caving in to the inevitable, I invited everyone over to my house for a spur-of-the-moment birthday party. I went to Popeye's on my way home and bought a couple buckets of chicken and mashed potatoes, called my favorite wine store and had them send over a case of wine. And before you know it, I was having a party. (Ended up being a blast, by the way). But if the night had ended up with me watching TV and going to bed early, that would have been okay, too.

But I know that birthdays mean a whole lot to most people. They want people to make a fuss and practically have a parade in their honor. Okayyyyy. If your birthday is the one day a year that you get validation that your existence has value, then so be it. I'll play. So I acknowledge it for other people, and I know what it means to them.

But back to F. I mentioned our conversation to his assistant -- she's not really his assistant, she's actually more than that, though he would never say so, but I don't know what else to call her here, so for my purposes, she's his assistant. And she said that he had said something to you about taking the kids out on Saturday to a show. Now, Saturday being his birthday, a decent human being would say, "Hmm, it's my spouse's birthday, let me set that day aside and not make any plans." But apparently you sent him an email -- you communicate with your husband by email? What the hell is wrong with you? -- and said that your daughter had plans and that you had made other plans.

Nice. Real nice.

So, your husband is going to spend his birthday alone (going to West Point, apparently).

Now, the eternally hopeful part of me wants to believe that you have done all of that as a decoy because in reality you are throwing him a surprise birthday party. God, I sure hope so.

Because if you could have seen his face when he was telling me about going to West Point by himself on his birthday because his family couldn't be bothered, it would have broken your heart. I know it did mine.

Here I go again, getting all teary eyed thinking about someone living a life in which he doesn't believe that he is loved. I truly believe that he thinks that.

I hope you aren't that cruel, Jane.

P.S. I fooled around with your husband last night and I think I made him feel a little better.

DC Here we come

Tomorrow we take to the streets of Washington, D.C.

We will not be silent.

We will be heard.

We will speak truth to power -- that this war is unjust and immoral; that these soldiers are not playthings to be sent off at the whim of the administration, some of them again, and again, and again, sent off by a group of rich white men who couldn't be bothered to ever dirty their hands in service to their country... but who are more than willing to continue the degredation of their souls by lining their pockets with the spoils of immoral no-bid contracts and immoral tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans.


When called upon for leadership, they have given us, instead, platitudes, spin, slogans and "bullhorn moments." When called upon for accountability, they have given us, instead, lies and excuses.

We good Americans of conscience will exercise our right to speak up and speak out against the tyranny of these men, who two times in our recent past have used national crisis not for the greater good, but as a means to forward their criminal and immoral agenda for personal gain and power.

We good Americans of conscience will stand up, join together, march, and be heard.

Blind Date Guy

Okay, so I went on this blind date last Friday. Why I put myself through this just to please my friends is beyond me. No more. Because clearly my friend Roni hates me. She keeps setting me up with ugly guys.

Anyhow.

While on the date, I did two things:

1) I stated, in no uncertain terms, in fact, maybe even in these terms: "I am not interested in dating anyone right now."

2) At the end of the date, I said, "Thank you very much. It was very nice meeting you." That's it.

Now to me, that seems like a pretty clear message of, "NOT INTERESTED." Right?

I actually vetted this after the fact with my friend Bachman, a dater of great skill and expertise. I asked him, if someone said those two things to you, what would the message be?

He said, he should know that you are not interested. And because it was a blind date, no foul.

So, that being said -- WHY DOES BLIND DATE GUY CONTINUE TO CALL ME? Oh. My. God.
Five calls since then, and I haven't taken ONE of them. As far as I'm concerned, I am under no obligation to call him back. It was a blind date. A couple of hours out of my life. So you got rejected by a stranger, who CARES, fa Chrissake??????

I haven't made a firm decision if it is pathetic or creepy. But to me it's feeling like creepy. Especially after the gift he brought me. Who the hell brings a gift on a blind date? Do you hear me? NO GIFTS ON BLIND DATES. It's not cute, it's not endearing, it's not even the tiniest bit appealing. It's just CREEPY. And five phone calls are stalkerish.

Cut it out.

I'm reminded of my friend CB, whose boyfriend broke up with him via IM after a YEAR of dating.

Now, there should be some guidelines. I propose this:

Blind Date: Unless BOTH parties have agreed clearly at the end of the date, "that was really fun, we should do it again," neither party is required to make or return follow-up phone calls.

After dating for 2 weeks: It is acceptable to break it off via IM or Text Message.

After dating for more than two weeks but less than 3 months: A phone call during office hours is okay. "This isn't working for me" requires no more explanation than that. Don't let the person try to browbeat you into giving any more reason than that.

After dating for 6 months or more: You SIT your ass DOWN in front of that person and you tell them yourself that you don't want to see them anymore. You DON'T act like an asshole for months hoping that the person will get tired and break up with YOU. That is cowardly. Grow a set and be an adult.

There, I've ranted that out of my system.

Oy Vey

Dear Jane,

So maybe you saw me on TV last night. Maybe I was on TV last night and just don't know about it....

F called me yesterday with an offer too good to pass up.... tickets to the very important Yankees-Orioles game (important because they needed to win, and Boston needed to lose; Boston won, so the Yanks are still half-a-game outta first place. But this is not a sports commentary site! Back to our regularly scheduled programming.)

I haven't been to a Yankee game in a loooong time -- and F has actually been making an effort to be nicer for the past week. So I said I would go, and I am so glad I did!

First of all -- I didn't have to take the subway to get up there. Have you ever ridden on the number 4 train during rush hour? I swear, the last time I did, there were so many people who kept squeezing into the train that my feet were lifted from the floor. I was suspended between all those sweating bodies, held in place by nothing more than surface tension.

And we got to talk in the car -- and we were able to have a reasonable, adult conversation about all the crap that has been going on (or not going on, for that matter) for the past two months. I got to say everything I needed to say, and he didn't get defensive or go into attack mode.

His confession: "I know I've been behaving badly, and sometimes I watch how I behave toward you, and I hate myself for doing it. I hate myself when I act like that toward you. But even when I'm doing it I can't seem to control myself." Interesting -- and I pointed out (gently, gently) that maybe in the future, he can observe himself before the behavior happens, and CHOOSE a different behavior.

The other interesting thing is how he is so worried that our "affair" will become public that he thinks the only way to keep people from suspecting anything is to act like an asshole to me. I then pointed out that the needle of suspicious behavior doesn't need to swing 180 degrees. A pleasant, neutral, polite conversation is blameless in the eyes of the world. I in fact believe that his "Who's that trip-trapping across my bridge?" behavior is more of a red flag than being nice and friendly.

Then at the end of the conversation, despite its intensity and depth, he looked at me, and said, "I love that we can have this conversation. I'm so happy right now."

So we get to Yankee Stadium, and the tickets he got are frickin' AMAZING! Fourth row from the field, a few seats to the left of the Yankee dugout. It was so much fun to watch the Yankee Skanks who rush down to the railing to try to get Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez's attention. They look so, I dunno, Bay Ridge or something. Or maybe Staten Island. Like they came from the San Gennaro festival to Yankee Stadium.

I take back everything I've been saying about how I don't think Derek is cute anymore. When you are looking at his butt before every at-bat, you can't help but think, WOW.

The entire game was SLUGFEST. I got to see a Gary Sheffield Grand Slam! I got to watch Jason Giambi hit about 10 foul balls in a row -- and these weren't just little plops into the right field stands. These were rockets up into the air and OVER the lights -- basically out of the stadium fouls. And with every one, I leaned over to F and said, "Oh, noooo, I don't DO steroids any more," until he shushed me, telling me it is bad manners to dis your own team. I'm sorry, but Jason Giambi has the close-set eyes of a serial killer. Then the idiot bloops a can of corn into center field? If you were gonna sacrifice, why didn't you just get it over with on the first pitch, numbnuts?

So, anyhow, F and I were just having a good time with each other -- cutting up and laughing and cheering great baseball on a beautiful summer night, made even more beautiful by a rising harvest moon. Banana-yellow. Then he tried to get friendly with me -- leaning over and saying, "How'd you like to make out in front of 50,000 people?" I just turned to him and said, "You know, these are really great seats -- I'll bet we'll get to be on television!" Never saw a man put his hands back where they belonged so fast.

That would be absolutely hilarious -- "Hey, Jane, I think I saw your husband making out with some chick at the Yankee game last night!"

So, all in all, a great night for a ballgame.

Then F drove me home (Of course, we had to spar about the best way to get back to Brooklyn. He, the guy who probably only drives past Brooklyn on his way to the Hamptons, arguing with the girl who lives there.)

"Trust me," I said, "Greenpoint Avenue is where you want to go."

"Greenpoint? Greenpoint is Queens! We want to go to Brooklyn!"

"I live there. I used to drive there all the time!"

"I'm not taking Greenpoint Avenue!"

At which point I asked him "Would you rather be right or would you rather be happy?" Without a second's hesitation, he said, "Oh, I love to be right! I'll pick being right every time."

Hmmm. Very telling.

Then we got back to my apartment, and of course we humped like dogs. I saw that one coming at about 7:00... But lots of fun, and oh. my. god. I needed to get laid.

Two Words about Blind Dates

Never. Again.

Anger

I've finally figured out that the best time to write about anger is when you aren't feeling angry anymore.

F has been trying to booty call me for the past three nights after work, and I am deflecting him with my Wonder Woman bracelets -- politely saying "No, thank you."

Last night he asked me if I wanted to "work out some of my anger." (Is that a Short Hills euphemism for "have sex"? Must be!)

And I was able to say in complete honestly, "But I'm not angry. I WAS angry. But I'm not now." And as I said it, I paused and listened to what was going on with me -- and realized that the anger was gone...no residual urges to get even, spill the beans, or harbor a grudge.

He obviously interpreted "not angry" as "willing to fuck" because he kept steering the conversation in that direction, and I wasn't taking the bait. Finally he just resorted to a crass and tasteless "So, do you want to fuck tonight or what?"

I just said, "No, thank you," with my best party manners, as if I was refusing a second helping of dessert. No excuses or even reasons, just "No, thank you."

Same again tonight.

But more about anger -- I'll paraphrase what I said to F last night about anger -- I realized that it is so debilitating -- to no one else but me! Though it is, in its moment, somewhat intoxicating. There's a rush of adrenaline that accompanies true rage, that can make me feel so powerful and scary. I can totally understand how people become rageaholics. That rush, that surge of fearlessness and power.

But now that some time has passed, I see that the surge is actually fearfulness. At the bottom of most anger is fear, I believe.

So I told him that I needed to work through my anger, then stopped and rephrased my statement -- and told him that I had to let my anger move through me. I had to. It arose, existed, and I had to let it die. Because, after all, that is what all emotions do. They arise, and pass through you, and die. I know I don't have to do anything with the anger, because it will pass. Do you know how liberating that is?

One of the precepts says "Not to be angry." Most people misinterpret that and think they have to go around with foolish, beatific smiles on their faces all the time -- so instead of letting their anger pass through them, all they are doing is suppressing their anger. So they become these suppurating stews of rage. It doesn't say, "Don't get angry." What it means is that it's okay to get angry, but you don't have to act from a place of anger. You can notice it as it comes up -- "Boy, am I angry" -- but choose not to come from that place.

I saw the perfect example of it the other day with G. One of our vendors called us sheepishly at 5:00 to tell us that one of our mailings had fallen through the cracks and not gone out on the day it was supposed to. I heard G tell him on the phone, "Now, I'm sitting here thinking I could flip out all over you, or I could just deal with it, so I'm going to just deal with it. How soon can you get it out?" The vendor stayed late to get the mailing out the door that night.

F could learn a big lesson from all of that -- if anyone is a rageaholic, he is.

I am re-reading Thubten Chodron's book "Working with Anger" and it is so edifying. I also caught a great Q&A on her website on the subject.

It is 51 degrees in my mountain town right now.

You mean George W Bush ISN'T a Standup Guy?

Finally, the media has taken off the kid gloves, accurately portraying the man we here on the left have seen all along -- small-minded and meanspirited, shallow and sociopathic, and no leader in any sense of the word.

If you can't access the article, here it is, in its entirety:

A tale of two presidents
Salon editorial fellow Aaron Kinney examines
the context of Newsweek and Time's newfound skepticism about the president.

As we mentioned on Tuesday, media portrayals of George W. Bush's character in the wake of Katrina -- he may not be such a standup guy after all! -- are as disconcerting as they are unsurprising. Have magazines like Time and Newsweek known all along who the president really is, or is new information coming to light? If it’s the former, why haven’t reporters shared their insights before?

Time and Newsweek slammed the president this week in articles by Mike Allen ("Living Too Much in the Bubble?") and Evan Thomas ("How Bush Blew It"), respectively. Both accounts describe an incurious president who is cut off from reality. But until recently, the nation’s leading newsweeklies were painting a far different picture. Newsweek, in particular, has been especially deferential to George W. Bush. Witness its cover story by Richard Wolffe from Jan. 24, 2005, timed to coincide with the president’s second inaugural, the sub-headline of which read:

"He’s hands-on, detail-oriented and hates ‘yes’ men. The George Bush you don’t know has big dreams -- and is racing the clock to realize them." Wolffe described the president as a man whose "leadership style belies his caricature as a disengaged president who is blindly loyal, dislikes dissent and covets his own downtime" -- a caricature that looks like a dead ringer after the vacationing president’s reaction to Katrina.

Wolffe: Bush is "a restless man who masters details and reads avidly" and "digs deep into his briefing books." When he’s not "poring over white papers," he also enjoys the occasional novel.

But compare Wolffe’s analysis with Evan Thomas’ description from this week’s issue: "[I]t is not clear what President Bush does read or watch, aside from the occasional biography or an hour or two of ESPN here and there."

Wolfe: "To hear his friends tell it, Bush hates toadies ... "

Thomas: "Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty" and "aides sometimes cringe before [his] displeasure."

Wolfe: Bush’s "style in policy briefings is to narrow the debate with a series of questions, crystallizing the competing opinions and exploring the disagreements between his staff."

Thomas: "After five years in office, [Bush] is surrounded largely by people who agree with him."

Wolffe: Bush pursues his agenda "in a hands-on manner that runs counter to the notion that he’s an aloof executive who can’t be bothered to read the fine print."

Thomas: The atmosphere in the White House in the week after Katrina was strangely surreal and almost detached," in the words of one administration aide.

Which of these two wildly diverging portraits should we believe? Is the Oval Office a regular School of Athens, or a "hermetic" "echo chamber" where few people are willing to bring the president bad news or tell him he’s wrong, as Mike Allen puts it in Time?

Both Newsweek accounts derive most of their information about the president from unnamed administration aides. But Wolffe’s account, which reads like a love letter delivered as payment for access to Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign, has three obvious strikes against it: It cites anonymous Bush "friends" in addition to aides; it relies on the good word of Karl Rove; and it’s contrary to everything we’ve ever learned about George W. Bush.

Wolffe concluded his glowing article by hinting that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld might be the next first-term cabinet member to be fired. Wolffe wrote that Bush’s friends told him not to be surprised if "Rumsfeld gets a call to make that long, uncomfortable journey to the Oval Office" after the Iraqi elections in January.(Seymour Hersh reported the same day that Wolffe’s article ran that Rumsfeld was in the process of consolidating his power.) Last we checked, the defense secretary is still ensconced in the Pentagon.

It seems Wolffe was getting it wrong top to bottom. The latest portraits of the president from Time and Newsweek, though long overdue, appear to bring the truer picture into focus.
-- Aaron Kinney

What the...?

The lying and dissembling go on and on and on.

Why are these people still in office?

The White House decided early on that they would have a policy of lying.

And to top it all off, the GOP senators shot down a bipartisan commission to investigate the government's miserable failure in managing the disaster in New Orleans.

However, as Sydney Blumenthal points out here, Bush's presidency is ruined.

God willing.

Mambo the Wonder Cat

Well, everyone, I think I need to share my secret with the world.

Mambo, my 15-year-old cat, has kitty superpowers.

He can tell time AND the Force is with him.

I know he can tell time because when the clock says "5:30" he wakes up and immediately starts doing the Bristol Stomp all over my gooshy parts -- how he knows to go for boobs and bladder is a mystery. And I know that the Force is with him, because he is able to make me do his bidding with one small gesture of the front paw. All he needs to do is put one paw on my pillow, one place where he is expressly forbidden to walk, and I get up like a SHOT. Only he's not all mellow and Obi-Wan about it, he's more Samuel L Jackson as Mace Windu -- "You wanna get your motherfuckin' ass outta bed, motherfucker, or I'm gonna motherfuckin' piss all over your sorry-ass head."

(To all of you who let your cats walk and sleep on your pillows -- I don't care how much you love your cat, it's still an animal that drags its feet through shit several times a day. Think about that.)

Who is the trained one here? Hmmmm.

Fixed it

I just got off the technological short bus and learned that there is a feature on blogger that will prevent those annoying comment spams from showing up.

Der.

And in defining who we are...

we create judgements based on what we accept and reject.

I mean, think about it. I identify myself as a lefty-liberal bleeding heart, and place a judgement on those people who don't share my views. I ACCEPT the idea that homosexuals should be allowed to marry just like everyone else. I REJECT people who believe otherwise. I ACCEPT the idea that we have a pure-D, sociopathic dry drunk sitting in the White House, and I REJECT the idea that other people could actually LIKE this president and think he is doing a good job. (Note to my Bush-loving friends -- are you happy now?) Those are just two examples. The judgement that I attach to rejecting those people comes from the idea that I (and people who think like me) must surely be right, and they must just as surely be wrong, or worse, stupid.

It's amazing how we call other people judgemental -- the fundamentalist Christians, et. al., and yet don't recognize judgement and fundamentalism in ourselves. And just when we start to lift the corner of that scab and might have to face that ugly reality, we swing immediately from our judgement of others into the justification for ourselves. "Well, of course I am judgemental about those other people who like George Bush -- they are clearly WRONG." Placing myself in the other guy's shoes, I can see that they are probably thinking the same thing about me.

There are groups whom I don't support because they are clearly fundamental in nature -- there is only one right way for them, and no seeing the other side or even the greater good.

For instance -- I'm a cyclist, right? I love to ride my bike. I believe that the city of New York doesn't do enough to promote a car-free city, or enough to be considered even remotely bicycle-friendly, when clearly (to me at least), reducing the number of cars in New York city would be to the greater good, right? Fewer cars means less fuel consumption, less pollution, less traffic congestion. All good things, right? But given all of those beliefs, I cannot and will not support a monthly event known as Critical Mass. I watch those bicyclists on the last Friday of every month, and I see them running red lights (illegal), riding on sidewalks (illegal), blocking traffic (illegal), and I can't see where they are benefiting anyone except a few anarchic folks who want to create as much two-wheeled mayhem as possible. And in the bargain, they are pissing off a lot of people in cars AND the police. How do they expect to promote bicycles as a viable form of alternative transportation if they've pissed off a whole lot of people who will then go on to run cyclists off the road, cut them off, door them deliberately?

If Critical Mass really wanted to be effective and demonstrate how a car-free New York could work for the greater good, they would organize their rides so that the riders followed the rules of the road. Ride single file, stop at red lights, signal their turns, don't ride against traffic, and stay off the sidewalks, etc. It would have a more positive effect on drivers to see a large group of riders who are willing to share the road, and do so in an orderly fashion. But jeez, cyclists and motorists in New York are like the Arabs and the Jews -- no one will give an inch, the other side is wrong, and unfortunately it ends up that someone gets hurt. (And in a fight with a 3,000 lb car, the cyclist will lose every time).

We get in that cycle and it just continues -- it is possible to stay on the wheel of judgement and justification forever, I imagine. Samsara.

We did an exercise at a Cheri Huber workshop once on this very topic. It was about achieving peace. We drew a circle and inside we wrote the things we find acceptable (love, world peace, blah, blah, blah). And outside we wrote the things we find unacceptable (war, hatred, anger, fighting). The ultimate goal of the exercise was that once we know what we find unacceptable, the possibility of peace exists not in resisting the unacceptable things, but in WIDENING the circle of acceptance.

This is not to say that we become resigned to the fact that there is war, hatred, anger and fighting in the world -- but we accept that they exist. Acceptance = seeing what is. Not with head down, but with head up. And this is also not to say that we do nothing about those things, but that with acceptance we are then able to make changes.

On a totally different subject (or maybe not), I'm reading a book right now called "Working With Anger," by Thubten Chodron. She is an American Buddhist nun. I picked it up after telling Fxxxxthat I hate him and spending Friday and Saturday feeling karmically destroyed by the action. Me telling him has had absolutely no effect on him whatsoever -- but the effect on me was devastating. I thought to myself that I had better get back to work -- so sitting quietly with my thoughts and just noticing what came up was imperative. I realize that what comes up for me when I am angry is mostly a feeling of having no voice -- and that goes all the way back to my earliest "training" (and make no mistake, as children we are TRAINED) -- as the youngest girl in a large family, I was "trained" that good little girls don't speak up for themselves or fight back. I was (and still am, to a large extent) a patter-downer rather than a stirrer-upper. And that little girl was frustrated and grief-stricken at not being heard (nor being treated with basic good manners) and she lashed out with the worst thing she could think of to say to someone. (I went back through my memories -- outside of being a child and acting petulantly and saying "I hate you" -- I've never actually said it to someone as an adult.) It is a POWERFUL and INTOXICATING emotion/action combination, and not in a good way.

Good book, more will be revealed.

We Define Who We Are by What We Accept and Reject

I've been ruminating on that one all the way into town. "Ruminate." I just love that word.

More on the subject later.

I Still Hate You

I've always said -- it's just a four-inch drop from the sidewalk to the gutter. Right now, I'm just allowing my anger to languish in the gutter and be what it is.

Frank Lxxxxxxxxf, for the record, I still hate you.

I Hate You

I am taking one step aside from my grief over what has happened to our fellow Americans in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to just say this:

Frank Lxxxxxxxxxf, I hate you.

"A National Disgrace" #2

The Story of the Hurricane Cowboy Who Fiddled While New Orleans Drowned

"A National Disgrace"

Nero fiddled while Rome burned.

George cried "Let them eat cake!" and Condi shopped while New Orleans drowned.

If this was a nor'easter that caused the Long Island Sound to flood Greenwich, Larchmont, and Rye, you can bet your ass that the federal government would have had people in there within hours. Because, after all, those are towns with rich white people, and everyone knows that a rich white people's lives are more valuable than lots of poor black people.

Face it, folks, you can dance, dance, dance around this part of the issue, but poverty and race (unfortunately the two are married in this country) ARE an issue here.