I know, this is 3 days late, but it's just too weird. Just when you think the world can't get any fricking stranger Dick Cheney shoots a 78 year old man in the face. And he was a friend of his. Then he has a heart attack (the victim, not Cheney), but it's just a minor heart attack (caused by the buckshot in his chest).

And then Cheney runs away back to his bunker. The first thing I thought when I heard that was that all of the hunters I used to know when I lived in Austin really liked to drink when hunting, somehow it made killing the little animals more fun. Listening to Randi Rhodes' show tonight, she and some callers actually suggested the idea that maybe that's why Tricky Dick went missing for like 18 hours afterwards. Either that or they were waiting a few hours to see if he was going to live before letting anyone know.

I have to admit I'm enjoying the (liberal) media's take on this. Jon Stewart actually took an International Foods Flavored Coffee break to 'celebrate the moment' (remember those commercials?), and David Letterman is on a big roll.

Honestly, what the hell else do we need to hear from these psychos before we turn on them? Brownie has been squirming and whining about being a scapegoat... Scott McClellan (another proud Texan, yea!) has been dodging reporters questions and actually walked out of the briefing Tuesday. Why do they think they can just not answer questions, ignore us and deny everything and they can get away with it?

Oh yeah, because it's been working for six years? I'd say I give up, but that's what they want us to do.

But it's hard to ignore 11,000 FEMA trailers all sitting together in a swamp in Arkansas rotting while the Katrina victims were all kicked out of their hotels this week. Especially when my very stable friend in New Orleans is mentioning asking her doctor for antidepressants because the daily hassle of fighting her mother's insurance company, the government inspectors, contractors and more is driving her crazy.

Speaking of the most depressing day of the year, what did Oprah choose to show that day - what you need to know about Bird Flu. Ok, I had my pencil and notepad nearby to take notes, and the only thing I wrote down was 'have five weeks of food and medicine stockpiled'.

Soooo... the expert she interviewed basically said in a nutshell:

a. This epidemic (or a similar one) is eventually going to spread all over the world
b. There will be no effective vaccine available in time to help anyone
c. The vaccines we have today are useless

and

d. There's nothing we can do about it and thousands, possibly millions of people are going to die.

Well crap, I guess that's actually an appropriate show for the Most Depressing Day. Poor Oprah, she honestly thought the guy was going to tell us something useful or slightly hopeful, even she looked depressed by the end of the show.

The show the day before was What You Need to Know About Terrorism, which was surprisingly more upbeat and hopeful. The three experts on that show actually saw a light at the end of the tunnel (and more eventual attacks), but living in America was actually estimated to be safer than living elsewhere in the world due to the fact that most Americans are still really defensive and pissed off about 9/11 and will beat the crap out of anyone that tries to light his shoe on fire in an airplane.

And personally, I haven't flown in years, I don't hang out in large crowds or particularly popular places, so my own chances of being blown up by a suicide bomber are pretty low. My husband and I are hermits, we like our home, it's a hassle to leave it, and we'd rather stay in most nights.

But the whole health scare, global pandemic thing does sort of freak me out because my immune system is shot already, and my doctors can't solve the seemingly simple problems (like reflux and allergy) that are making my life a living hell already, can you imagine what would happen in a real health crisis? Like New Orleans, only much bigger?

The only useful thing the Bird Flu guy did say is that we need to harrass the govenment and ask them to do something. I guess the 2006 elections will be a good start. I'd like to ask them to leave and let someone else try and fix their mess, anyone, my cat could do a better job...

A normal day in the French Quarter...

I spoke with my poor gypsy friend today, she only had a cell phone to communicate with and last time I spoke with her she was trying to conserve power because they had no electricity so I haven't called her in a few days. Turns out they were only out of power for like half a day, and Rita didn't damage her grandmother's house, which is where she, her husband, her baby, three cats, two cousins and now her brother and grandmother are all currently staying. Her mom and her aunt and uncle are still holed up in Shreveport with no word on whether their Beaumont home survived the storm or not. She's hearing that it may be possible for them to return to New Orleans soon, another brother of her's is actually going to fly in from Germany to help repair her mother's flooded house, he's an all around handyman guy also, which will be much needed because getting a contractor to do anything in New Orleans in 'normal' times is difficult enough.

On a good note, her baby is getting used to being driven all over the state and sleeping in different places constantly, so she apparently has her mommy's adaptability genes. For some reason my dad always marveled over how "adaptable" I was as a child when things went differently than expected, but I think I was just the peacemaker and hated to see anyone argue. I'm not at all adaptable compared to my friend Mary, she has so much stamina and has that Creole "life goes on" trait to the max, I really admire her for it. She's been learning to be a mom while having to travel with a newborn across two states. She and her husband are great travelers, though, Sparky and I are not. There are a lot of places I want to see... but the comfort of my home is very hard to leave. We both love our home, just give us our electricity, cable TV/internet, AC and running water and it's hard to find a reason to leave.

Some friend of ours in North Houston lost their power for four days, and got a lot of tree damage from the winds, they live in a heavily wooded area. They said it got so hot in their home that five of their fish died. We had actually anticipated losing our power at the very least, possibly the water also, but our neighborhood was virtually unscathed. There are rolling blackouts around the Houston area, which combined with an abnormal heat wave, is making life hell for a lot of people here.

I ventured out of the house tonight to drive to the ATM and make a deposit and took a quick tour of our area to see what was open. It looked like most businesses had opened back up, but I know a lot of them are still very understocked and understaffed. My dad is buddies with the manager of our local Kroger's and he told him that they tried opening up on Sunday for part of the day but had to close the store early because they were basically mobbed and ran out of food. I'm very glad I managed to get at least the basics (which thankfully didn't spoil from a power outage) so we still have milk, eggs, bread and way too many cocktail croissants (from Sam's Club). I noticed people were still driving semi-hysterically, and there were a lot of people walking (people won't walk here) so that was a little weird.

But we're already making our list of things to still get for the next storm, and there is a brand spanking new one brewing already. Can this one please go somewhere else, maybe to Mexico? Just give us a chance to pick up a little, get everyone back home and drain New Orleans again?

A disturbing theory about the New Orleans levee break had been rattling around my head, nothing is too strange to be true these days, and I did a Google search and apparently I'm not the only one who this grotesque idea occurred to.

After listening to the horsie man testify today, I'm about ready to believe anything about these evil bastards.
And I also heard tonight that for some strange reason that even though Governor Blanco asked for emergency assistance for the entire state, that Orleans and Jefferson Parishes (i.e. New Orleans proper) were not included on the President's emergency declaration, curiouser and curiouser...

One more note, FEMA ran a Hurricane exercise (Hurricane Pam) last summer anticipating a storm surge topping the New Orleans levees and their own report says they would have the situation all under control.

Some real horror stories from people stranded in New Orleans by FEMA... um, by Hurricane Katrina...

Escape from New Orleans, the harrowing tale of two San Francisco EMS workers in town for a convention

How We Survived the Flood by Charmaine Neville (yes, of the Neville family)

Rescue worker and evacuee diaries:

The Blog of a Socialist Worker's journey through the storm damaged areas

Dispatches from Tanganyika, New Orleans author Poppy Z. Brite's journal including her ongoing efforts to save her menagerie of 26 pets that had to be left behind at her house (14 recovered so far)

The Shattered Prayer, a very literate weblog of another displaced New Orleanian

Truth in Media... finally?

The government was attempting to block the US Media from covering any of the body recovery in New Orleans and Mississippi, but CNN stood up to them and won

It's amazing how much people start to care when they actually see the truth and not just scripted propaganda on their TV screens

And it's heartening to how citizens really react when not hand picked and made to sign loyalty oaths before "viewing" the royalty

Comment on yesterday's post:

Eek -- that article about the Pope chilled me to the bone. I'm sure it's because the idea of it is in itself a revelation, so to speak; it rings so true, makes so much sense -- despite all rational thought to the contrary.

The time has come, perhaps, to abandon all rational thought.

That's what we have come to... this is one of those situations that the emotional and illogical James T. Kirk must solve... Spock's logic is obviously not working. Maybe there is a great vampiric monster that feeds off of chaos and despair, just sucking up the emotions of the world. But so many in this world, especially in America, have just become emotionally dead instead of panicked and paranoid. Your mind and body can't stay on high alert forever, eventually you just go numb. I didn't use to be a conspiracy theorist but I've even wondered if maybe they put something in the Viagra, or the Prozac to numb us all, muddle our thinking and keep us quiet while they raped and looted the world right in front of us, and told us not to believe our own eyes and ears. That everything they're doing is "for our own good" and is necessary.

I'm a very literal, logical person.. I'm a Capricorn. I've always been that way. I'm not comfortable with high emotions, they fray my nerves and drain my energy. When someone does something seemingly irrational, I can almost always think of some motivation to explain "why" from their warped perspective. A lot of violence is motivated by anger, which often comes from fear. One of many reasons I thought I'd be good at law enforcement was because I could view things very objectively - dissect the emotions from the action and see past the immediate distractions. My Aquarian husband sees things through his emotions first, and always from his own point of view. He takes everything personally, and thinks other people react the way he does. Not a lot of grey in between. His perspective is actually the norm for most people, and is usually not the best way to deal with problems. I've spent my life seeking out the grey areas, but now I'm beginning to focus on the black and white ends of the spectrum, it's the only way I think I'm going to remain sane.

Sorry... I'm rambling. But the more I analyze the world of today, the more I'm realizing that the mess we're in right now really is a matter of black and white. And not skin color, but just basically good and bad. And the bad is going to destroy the white and all of the shades of grey if we don't do something to stop it. And it's so obvious what is going on. We need to believe our eyes and hearts and shut off the nagging voice in our heads that says "no one would let people starve... let people die... kill people... just for money and power". Yes, apparently they would.

The German people thought "no one would commit genocide in these modern times", but they did. As long as we keep believing "they wouldn't really do that" they'll keep doing it. As long as we let them. What have they got to lose? We need to refind our sense of righteous indignation and self-worth and learn to just say NO, you can't do that. And ignore all the distractions they are throwing at us to confuse and disorient us, just focus on the elephant behind the curtain.

And stop believing just because someone on TV says something is right, it must be (they must be smarter than us - they're on TV), when we KNOW it's wrong. We need to stand up for ourselves and not just nod and say nothing when we disagree. We still know what is right and what is wrong, and if we keep saying nothing and "going along" it won't make it better, it will just keep getting worse.

I've spent the night editing the scans I did the other night of my extra New Orleans postcards, I have over 50 of them... this one brings back memories of visiting with my parents, looking at it fullscreen just made me want to cry...

And the only logical theory I can think of to explain the insanity that's going on in our country is...

...the Neocons are actually evil cyborgs from Mars that are here to take over the planet.

No actual human being could behave like this during a time of such crisis, even accidentally.

Excerpts from today's New York Times op-ed article:

Almost as soon as the cameras began panning over the rooftops, and the helicopters began chopping free those trapped in their attics, a chorus of voices rose. "Why didn't they leave?" people asked both on and off camera. "Why did they stay there when they knew a storm was coming?" One reporter even asked me, "Why do people live in such a place?"

Well, here's an answer. Thousands didn't leave New Orleans because they couldn't leave. They didn't have the money. They didn't have the vehicles. They didn't have any place to go. They are the poor, black and white, who dwell in any city in great numbers; and they did what they felt they could do - they huddled together in the strongest houses they could find. There was no way to up and leave and check into the nearest Ramada Inn.

I know that New Orleans will win its fight in the end. I was born in the city and lived there for many years. It shaped who and what I am. Never have I experienced a place where people knew more about love, about family, about loyalty and about getting along than the people of New Orleans. It is perhaps their very gentleness that gives them their endurance.

They will rebuild as they have after storms of the past; and they will stay in New Orleans because it is where they have always lived, where their mothers and their fathers lived, where their churches were built by their ancestors, where their family graves carry names that go back 200 years. They will stay in New Orleans where they can enjoy a sweetness of family life that other communities lost long ago.

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.

Well, we are a lot more than all that. And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you.

Royal Street at night.. click on the image to see the larger photo in a new window


I have lots of photos of New Orleans (B.K.) that I've taken over the last few years that I've been meaning to put up on the New Orleans page of my main website, so I'm going to post some here just to give myself something positive to do. I've also been meaning to change the focus of the page away from Anne Rice and more towards New Orleans in general. I haven't read an Anne Rice book in years (nothing personal, too busy), and the annual parties are (were) mostly very small private affairs that I did not attend. And Ms. Rice has finally moved away from her beloved NOLA (did she know something we didn't?).

People write me occasionally to ask me what to do, where to go in New Orleans, and want details on the disbanded fan club, but alas, I don't live there, I'm just one of the many people who worship the city. I grew up going on vacations there with my family, went there many times as an adult to visit, attended quite a few of the ARVLFC balls, and my best friend (who grew up in the area) moved back there at the turn of the century.

It's always been my dream to live there, I figured I'd probably move there when I was older and my family in Houston no longer needed me. I even considered joining the police department back during a solo 1989 trip, but the salary was so low it wasn't really a practical option.

To those of us who grew up on the Gulf Coast, this is our 9/11. Except imagine the buildings burning for days on end, instead of hours. People stood in the gaping, broken windows for five days, pleading and screaming for help... At least they have finally cleared the Superdome and Convention Center, that was just too heartbreaking to watch. Especially when celebrities and news crews didn't seem to have any problems getting in, but the government seemed to be completely baffled, as if they had never seen water before.

I've been listening to Cassandra Wilson's Belly of the Sun on repeat this evening, Songs like "You Gotta Move", "Darkness on the Delta" and "Shelter From the Storm" are even more poignant and moving than usual.

And an added note, before Sparky went to bed he was flipping channels and we saw Celine Dion's hysterical outburst on Larry King (I think she was also one of the few that spoke off script in the 9/11 concert, I'm not a fan, but I admire her heart), and Kanye West's complete comments from the Friday night Hurricane Concert. (Poor Mike Myers) But I must disagree, Dubya doesn't just hate black people, he hates all Americans (except the very elite, and those in the Federalist Society I suppose).

Latest hurricane Katrina news from my friends (I would have written last night, but I got deathly ill to my stomach, another story... bad food or just nerves?):

The hospital my friend's husband had gone back to work at decided with no electricity or water to evacuate the patients and close down. Her husband had been told that there was nothing left but rice and tomato sauce before he arrived, but when he got there the local police had gotten into a grocery store and they were having barbecues in the parking lot instead, so at least they had food to get by with. Armed guards patrolled the perimeters to keep away looters that were after drugs, he said several were persuaded to "turn back, and walk away" at gunpoint. Apparently, people were being allowed to walk across the Mississippi River bridge at first, but after a mall near the bridge was set on fire, through traffic was stopped.

So her husband has been reassigned to another hospital near the Louisiana/Texas border, and he was given an armed escort to their home in Uptown to retrieve his car, which had been left behind. There was no flood damage to their home, thank goodness, though the upstairs french doors had blown open during the storm and gotten some water had gotten in the master bedroom and dripped down to the kitchen below. The other side of the house had just been hand painted and stenciled, so fortunately it was undamaged. He secured the house once more, and headed his Land Rover back to Texas. After another nightmarishly long drive, 18 wheelers had run into each other on I10 in one of the wetland "no exit" areas in East Texas, he finally made it back to his wife and child and the safety of Beaumont. My friend Mary feels she is so incredibly lucky to have escaped the wrath of the storm without harm to her family or her home.

An interesting image he saw that hadn't made it to the AP newswire - a woman walking through the floodwaters in a full-length mink coat carrying an automatic rifle (apparently Sak's was looted before it was burned down). Also the story that guns were stolen from a Walmart by looters is untrue, the police actually removed the guns before the store was looted.

Also per my friend, while Dubya was getting his photo op at the New Orleans airport, all other (i.e. rescue) activity was brought to a halt. People were dying stuck on the runway while he chatted and waxed nostalgic about the Big Easy.

From the truly horrifying end of the spectrum - a friend of my husband's had called and left a message last Sunday that he had gone to the Superdome to wait out the storm. He is unfortunately (fortunate in retrospect?) basically homeless and was actually planning to come back to Houston over the last few weeks because of the difficulty of keeping a job in New Orleans. He called this afternoon to report that he was now in Fort Worth, where he was ironically evacuated to after spending what he describes as a week in Hell inside the dark, damp and violent Superdome. He said (these are his words alone) he had seen people killed in fights right in front of him, seen people urinating on the dead bodies that were strewn about, he said he'd never really been around dead people before, but they were everywhere. He hadn't eaten or slept in may days, but he had helped out when the rescuers did come, and had been finally put on a bus to Texas, where he stated they "were treating him very well" now. My husband and I had been seriously wondering about his fate, because he is also one of those people who tends to say the first thing that comes out of his head, and had gotten in arguments and fights regularly here in Houston. But he is also a NOLA native, so apparently some survival instinct to keep his mouth shut must have kicked in.

Today's news (OK technically yesterday)...

Word came early this morning that my friend's house in New Orleans seems to still be OK. A co-worker of her husband drove through the area and said it looked like the house had not sustained any water or major storm damage. Her husband has been unable to actually get to the house himself, he is currently staying at the hospital he works at in Gretna.

At 11 pm Thursday the Astrodome had apparently reached capacity and the emergency management people decided they weren't going to let any more of the waiting bus passengers in. Somehow they had not counted correctly and realized they were over their fire code limit (which is nuts because the stadium has held over 75,000 people). Bad move, people started freaking out. The local news stations came back on the air, their poor hapless reporters wandering the parking lot, asking the poor police officers what was going on. Cameras were no longer allowed inside because of the chaos, already one person has died (of natural causes supposedely), and several were arrested (men sneaking into the women's shower areas).

Then they decided 'OK, they can come in, we'll figure something out' and began slowly letting the evacuees in again... after searching them and sending them through a mock triage. One of the doctors that was volunteering grabbed one of the newspeople and begged for more medical help, he says many of the doctors who were supposed to be there had not shown up, but there were some Baylor medical students there. It was announced that part of the precious new Reliant exhibition hall would be opened up for the overflow. And I guess the rest of the people will go on to San Antonio and Dallas. What a mess...

Dubya flew over the hurricane devastation (and waved?) from a plane (don't blink) and pointed out that a church was still standing. Down on the ground it was Escape from New York, oops, New Orleans. Groups of stranded NOLA residents were actually chanting on TV tonight "Help Us, Help Us"! But he did have to finish up his golf before leaving for Washington. Speaking of "Escape" maybe someone could toss him into the melee like in the movie, see if he loses more than an ear.

Meanwhile, Condi is actually out buying new Ferragamo's (I guess she's not planning on going anywhere damp anytime soon). And U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R) was quoted by the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Ill., saying it makes no sense to rebuild New Orleans where it is. "It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed." he said. Yeah, that's the spirit, bulldoze it and build condos! Or maybe Walmarts and Starbucks cafes. To hell with all that history and beauty. And the beautiful people who have lived there for many, many generations.

I can't think of those idiots anymore... they make my head hurt with their complete lack of empathy. My husband was asking aloud why the government hadn't done anything more to help... because THEY DON'T CARE! Maybe if it was a bunch of young blonde, upper class white girls. (Quick, somebody toss one in... then they'll have to go find her)

Last thing, a charity called Noah's Wish is in Louisiana trying to save some of the lost and injured pets that were left behind and misplaced from the storm. So next time you pet your dog or kitty, think of all the homeless ones on the Gulf Coast and give them a couple of bucks. And be glad you're warm and clean and dry.

Wow, here's a quick little flash movie that tells it like it is, good work!

I had so many things I was going to write this week, it's my vacation, my birthday in a few days, my brother's birthday is New Year's Day, and my dad turned 76 last weekend. But then all thoughts of Christmas cheer and birthday shopping frenzy were overshadowed by the Asian Tsunami, it's so unbelievably tragic it's hard to think of anything else. Everything else seems so superficial and selfish when you consider what millions of people on the other side of the world are going through right now. The projected death toll crossed the 135,000 mark today.

Please at least give a donation to one of the groups trying to provide relief to survivors and families of the victims, I gave to Oxfam, which is not getting an Amazon plug like the Red Cross. Here's MoveOn.org's synopsis of their efforts:

We can help directly, as individuals, and save lives today. Oxfam is already scrambling on the front lines to fight off starvation and disease - and beginning to rebuild. Because Oxfam has worked for years with grassroots groups in the hardest hit areas, they were able to mobilize local leadership to help survivors immediately after the tsunami hit. And Oxfam will be there for the long-term, helping communities recover and regain their ability to meet basic needs. Oxfam needs to raise $5 million immediately to provide safe water, sanitation, food, shelter, and clothing to 36,000 families in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and India. Your contribution can make this possible.

Click here to donate, or here to read more about their organization. But please give to at least one of the groups, it's the very least we can do.

Our government is doing the least it can do also, they've offered less money for aid than they are planning on spending on Dubya's $40 million+ inauguration party, isn't that nice?

Also see Careusa.org and RedCross.org to help. And beware in advance of the soon to come spam emails claiming to be collecting for this disaster, you know they're coming. Never click on an email link, you can double check reputable organizations through the media websites, CNN has a long list here of places to safely donate.

OK, I must have just listened to (from my office where I can hear but not see the TV, I do that when I have to actually go right back to work after dinner) Friday's Countdown on MSNBC so I didn't catch the joke that he was going on vacation this week. Really, he should have made an announcement and said "I won't be here next week so please don't flip out, I'll be right back". It freaked me out when a woman started doing the voiceover for his show tonight, Sparky and I were both like "Where's Keith?". But early in the show there was an inserted video of Keith saying "I swear, I'm just on vacation", which was a smart thing to do. And when you think about it from business terms, he's been working his ass off all year with the election, so logically (had everything turned out correctly) this would have been a perfect week to take a vacation. But he is still dutifully doing his blog (or at least we're told it's him, hmmmm).

But of course, things didn't work out correctly, and now all the rats are jumping off the Neocon ship, and even nastier rats are climbing on. Randi Rhodes was gone two days last week also, for female problems and a one day vacation herself, so it does make one a little nervous. Especially after Phil Donahue just disappeared into thin air last year (Phil, where are you now?).

Speaking of Phil's, I also missed all but the last glimpse of the clip on Jon Stewart tonight with Dr. Phil's patronizing platitudes about how well democracy is working now (I was in the garage doing laundry, oh well). He's from Texas, and apparently much more of an optimist than he pretends to be. Or high, or just part of the whole rght wing takeover of the media. I haven't been watching him much this season, one dysfunctional family after another, and I've been to the little Texas town he's focusing on this season as being one of the worst places to live, it's a few miles outside of Houston. I went there for a fireman's benefit picnic in the 80's, got to help direct traffic, and ended up with a bunch of fire ants in my car (discovered the hard way on the drive back).

But I've got to go to bed early today, Sparky was talking to his mom the other day about his making a will and how I had to legally change my name to be on it. I don't, BTW, we really did get married. I want to keep both my last names, but I don't want a hyphen, I did the hyphen thing with my last husband, it's annoying. So I get to drive down to the local Social Security office this afternoon with all of the proper paperwork and try and add a fourth name to the end of my name. Should my maiden name be a middle name? I've changed most of my things like doctors and prescriptions over to my married name anyway, I don't want to confuse them even more by having a hyphen in my name. And Sparky's last name is much easier to tell people and spell. My maiden name has, gasp... an X in the middle of it, just freaks people out. Seriously, it's two syllables but it might as well be in Greek letters, they cannot pronounce or spell it. But I want to keep it, there's only a few of us left.

But speaking of rats, hasn't this last week or so been a whirlwind of weirdness? Arafat drops dead ("I'm not dead yet!", Monty Python reference), oops, not, then he's in a coma... OK, now he's gone. No official cause of death given (someone hinted he might have been poisoned, the timing sure makes sense, I dunno. All of Dubya's people (either in fear of prison or of burning in hell) have been fleeing. And Condi's getting a promotion?? WTF?? At least they found Scott Peterson guilty, maybe we can stop hearing about him on an hourly basis now. At least until he's found beaten to death in a prison bathroom...

Off to bed, crap - I've got wet clothes in the dryer I've got to hang in the bathroom still... I want one of those big $1000 dryers with the cabinet on top for hanging and folded clothes, I've got too many cotton things.

Lots of things you can do to help stop the madness without even having to get out of your chair...

More urgent news relating to the voter fraud investigation (yeah! MoveOn.org is finally getting involved!)

Investigate the Vote

Questions are swirling around whether the election was conducted honestly or not. We need to know -- was it or wasn't it?

If people were wrongly prevented from voting, or if legitimate votes were mis-counted or not counted at all, we need to know so the wrongdoers can be held accountable, and to help prevent this from happening again. That's why we believe that:

"Congress must investigate the integrity of the voting process in the 2004 election."

In the news today Kerry and his people have also been taking an interest in Ohio, and the New Hampshire investigation is under way. (I'll take back everything I ever said about Ralph Nader if he can use his position as a candidate to force the states to investigate this mess).

Almost singlehandedly keeping the ball rolling in the media:

Radio Goddess Randi Rhodes

Keith Olbermann of MSNBC

Organizations in need of urgent help to keep the investigations going:

Black Box Voting.org

The Electronic Frontier Foundation

Help America Recount Fund

The Alliance For Democracy

And there's a huge and very simple "to write to" list here with links and everything, all you've got to do is click and email :-)

When I woke up yesterday, I had this really bright idea... I was going to take a little image of the US and superimpose a black mourning ribbon that said "2004" on it and make a little JPG that people could put on their websites to represent how most of the US really feels. And make a little page they could link to explaining what it meant. But the more the day went on, the more I realized that instead of mourning, we need to act. Do something right now before all of this Enron accounting we call our Presidential election has been run through the shredders.

So instead, I've been trying to think of ways to get involved in trying to fix, or at least expose the truth about this election. If you watch the mainstream "liberal" media, they're all trying to cover their own asses and say that the exit polls must have been wrong, and that the majority of Americans really don't want a chance at health insurance, jobs and peace. No, they're more concerned with whether two gays can get married. That is just SO wrong, on so many levels. I know there is a little cult of Bushies out there that would kill for him in the name of God, but I really don't think the majority of Christians in America are mindless robots.

And for some reason even intelligent, educated people are completely thrown by the fact that computers counted the votes, and computers can't be wrong.... NOT!! It's like the OJ DNA thing, "whoa, science...". That's crazy, even if you have had just casual contact with computers you should know they screw up all the time. And if you've ever gotten a computer virus from an email or a shared disc (does anyone use floppies anymore?) you know easy it is for even one idiot to screw up the system. Imagine what a group of computer savvy corporate jerks could do with millions of dollars and giant corporations behind them.

So I'm with Randi Rhodes, I don't care if people think I'm nuts, I want all of these damned machines examined. There is a group dedicated to doing this already and they are trying hard right now, starting with challenging the election results in New Hampshire, where the variance in the exit poll and the electronic voting tallies are so opposite that it will make your head hurt (click here to see an example graphic comparing exit polls in states with paper ballots compared to those with electronic ballots)

We really don't have to just lower our heads and concede that intelligent Americans are outnumbered by brainless cult members. And we don't need to move to Canada. What makes you think you'd be safe in another country when the US is on an Empire-buuilding rampage? And we can't wait another four years to start thinking about the next election. If they fixed the last two elections, don't you think they already have 2008 all planned out? We don't have to be polite, we need to be demanding AND constructive. So if you can't do anything else, at least go to Black Box Voting.org (the .org NOT the .com people, they're some sort of lookalike scam) and give them the couple of bucks that you might spend on latte or a magazine today to help them with their cause. They've been tracking electronic voting problems since the last "election". The discussions I've heard today even state that some of the voting machines were programmed to start counting BACKWARDS when Kerry's totals reached 50%. I live in Houston, I had friends that worked for Enron, we've seen what can be done to deceive us before, especially if we don't expect people to answer our questions.

And while you're in a mood for justice, sign the petition at Impeach Bush.org (Crap! I just clicked this to check my links, and it says "Site Temporarily Unavailable", here comes Big Brother...)

P.S. The masks are coming off of some of the extreme Neo Cons (and just conservative bullies in general), they seem to feel like they don't even have to pretend to be nice to us anymore. If you don't believe it, watch the re-broadcasts of Bill Maher's last show for the season on HBO this week. He did a live satellite interview with Former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson (R - Wyoming) who went off on him like Zell Miller before he could get two words out. (Interesting threads here and here. It was really quite scary, reminds me of stories my dad told me about growing up in small town Texas during the Depression and how his mom would beat the crap out of him every day for his own good (to make him a better person, my dad is a saint, BTW), and let any of the neighbors beat him too if they thought he needed it.

So if you don't mind old coots and pumped up religious fundamentalists going off on you and whacking you with a stick for "your own good", do nothing. Or move to Canada...

More proof:

Glitch gave Bush extra votes in Ohio

I was a big student of Weimar Germany growing up, and as a psychology buff was fascinated with how the people "let" Hitler rise to power and get as far as he did so quickly. A large part of it was that no one believed that a "civilized person" would actually do the things he did, but we've seen in the last four years how fast a "civilized country" can be deceived. At least Hitler did not do it under the guise of religion, but instead preyed on the anger and frustration of a once proud country who had gotten their asses kicked in WWI and were now destitute and had been forcibly humbled by the winners. So Hitler promised, pride, prosperity and power to the embittered German people. Then when he got the ball rolling, he relied on fear and threats to keep people in line.

My parents had lived in Germany while my dad was in the service during the occupation after WWII and I grew up with their stories of the people (and bitter cold, frozen toilets). And for the last 40 or so years there has been a picture frame collage full of discarded Nazi coins hanging in my parents den over the TV. They picked them up literally out of the streets because they were worthless after the war and had been discarded in disgust by the German people.

A really well known psychic once told me (without knowing my fascination with WWII era Europe) that my last past life ended in the 1930's in France when the Nazis invaded and I was targeted because I was a loud-mouthed opponent of the Nazi party who worked somewhere in the entertainment or media field and apparently people listened to me so I was one of the first to be taken out. (The Randi Rhodes of WWII, perhaps ;-) I don't know if I believe it, but when she told me it made me cry because it really rang true. And I've spent a large portion of my life trying to protect and warn people, and honestly speak my mind. Now I just do it from the internet instead of in a uniform with a patrol car...

When I was studying German language in high school, our teacher also worked a lot of history into the lessons. One of the things that stuck in my mind was a short verse by Martin Niemoller, which seems really appropriate for this bizarre mindset we're sinking even deeper into now. I was worried that after the election (and a Kerry victory) that the country would go back to being apathetic instead of vigilent, but we don't have that luxury anymore...

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Sparky woke me up this morning to tell me Kerry was about to give his "concession speech". I honestly got the same feeling I did when he woke me up to tell me an airplane had flown into the World Trade Center. Really. I'm not exaggerating. And yes it's a fair analogy, thousands of people have died because of the insane group of people that are running our country.

And poor Sparky. OMG, he's been so fatalistic all day. He actually believes that the country actually agrees with the fundamentalist psycho fear mentality that we are living under. He almost made me believe it. But I don't, I can't, I honestly don't believe the majority of America is that stupid and superstitious. I can't believe people stood in the rain for seven hours to keep the country exactly the way it is. No jobs, no healthcare, people dying daily in a fake war, a fascist monarch regime... I'd lose my mind it I actually believed that. I'm the one who can't watch movies without questioning "how could they do that?" "why would they react that way?". I'm too logical, it drives Sparky nuts, I just have a great deal of difficulty turning my brain off, even to watch a movie.

I'm not a conspiracy nut, it's just so fricking obvious from the results THAT THEY CHEATED! If you know ANYTHING about computers, you know it's not hard to do rig the stupid things. And they would do anything, including starting a war for no good reason, to stay in power. I'm even wondering if they had something to do with the Osama video ('you won't be safe no matter who wins') I worked in the middle of the corporate greed and power trip in the 90's so I saw it all up close and personal. And it scared the crap out of me.

I'm listening to the rebroadcast of Randi Rhodes on Air America right now and she is expressing the righteous anger and disbelief that I know a huge portion of the country is feeling. She really is a goddess, she's been fighting for our rights since the 2000, she lived in Florida in 2000 and experienced the voter fraud personally. She gives me hope and keeps my brain focused. I'm looking at the little sticker I put on the side of my scanner, which I pulled off my tee shirt when I got home yesterday that says "My vote counted", it's making me nauseous. Sparky pulled our yard sign down and ripped all of the stickers off of both of our cars before I woke up today. I really wanted to keep mine. I still have an unused one, thankfully it's still on my desk...

There is already so much evidence of vote tampering it's making my head spin:

Voting boxes here in Texas that flipped straight Democratic votes to Bush-Cheney (oh look, those are the same machines we used here in Houston)

More purging of voters in Florida

25 million NEGATIVE votes pop up in Youngstown, Ohio

We've got to do something to change this screwed up system. Now. They knew that it was almost all going to be untraceable, as did John Kerry apparently when he gave up. My father was speculating on the potential for future civil unrest and violence because of the frustrations of this mess. If we thought it was bad before, we ain't seen nothing yet. And the intelligent MAJORITY of this country now has to spend another four years fighting apathy, stupidity and fear.

And I was really, really looking forward to just the POSSIBILITY of things like health insurance, the return of common sense, a decent economy and possibly world peace.

One last attempt to help this mess before bed, I was reading the thread of fired up, frustrated and pissed off Dems on Democratic Underground and one of the ideas listed was to donate to Kerry's Legal fund so I forked over some more money. I'm self-employed with bad health and no insurance so if I can donate something towards this cause a lot of you kids can too. I've been giving since the Dean days whether I could afford it or not, despite my husband's comments that I was "wasting my money" and I haven't regretted a dime of it. And I'm VERY glad both of our boys are lawyers, it can't hurt.

Now another attempt at going to bed, Ambien take me away...

Well, after a completely sleepless night/morning, Sparky woke me up at 9:30 in hopes we could hit our voting place in between rushes. And we did, it was like 20 minutes total, as opposed to most of our friends who voted early and faced long, slow lines (one friend was over 90 minutes). We actually stopped by our early voting station last Thursday and decided to wait and vote on election day because of the slew of people that were waiting. But then I'm in Texas, where no one cares enough about our vote to bother with us (hopefully), and in other states people are spending 6 and 7 hours waiting.

But alas, patience is going to be a huge factor again it seems. Here we go again, hopefully with different results this time, this time perhaps ALL of the ballots will actually be counted. There are already allegations of voter fraud in, of course, Ohio and Florida, which is really apparent because those are the only two states where the results of the exit polls are way off (in Dubya's favor, imagine that).

Black Box Voting also issued a warning on 11/1 for polling places to disconnect their modems and manually bring the boxes in to be counted because they had evidence of hackers targeting the central computers counting our votes.

There's definitely something fishy going on, all of the millions of new voters did not register to keep Dubya in office. That goes against logic, though the Neocons whole campagn is completely at odds with logic. But here at 2am, Ohio voters are STILL standing in line to vote (yes, really), so everyone hang in there. As John Edwards said this evening, we've waited four years, we can wait another day. Or eleven...

I'm still up listening to Air America, which is helping to keep me sane. Sparky is passed out and snoring thankfully. It's been really hard trying to keep both his and my spirits up for the last four years, and he spent most of the evening watching MSNBC, who like Fox, are calling states early in favor of Dubya again. On the other hand Dan Rather is being the cautious, pragmatic one (he actually learns from experience unlike our current administration who proudly repeat their mistakes).

I'm glad I decided to take a semi-break from eBay this week, it's going to be difficult to concentrate until this is all sorted out. And somehow I don't see hordes of people shopping this week, unless it's out of manic depression (I've binged financially that way myself, especially after 9/11). But I've got lots of little mindless, comforting things I can do this week... take photos of things to get ready to list, I've got a whole file cabinet worth of stuff to sort and two new boxes of pretty colored files and my new Brother P-Touch to make legible labels (my handwriting is anything but legible). Unfortunately, Phoebe thinks an open file cabinet is an invitation to explore, I've actually closed her inside twice now which scares the crap out of me. She's been sensing the rising tension the last few days and has been extra snuggly and attentive.

Just heard of a website set up to keep everyone updated on the misadventures of this election and to help frustrated voters take action. Thank Al Gore for the internet, to give us immediate access to this constantly changing world and not making us slaves to the networks...

Double check your polling place, look in your local newspaper or click here

And courtesy of the Democratic National Committee:

VOTER BILL OF RIGHTS Know Your Rights | Exercise Your Right to Vote

Voting is the most direct way for you to affect your government - don't let anyone deprive you of this precious right! Read through the list below and be aware of your rights before you go to the polls, and use the information below if you encounter any harassment or intimidation.

:: You are entitled to vote without being harassed or intimidated by anyone.

:: Bring personal identification with you to the polls (driver's license, government ID, bank statement or utility bill).

:: If you forget your ID, you can still vote. In some states, all you need to do is sign an affidavit. In others, you can vote by provisional ballot.

:: If records show you have moved, you can vote by signing an address confirmation.

:: If you are in line at the polling place before the polls close, you can vote.

:: You have the right to receive a demonstration of voting equipment before voting.

:: If you are disabled or are over the age of 65, you have the right to an accessible polling place and help in voting.

:: If anyone challenges your right to vote :

Talk to the Voting Rights attorney at your polling place.

Ask for the name of the person who is denying you the right to vote and write it down.

Ask to talk to a supervisor and lodge a complaint.

OK, quick catch up for all the stunning news of the past few weeks I've been too busy to blog:

Ann Coulter attacked by two men armed with custard pies (hee hee)

Dubya says he anticipated NO CASUALTIES in the war on Iraq, more than 1,100 US troops have died in Iraq and another 8,000 troops have been wounded in the ongoing campaign...

Minnesota woman writes the names of all of the coalition soldiers killed in Iraq on her car

A Newsweek poll shows that 17 percent of Americans expect the world to end in their lifetime (up from 1% ten years ago)

Which makes sense because Bush admit he does not rely on intelligence to make choices, but rather his instincts

Oh, that's why Dubya looked odd from behind in the first debate... was he hearing voices?

Iran endorses Dubya (hint, hint...)

Bill Clinton might be the next head of the United Nations? Could there actually be world peace in out lifetime?

Get out the homeless vote!

Or... trade crack for new voters (?)

The Red Sox win, fan killed accidentally during celebration

The Astros lost (again)

And, oh yeah, Bill O'Reilly is a pervert (who knew?)

Clyde Peterson's eerily accurate vision of Cheney from today's Houston Chronicle

Update on bizarro world this evening when I get up, I'm tired of fighting with the computer for this evening and it's really been an "alternate universe" last week or so...

I saw this on the local news this evening, the latest scare tactic, guard your children!

What interesting timing... hmmmm...

I thought the flu vaccine thing would be the big panic for this week...

One more bragfest about my husband, yesterday Sparky got motivated and called the Harris County Democratic Party to find out where he could get a yard sign. We've literally had dozens pop up in our neighborhood after the Dubya/Kerry debate, I'm feeling better about my neighborhood. One entire street has Kerry signs (and one lone Bush sign). The Republican across the street finally put his Bush sign up (right next to his giant US flag).

So he called and found there was an office in the middle of our local gang infested mall (which we both worked at back in the 80's when kidnappings and murders were a pretty regular occurrence), which we try not to go to even though it's the closest major mall. But he waded through the ne'er-do-wells that were hanging out in the free AC and found the Dems kiosk. He got two yard signs, a couple of more stickers and their last button. We only put one sign out because I keep reading that people are rampantly stealing and defacing signs for both parties this year. So I can now sit at my desk and see the sign from the front window, I'm happy.

On a similar note, when I was flipping through the post VP debate reviews last night I decided to look for a breakdown of the truths and lies and typed in factcheck.com (I swear I didn't hear Dick say that it must have been some sort of subliminal thing), and it bounced me to George Soros.com (where the banner is "Why We Should Not Re-elect President Bush"), which I thought was strange at the time. Watching the clips today on TV I heard Cheney had actually told people to go to "factcheck.com" to verify one of his lies, which is not even the correct web address, so FactCheck.org deliberately forwarded the .com URL to George Soros' anti-Bush site after Cheney's miscomment. And they put up a rebuttal saying they did not support his statements about Halliburton.

Also apparently the RNC said something rude about Chris Matthews post-debate comments about Cheney's lies so he attacked them right back this evening. Real smart guys, attack an attack dog who had been tentatively defending you, go get 'em Chris! This is getting to be fun...

John and Teresa Kerry are on Dr. Phil today, check it out!

I wonder if Dr. Phil will bring up teenage oral sex with them? (That's the only part of the Dubya interview I would have liked to have seen ;-)

Quotes from Dr. Phil after the interview:

"I expected to be very impressed with John Kerry and I was very impressed with John Kerry. I think he's got a calmness about him. I think he has this kind of sense of a strong but gentle spirit."

" I didn't know much about Teresa, except what I had seen in the media. I didn't have a negative opinion of her; I just had one set of expectations and I thought she was completely different. I knew I would be impressed with her. She is very funny. She's very warm. She's very engaging and a very wise woman. I thought they were a powerfully normal couple."

I wish I was perkier tonight, I'm on meds for a really bad UTI and it's been making me groggy...

Sparky and I watched the boardroom meeting from Hell tonight (shudder). If Dubya is the Anti-Christ then Cheney is obviously Satan. He just reeks evil... he can't even raise his head to look people in the eye. What's with these guys? They have terrible posture, Cheney was sitting there slumped over with no neck like Jabba the Hut, lashing out like a lizard to hiss at Edwards, ignoring any questions or comments he deemed unimportant.

Even our cat felt the evil in the air, she was going bonkers while we were watching TV, just freaking out, bouncing off the walls and attacking things. Animals can sense things, you know...

Cheney looks just like the last big corporate jerk I worked for, he creeps me out. The few boardroom meetings I had to attend were exercises in staying awake, in the big vacu-sealed, over air-conditioned, shadowy boardroom where the walls seem to absorb all the sound... in space, no one can hear you scream... sorry, I digress...

I actually dozed off twice tonight, Cheney has that corporate hypnotism chanting thing down pat. It's impossible to pay attention to what he's saying. He started to bare his fangs early in the debate, but then he went back to his dead poker face. Several times they also showed some behind shots of the interviewer leaning back in her chair staring at Cheney like he had horns growing out of his head. And I swear to God he slipped in at least two more Armageddon threats tonight.

OK, it should be painfully obvious to everyone now who is really running the country... I am looking forward to Friday night, it supposed to be a town hall format. Hopefully there won't be too many Neocon plants in the audience. I wonder if they allow applause will there be boos also? I just want to see the baffled look on Dubya's face when he doesn't get the pep rally reception he's used to.

The Washington Post has a good article on the debate and FactCheck.org has the reality breakdown. As a David vs. Goliath match, I thought David showed amazing courage and got quite a few blows in.

Still too wound up to sleep...

Is it just me or did Dubya look like he's gained some weight? Sparky noticed it too, in the shots from behind he looked awfully wide. Maybe because he was slumping so much... Hmmm, Randi Rhodes read off some of the 32 page list of rules last night and one of them was they couldn't photograph them from behind, makes sense now.

He also looked really freaked out that people weren't cheering after his every sentence. Didn't anyone tell him this audience hadn't signed an oath of loyalty? Does he even realize that a lot of people don't like him? If he doesn't read the newspapers perhaps he doesn't.

I kept waiting for him to either:walk off the stage, start choking or having a feigned heart attack, or shout out "I wanted to be baseball commissioner, dammit!".

Was he sedated? Maybe that's why he's gained weight. They're keeping him drugged like in the Nazi episode of Star Trek.

And poor Rudy Giuliani trying to defend Dubya's performance. It was just sad. How do these poor guys sleep at night?

I've seen some threads running tonight that claim the Democrats are manipulating the online polls, isn't that what the Republicans are good at? Aren't they supposed to be the masters of media manipulation? Oh, and voting manipulation? It's common knowledge that they plant people at Democratic rallies, feed the press negative stories, line up to call in to radio talk shows disguised as non-partisan types, etc. How on earth could we beat them at their own game? Are they all asleepl? Or are they busy banging their heads against the wall? Surely they've been revved up and ready for tonight. They sure were on the ball when 9/11 happened, they jumped right on that bandwagon without a pause.

But we've seen the end of the post 9/11 faux-patriotic momentum tonight. Americans are angry, we're tired of being manipulated and lied to. We want peace, education, health care. We want the truth. We want our country back.

Maybe Ralph Nader will be so shocked by tonight's debate he'll step down. Hopefully his supporters will at least see why we need a new President.

I hope Oprah's Voting Party got people to watch the debates. She made the audience cry, that's a good start.

I'm going to go flip through the debate transcript while my memory is fresh. OMG, there were so many good (and horrific) soundbites tonight. I wonder if they corrected Dubya's grammar, I hope not. Damn Jim Lehrer did a great job.

Whew, now that my initial reaction has been captured untinged, I've spent the evening basking in Air America and flipping through weblogs. And I've been checking out & voting in the online polls, please go and cast your opinion too and see what people really think before the spin doctors try and salvage their loss. I've made it through most of them and the consensus across the board here at 2am is Kerry 76% and Bush 24%. EVERYWHERE! Even here in Texas... it would be nice to think my vote might actually count this November. Some of the polls have Kerry winning by over 90%. Sparky is so happy, I actually showed him quite a few of the polls so he would actually believe that America is coming out of it's coma.

The only scary opinion expressed this evening is one I've worried about also, what are the powers currently in charge going to do to try and swing public opinion back in their favor? Perhaps another terrorist attack on US soil? I wouldn't put it past them, seriously. Or are they going to sell their stocks and try to get out before they start losing money in this corporation they've created? I've been imagining for some time that this whole evil empire was going to self-implode like Enron. They'll turn on each other, no one wanting to take the blame for the criminal and financial mess they've made. And tonight we've seen their sacrificial lamb - poor Dubya will be the one thrown to the wolves. And he's too dumb to defend himself. He's actually lucky that we still do have some semblance of Democracy left or he'd be dangling over the village square by a rope tonight like Mussolini, with the angry throwing rocks at him and beating him with sticks.

The last thing Sparky said before he went to sleep tonight was "now we can put our Kerry bumper stickers on our cars". So there is hope, don't let anyone tell you there isn't. Believe your own eyes and ears, let this be remembered as the day America woke up. Our country has been off course, asleep at the wheel. We can wake up and keep from hitting the brick wall, it's not too late.

Well, thank you goddess! Sparky and I watched the debate tonight, and yes, the Emperor really has no clothes! It's been proven. And thank goodness also that the networks actually showed the reaction shots (which they weren't "supposed" to per the 32 pages of rules) and we got to see Kerry taking studious notes while Dubya swigged water, rolled his eyes, slumped on the podium and flipped his piece of paper back and forth (which appeared to be covered in doodles).

And miraculously, the pundits even seemed to agree that Dubya was nervous, defensive, repetitive and completely inarticulate. Though he does seem to have practiced saying nuclear, after a pause and deep breath he even managed to say "nuclear prolification". But he did say emeny instead of enemy. Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthews even agreed that Dubya was seemed the annoyed monarch who did not want to be there and is unaccustomed to being questioned. My husband was so worried, not that John Kerry would do badly, but that Dubya would beautomatically be proclaimed the winner because that mean old smart guy was picking on him. That's how he won Texas, because Ann Richards (who was a wonderful governor, BTW) picked on "poor George".

Once again, can I make a plea - can we PLEASE have the smart, well spoken guy for President?? Please??? I don't want the average Joe Blow running our country, I don't want the "everyman" in charge, I want the smart guy who is going to plan things out before he acts. Running the largest nation in the world requires a lot of knowledge, education and experience. Here's an analogy to chew on - If you were going on a car trip and were bringing your family along, do you want to ride with the guy who never passed his driver's license test, who is prone to road rage and spent the first part of his life drinking to excess and snorting coke or would you rather ride with the responsible guy who reads the maps before he goes somewhere and would never drink and drive? Because that's where we are America, we've been riding with the road raging cowboy and we're out in the middle of nowhere and the other drivers won't get near us because they're afraid of OUR driver. But now he's finally running out of gas and hopefully soon won't be able to harm anyone else. We're going to take the keys away from him.

So we're both taking sighs of relief, and I have a feeling even the propaganda masters in the GOP won't be able to salvage this disaster. I do not want to wake up tomorrow to headlines that say "Bush Won Debate". If the media does not want to lose all of their credibility they will play it straight on this debate. Kerry slaughtered Bush. And Kerry answered everything clearly, succinctly and in plain language. Meanwhile Dubya interrupted, ran over in time), and kept raising his hand to object though when called upon he often had nothing to say. Except that the country needed someone who didn't change positions. Who didn't play well with others. And who refused to learn from or even acknowledge his mistakes.

And there are two more debates left... And next week is Edwards vs. Darth Cheney. This is going to get bloody.

But seriously, I REALLY want the smart guy to win this time. Will everyone get off their butts and vote this November? We can have a peaceful, prosperous America again. We've done it before, I remember, I was there. And your vote really is anonymous. And registering to vote does not mean you're more likely tol be picked for jury duty. They don't do that anymore, they use your driver's license info. Yes, really. So if you don't want to go to jury duty, don't drive. But please vote.

I saw a house a few blocks down from ours today with not one, but two Kerry-Edwards signs proudly displayed in the front yard. I'm wondering when the guy across the street from us is going to put up his Dubya sign. Our neighborhood is pretty conservative, if we were about three miles to the east we'd be in a predominatnly liberal Jewish neighborhood. And, yes, the houses there cost more. I saw quite a few Kerry signs driving through there today (sigh).

Sparky's been really bi-polar this week about the debates this Thursday night. I hope I get my Fiorinal renewed before then, I've had a headache all week myself. At least I do have some Valium left if he gets too angry at the "liberal media". My mantra? Polls are crap and the only person I believe on TV is Jon Stewart.

I'm looking at two Kerry-Edwards bumper stickers on my desk, a pretty navy & red one and a smaller baby blue, navy and white one. I've been dying to put the red one on my car, but Sparky's too paranoid. Mostly of some idiot keying my relatively new (i.e. expensive) car. I've got nothing but a Carmax sticker on it right now. My last car had about half a dozen stickers in the window and on the bumper. Of course it was 13 years old too.

I mentioned the yard signs to Sparky today and wondered aloud where we could get one and he wondered also. So we're making progress. Or he's not afraid for the house, just my car. He also pulled out the stickers and looked at them, I told him I had two and the white one would look great on his white car. He also agreed. But his car is 16 years old...

Everyone watch Oprah's Voting Party, today's show is to convince people to register to vote. Maybe she could give a new car to anyone who votes for Kerry, I think it would work.

We really are in Nazi Germany, aren't we? This is just creepy.

I'd elaborate more on this, but I've been sick the last two days and I'm very braindead...

P.S. 9/18 - Even my 75 year old father called me and told me it's time to practice my Sieg Heil's... He should now, he was stationed in Germany soon during the post WWII occupation. Grieving mothers haled off in handcuffs... at least I studied German in school.

Seriously, though, I spent a lot of time when I was younger studying Weimar Germany and WWII, and there are too many parallels going on here, it's freaking me out...

and finally

Vote for Kerry or (and?) be whipped!

OK, everyone exhale... It's officially September 12th throughout the US of A. Not out of fear, but out of some strange sort of morbid respect or superstition I did not want to leave the house today. We didn't watch much "real" TV today either, just the CBS evening news and Cops and part of AMW on Fox. Then I did computer stuff for a few hours and came back in and watched TLC Clean Sweep another messy couple's house. Why do people sign up for this show if they aren't willing to get rid of anything??

Sparky's been very depressed with the latest Kerry vs. Dubya polls, but he watches that crap all day on TV. I keep trying to tell him polls are bullshit (have you eve been polled? I haven't, I've been a registered voter since 1980), and most of the news he watches is biased, but he can't see past the haze of helplessness and despair that is being projected. (Cue up the loudspeakers on the streets, "Don't think, obey blindly or die...", rinse and repeat till braindead) He's trying to force himself not to watch as much and has been watching things like MST3K videos instead. The TV in the den has actually been turned OFF some during the last few days (it's never off, this is really very eerie).

We both watched some of Al Franken's show since they've been airing it on the Sundance channel this week. We don't have satellite radio and he doesn't do computers, but I actually streamed it one night after he had gone to bed and ended up catching it and Randi Rhodes, who blew me away. I'm not sure I can handle that much excitement at 5 am. I'm not a good listener, I really dislike things like books on tape and talk radio usually, but she managed to keep my attention. Honestly? I believe I have something called Central Auditory Processing Disorder, I've never been good at listening to speeches, I still think that's the reason I did so badly in college. Suddenly school consisted of sitting in huge auditoriums listening to speeches... zzzzzzz.... Reading I have no problem with, I can read for hours, as long as it's not something I have zero interest in, zzzzzz...

I can't distinguish what people are saying in large crowds, I'm the one that sit and nods blankly at people, I've always gotten song lyrics wrong, I'm really easily distracted by people talking while I'm trying to concentrate on typing, etc. I sleep better with white noise in the background (I grew up with the air conditioner humming against my bedroom wall). I used to have to be really careful when I worked nights and was driving around to keep my car radio either up where I could hear it clearly or off so I wasn't lulled into dozing off. About the only talk radio I used to listen to was Larry King back in the 80's, he actually managed to keep me awake. But I don't like to talk on the phone, I'd rather email people or see them in person. And I have severe tinnitus, which doesn't help.

But I love music. I'd go insane without it, it works better than Prozac. It plays in my head 24/7 whether I want it to or not. But more to follow on the musical subject...

Damn, I just went to Air America to get links and what's on right now? The Best of Randi Rhodes, I'm listening now... so I'll be all fired up again tonight, glad I got my Ambien refilled.

But, regarding terrorist attacks, I'm not sure why we're uneasy anymore, Cheney actually told us the other day that THEY are the ones in charge of whether we get attacked or not, so I guess we can all rest easy until November 2nd. He knows when they'll be coming for us, he can make it happen. Cheney would really look like an idiot if something happened before the election now that's he's declared that we're basically safe until afterwards (but only if they win). So why are we afraid? Ummm.. because our own government is threatening us with a terrorist attack if we don't vote Republican? OK, yeah, that's a good reason to be scared. The corporate mafia is running our country and we're all running out of payoff money to keep them from hurting us...

I told you I can't type and listen at the same time, so I think I'll go play with Photoshop while I listen, I know I can do that safely...

P.S. Just heard this comment about how we're all getting rich on eBay. As an eBay Powerseller I can officially say - NOT!!! But at least I'm not working for someone else anymore, they're trying to take people's overtime pay away too.

I don't care what her critics say, Teresa rocks:

8/3/04: Teresa Heinz Kerry was introducing her husband, the Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, to a rally in Milwaukee and discussing how important it was to "take a stand" when from a nearby street she heard a man shouting "Four more years!" over a bullhorn. "Four more years?" she said acidly. "They want four more years of hell." The crowd roared. "Three more months!" the audience started chanting. Taking the stage, Kerry said his wife "speaks her mind, and she speaks the truth - and she's pretty quick on her feet, too. That's why America is going to embrace her, and she's going to make a spectacular first lady."

Well, Sparky called yesterday and ordered up HBO again because Real Time with Bill Maher is back on the air through November, the first episode of the new season was tonight. The guests were Michael Moore, Ralph Nader, Gov. Bill Owens, Rep. David Dreir, and former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell. Watch one of the rebroadcasts this week if you can, it was a slugfest. And Bill and Michael got down on their knees and begged Nader not to run for President this year which really freaked Ralph out.

The most interesting part was watching the two Republicans try and rationalize Bush's actions, especially his non-reaction to the initial announcement that the US was under attack. Dreir's face got all red and he finally lost his composure and snapped at Michael Moore saying his documentary was fiction, which was ironic because he admitted he had not even seen the film.

Bill's official website has gotten a spiffy redesign, though I'd like to suggest he add a home link and a link to his discussion boards, which appears to be a great place to go if you like to argue. I know I'm opinionated, but I try not to get into arguments on politics or religion with people who are looking for an argument, it's just an exercise in frustration.

This article in the Friday Houston Chronicle is a bit scary. I had controversial bumper stickers all over my old car and am waiting on a Kerry-Edwards sticker to arrive in the mail but haven't put anything on my "new" car yet. Not really out of fear of reprisal but more out of respect for the condition of my car. And I now have a rear window defroster grid to worry about, not that the rear window on the Maxima is very easy to see anyway. And Sparky is terrified I'm going to "junk up" my car with stickers like I did (in his opnion) with my last one. But if you can't put stickers all over a 13 year old car, where is the fun in life? I'm still looking for my extra HPD "The Badge Means We Care" sticker that I've had on all of my cars, I saw it before we moved last time, I know it's around somewhere. Besides being supportive of our local police, I actually used to work a close relative of the slain officer whose badge number is memorialized on the sticker.

Sparky has a few stickers on his old car, including a Kerry sticker he got in the mail. He used to have an "I Didn't Vote For His Daddy Either" sticker on his bumper pre 9/11, but took it off after being honked at and harrassed by local rednecks after the WTC disaster. We're both going to put the new stickers on when they arrive, though. No one ever bothered me about mine when I had the old, insignificant looking car, I wonder if they will now that I actually look like I have money?

OK, I couldn't go to bed tonight without writing something about the Democratic National Convention this week. We've watched most of it on C-SPAN, no commercials, no snotty comments and you get to see all of the speeches. While the 2000 election was very important and held our interest, this year it seemed vital that we watch and really pay attention to everything that was going on. And it's really been awe-inspiring to see the Democrats so intense and unified. For years I've been a self-proclaimed Independent, but I can really say I'm a Democrat now. There is so much hope and promise in the party, I really will be holding my breath until this whole thing is over and official.

There is so much venom and desperation coming from the Republicans (not all of them, just the ones in power) that I wouldn't put anything past them. With the combination of "divine right" and corporate greed and power this is going to be a scary next three months. But after seeing all of the speeches this week, especially John Kerry's tonight, I really believe that the Democrats are not going to back down again, and are going to be so alert for fraud and deceit that we might actually have an honest election this year. By the end of his speech tonight John Kerry was so strong & focused I think he could take on anyone. Maybe what's happened in this administration was a lesson the US needed to learn, perhaps we needed to see one moral extreme in order to propel us to fight for what's right and not just talk about it. I really do believe that after four years of madness that "Help Is On The Way".

I don't agree 100%, but you've got to give him credit for telling it like it is...

YES, I'M A BAD AMERICAN by George Carlin

I Am Your Worst Nightmare. I am a BAD American. I am George Carlin.

I believe the money I make belongs to me and my family, not some mid level governmental functionary be it Democratic or Republican!

I think owning a gun doesn't make you a killer, it makes you a smart American.

I think being a minority does not make you noble or victimized, and does not entitle you to anything.

I believe that if you are selling me a Big Mac, try to do it in English.

I think fireworks should be legal on the 4th of July.

I think that being a student doesn't give you any more enlightenment than working at Blockbuster! . In fact, if your parents are footing the bill to put your pansy ass through 4 years plus of college, you haven't begun to be enlightened.

I believe everyone has a right to pray to his or her God when and where they want to.

My heroes are John Wayne, Babe Ruth, Roy Rogers, and whoever canceled Jerry Springer.

I don't hate the rich. I don't pity the poor.

I know wrestling is fake and I don't waste my time arguing about it.

I've never owned a slave, or was a slave, I didn't wander forty years In the desert after getting chased out of Egypt. I haven't burned any witches or been persecuted by the Turks and neither have you! So, shut-the-Hell-up already.

I want to know which church is it exactly where the Reverend Jesse Jackson practices, where he gets his money, and why he is always part of the problem and not the solution. Can I get an AMEN on that one?

I think the cops have every right to shoot your sorry ass if you're running ! from them.

I also think they have the right to pull your ass over if you're breaking the law, regardless of what color you are.

I think if you are too stupid to know how a ballot works, I don't want you deciding who should be running the most powerful nation in the world for the next four years.

I believe that it doesn't take a village to raise a child, it takes two parents.
If this makes me a BAD American, then yes, I'm a BAD American.

If you are a BAD American too, please forward this to everyone you know.

We need our country back!

Serious stuff, go to these sites today and sign the petitions:

UNITED, NOT DIVIDED - MARRIAGE VOTE

The fate of this Constitutional amendment will be decided in the next few days.

President Bush campaigned on a promise to unite us, not divide us. But now he's using the politics of hate in an attempt to distract us from the real issues - Iraq, the economy, funding for our schools. Bush wants to amend the U.S. Constitution to deny marriage equality to same-sex couples. This is unprecedented - never before has our Constitution been amended to take away anyone's rights. We believe:

"Everyone has the same rights. There is no place in America for a Constitutional amendment denying marriage equality to anyone."

COUNT EVERY VOTE

Today we call on Congress and the states to require any electronic voting machine used in this election to produce a paper trail - one that allows voters to verify their choices and officials to conduct recounts.

And if you want to feel better about the future, watch MoveOn.org's new ad comparing Vice President Dick Cheney with John Edwards. There is hope ;-)

Been offline a few days for health reasons, been having migraines that are making focusing on anything difficult...

But OMG! July is starting off with a bang... Kerry picks John Edwards for his VP and the populus seems pleased & hopeful (much better poll numbers than Cheney). Someone described the upcoming VP debate as "Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader".

Speaking of, the evil cyborg has started expressing his contempt for the commoners out loud, maybe he has a short in his system...

And Kenny-Boy Lay has been indicted on criminal charges, finally, and right here in Space City! I want to wake up tomorrow to see video of him being dragged off in handcuffs kicking and screaming (sigh). I hope he doesn't shoot himself in the head tonight, America needs to see him on trial... refusing to answer questions... then wearing an orange jumpsuit. (P.S. OK, the smiling perp walk today was pretty bizarre, and then he held a press conference and began stuttering when he got some hard questions, they showed the whole debacle on local TV)

The Evil Empire seems to be self-imploding, yippee! What's next? Hmmm... the Dubya-Condi sex scandal? That would be too good to be true.

Oh, you can go to John Kerry.com and get a free Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker, get 'em while they're hot!

OK, I'm actually backed up on entries because of modem & Mac problems this weekend, but I wanted to get this up before the holiday weekend.

My husband and I were driving down the tollway the other night and all of the malf-mast flags for Reagan got me thinking, why don't we honor our real heroes and remind people that our soldiers are dying daily in the Middle East (800+ now I believe). Let's keep the flags at half staff out of respect for our soldiers until the last one comes home from this elective war? Feel free to grab my graphic below (please store on your own server, or it won't load), and please spread the word!

Need it in a different size? Lemme know and I'll post it!

Ironically, this photo was taken just after 9/11 and is a variant of a banner I used for my 9/11 eBay charity auctions. It said "One Nation - Indivisible". Wow, we've come a long way, haven't we?

Late entry... though I did begin it on time, my internet service decided to freak out, then my Mac went completely bananas. Further proof of the vast right-wing conspiracy in action ;-)

OK, Sparky and I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 opening night. Very minimal line, but we saw it way out in the burbs, but by the time the film began the theater was completely full, which is pretty impressive for the biggest screen in a 24 screen megaplex. The stunning pre-credit sequence rolled and then the credits began. The audience is too quiet... Michael Moore's name came up on the screen (a pin dropped..). Dammit, I started clapping from the top row, and got a tentative wave of applause going around the house.

And, also from the top row, some boos? Wow, why are here? Do you enjoy spending money on films by people you don't like, or did you sneak in after the first showing of "White Chicks" let out? Of course, Sparky yelled back at them, that's all I need (sigh). But the cheers and applause (and gasps and tears) superceded the boos for the rest of the film, it would be hard not to watch little Arab children being blown up (and US soldiers also) and not feel a little remorse and respect. There was so much ground to cover, the Bush connections were just mind-blowing, the editing on this film must have been the hardest part.

Sparky and I differed on his representation of 9/11, he thought they should have shown the footage of the buildings, but I honestly think the darkness and screaming, swirls of papers raining down non-stop and the reactions of the observers were more moving. Because everyone has their own memories of that day running through their heads, I think it was more effective to let people use their own imaginations.

I think it should have gotten a PG-13, though from what I've seen a lot of theater owners are enforcing their own rating system (remember the "Passion of the Christ", anyone see South Park's take on that?) and letting more teens in. It was the number one film this weekend and the top-grossing documentary ever, yeah, I'd say it's an important film.

Back in the 80's, I remember going to a local college to see a film on Bush Sr. and such things as how he deliberately delayed the release of the hostages so that they would be free as soon as Reagan came into office, and thinking "Why isn't anyone paying attention to this information?". So let the teens come and watch and form their own opinions, let's encourage thinking in the next generation, that would be a nice change... Maybe it will be "cool" to question authority again.

Definition of Liberal as a noun from my 1980 edition of Webster's dictionary:

One who is open-minded or not strict in the observance of orthodox, traditional or established forms or ways. An advocate of liberalism, esp. in individual rights.

The front page of today's Houston Chronicle had an article from the NY Times near the bottom of the page with the title Memo said Bush could OK torture of prisoners. Later in the day, though, the article had been replaced on their website with Ashcroft: 'This administration rejects torture', and I had to hunt for the first article. I've got to give them credit for printing it, at least. I think the country is so shell shocked that even something like Bush Sells Soul to Satan probably wouldn't make much of an impact anymore.

Weird quote of the day from Ashcroft:

"I condemn torture. ... I don't think it's productive, let alone justified".

Gee, what could we do that would be even more efficient and productive, that's kind of a scary thought.

Sorry for the pun, it was an easy shot. Fresh from the evening news tonight, more wacky antics from those lovable Enron traders, just adding further proof to justify Bill Hick's observation that marketers really are Satan's little helpers.

"It's called lies. It's all how well you can weave these lies together, Shari, alright, so," an employee is heard saying.

The other employee says, "I feel like I'm being corrupted now."

The first employee adds, "No, this is marketing,"

"OK.''

Wow. So for all you conspiracy theorists out there, it has now been officially proven that Enron worked very hard at deliberately screwing over California. So maybe the Davis Power Crisis should be renamed, hmmm...

In other news, more dirt this week on the White House. Dan Rather played some of the audio tapes of the idiots at Enron bragging about deliberately shutting down plants to increase oil prices and cheering on the California fires. And they had some mention of Cheney and Bush in the mix, which is somewhat satisfying since Houston was so screwed over by these greedy corporate bastards. I knew in the late 90's that the US was spiraling towards some sort of corporate Soddom and Gomorrah (sp?) after watching the company I worked for be taken over and corrupted in a period of about five years. And walking past the CEO's always brand new imported Mercedes on the ground floor of the parking garage daily.

And the news today was that Dubya has now got himself a lawyer because of the CIA "leak" about Joseph Wilson's wife. Didn't that used to be a treasonous offense, telling the public who our CIA secret agents are? I think they can write all the books they want about the scandals that are breaking daily, but they'd be more effective if they made TV movies so people would actually pay attention. As long as they didn't put it in the same slot as Fear Factor (sigh). Though I do think it was hilarious that none of the major networks would carry Dubya's speech last week, it's sweeps period for God's sake!

Also, go sign the petition to have paper backups of the new electronic voting machines, don't let Diebold pick the next President!

I almost forgot about this, the emails are going around about there being a US boycott on buying gas today. Even though it may be an urban legend, still not a bad idea to pass it on just to get people talking. They way they manipulate oil prices is almost as bad as prescription medicine, they know we've got to have it so they can pretty much put whatever price tag they want on it. There's a lively discussion of the story at Suicide Girls. It still amazes me how fast Google spiders everything these days...

It's nice to know Colin Powell still has some integrity, why do I keep wondering if the big guys are threatening his family so he won't tell the truth? He often seems to have that desperate look like he really wants to say something... come to think of it a lot of Republicans have that look lately. People have to start breaking soon in the White House, surely not everyone in the current administration wants to go to hell with a guilty conscience...

Speaking of integrity, the pundits have been speculating on a big What If lately that might just save America from the hole it's fallen into (especially morally). What if John Kerry and John McCain teamed up as a bi-partisan ticket? As a person I love John McCain (and he still has a soul despite the best efforts of the Bush camp), it would be a government with a conscience, what an amazing concept. And I'm currently about as anti-Republican as you can get, so if I would vote for a Dem/Rep ticket, what about all the dissatisfied Republicans out there? I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it will take to make the American people who still support Bush snap out of it. Our military leadership is dismissing the Geneva Convention as "quaint", now we're having these witch trials to throw the scapegoats in front of the angry villagers so they'll look at them instead of Rummy. We've become the Stepford Country, it's really creepy...

I'm sure they want to divert the press away from the gay marriage stories also, "gee, they don't look that dangerous, maybe gay people are OK after all". That's got to be eating Dubya up inside, holy shit, someone actually gat a new right instead of having one taken away from them. Neat article on the Will & Grace Effect from Newsweek online, I like to think the Queer Eye guys have had a big impact on humanizing gays also, especially gay men, you know they really are not out to have sex with all you straight guys, you're not really that irresistable, trust me ;-)

For more groovy anti-war/Dubya images check out The Peace Pretzel's graphics link page. Print some and put them on your car!

Just found one of the political protest sites I had bookmarked has been bullied into shutting down, gee I wonder who would be offended by a little free speech, hmmm???

A famous local psychic once told me I had been a female French freedom fighter in WWII and was killed by the Nazis to silence me when they invaded France, makes sense to me. I have a fascination with WWII Europe but no real historical interests again until I reappeared in the early 60's here in the US. Supposedely I was a guardian angel in the interim. I really wish I were doing more now, but this is my little corner of the internet and I do hope people at least stop by. Janeane Garofolo, who I really respect, said the other day that at this point a vote for Bush is a character flaw and I think she nailed it right on the head. She said the people that are standing behind Bush are doing it out of spite, which is not as farfetched as it may sound. I've always thought it was stupid stubbornness also that people are still saying they support Bush after he has willfully unleased Armageddon on the world, I mean, really, what the hell do they see in him that's decent and good anymore? As a bumper sticker I sold (I think I have a few left still) says "Lobotomies for Republicans, It's the Law!".

I found a funny UK site the other day with some great commentary on Bush and Tony Blair (I still feel sorry for him being dragged under by us, the "US" actually, he seemed like such a decent guy). And our country never ceases to embarass ourselves, now we're playing fraternity initiation games with Iraqi prisoners. Of course I say this from the state where one of the largest universities accidentally killed some of it's students by building a huge bonfire which collapsed on themselves in order to commemorate a bloody football game, and they want to continue building them. I'm sure the soldiers are going stir crazy over there, but do they have to shoot photos and videos of their crimes? What are we, 13 years old shooting paint balls out of car windows at people?

To the rest of the world, please understand we have to make jokes about the horrible things that have been happening these past few years to keep from going insane. Most Americans truly can't believe the hell we've fallen into (and so quickly and efficiently too!), our rights being stripped away one layer at a time, while our government plays God with us and the rest of the world (it's for our own good, you understand). We have our own Taliban now, it's called the Republican party. So much for separation of church and state, which, not being a fundamentalist Christian, and still being of child bearing age, makes me especially uncomfortable. If I could stand the cold weather, and thought we wouldn't conquer their asses too, Canada would look very appealing right now.

I gave money earlier this week to Howard Dean's revamped site, Democracy for America.com, and just saw that we reached out goal of $250,000, yea!! There is some hope after all for our poor fucked up country. I keep telling Sparky that the entire country really can't all be blind Bush following idiots, but he watches news TV all day and believes all of their insane polls and pundits. I have to believe there are some intelligent people in the US (which ain't easy being isolated in Texas -- we won't be a battleground state this November) or I don't think I could go on. I'm so glad we don't have kids, I see way too many little brain-washed future Republicans, we need a generation of really motivated anit-establishment cyber hippies. I know they're out there somewhere...

Speaking of bullies (or cowards) Disney has refused to distribute Michael Moore's new documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11", gee, I wonder why? I have to admit that Disney doesn't come to mind when I think of revolutionary anti-establishment exposes, but you never know. But, I think this is like the Al Franken/Bill O'Reilly lawsuit, it will only help him and add weight to his film. I can't wait to see it, personally. I just hope people pay attention to the message, this administration is so ballsy it just tries to blow off any claims against it, even with lots of proof. I'd like to think we're seeing the beginning of the great foundation crumbling going on right now, but I don't want to get my hopes up waiting for the impending implosion.

OK, I got a weird 4am burst of rebellion after flipping through several sites with anti-war graphics and felt compelled to post at least a few. Also this story about the Air Force releasing over 300 photos soldiers killed in Iraq being shipped home jumped out at me. The Pentagon didn't want us to see these, I wonder why?

I've downloaded and printed new stickers for my car window, Sparky insists I replace the Dean for Texas sticker so I'll put something even more encendiary on display. To download your own protest messages check out The Fair & Balanced Pretzel. For even more, don't miss their graphics links page.

Here's the DNC's Earth Day Link, which for some reason is not aligning properly in my browser...

SaveOurEnvironment.org has a petition for Earth Day about the evils of mercury pollution

EnviroLink has info on related events for this weekend

As does EarthDayNetwork, and they have a link to register to vote

Greenwatch is tracking the Bush administration's environmental misdeeds (glad someone is...)

Even if we were given a clean slate today I wonder if we'll ever be able to recreate some semblance of the world as we knew it even 30 years ago? Yes, there has been pollution and deforestation for many years before that, but we're just so damned efficient at it now.

I can't make it to Washington, but for anyone who can, the March for Women's Lives is this weekend. I hope it accomplishes something, give them a few bucks if you can afford it, I did ;-)

Had to make a new category, I look at a lot of blogs but don't have as much time to read them all as I wish, but better to be a good blogger and pass them on than just store them in my ever-growing bookmark list. I'm afraid I'm still stuck in the "website" mindset when it comes to links, etc., even though I've had this blog up for over a year.

Flipping around lately I've found some really great ones. SistersTalk is a black lesbian woman's astute observations on the insanity going on politically in our screwed up world.

A View From A Broad is the LiveJournal of a female soldier in Iraq who is also a fan girl, which makes for some interesting reading. I scared the crap out of my parents in high school by talking to Army recruiters (who called the house repeatedely), but decided any job that makes you get up at the crack of dawn daily would not work for me. In high school I had no clue what to do for a career, I graduated in 1980. Signed on for Computer Science like most of my friends, but after failing Calculus three times decided I really hated the sciences, and, at the time, really sucked at computers. (We're talking punch cards here, folks).

Baghdad Burning is another perspective on the war from an Iraqi woman's point of view. Eerie and enlightening, like reading Anne Frank's journal online in real time.

Feministe is a mom who defends abortion rights in a common sense & logical fashion. (I'm all for logic & common sense, not nearly enough of it out there to go around these days)

I don't really understand I Am Eating My Husband's Soul, sort of an ongoing fantasy scenario thing, but it's damned funny and the writing is first rate.

WitchyBitch has a pagan point of view and a great name ;-)

What else have I forgotten... Well, the one year anniversary of the war, of course. All the peace marches that went on around the world. I've been looking at a lot of political sites and blogs, have more links of interest to add this week. Sparky and I are eagerly watching to see if the not-so-liberal media is going to stay on the Richard Clarke story, this is the strangest administration I've ever seen, though, they're seemingly bulletproof. I think if someone had an actual video and witnesses of Bush drowning a puppy the diehards would still say it was false. I'm honestly not sure what evidence people are going to need to see through what's going on right in front of them. If only we could catch him getting a blowjob... I'm going to make a new category for Political Rants, I think, there's going to be too much going on the rest of this year and I'll need a place to put it. A friend recently accused me of hating Dubya and his buddies, I don't hate them, they scare the crap out of me! For more of my opinions on this, see these wonderful buttons.

Read a terrific article by Unique Snowflake on the evils of political polls, which I still propose is the reason Kerry won everything, sort of a lemming type thing. Sparky watches the talking heads all day on CNN and MSNBC, they just give me headaches. Hours and hours of time to fill, so they fill it with their unfounded guesses on who's winning what, what so and so is going to do next, it's such crap. It annoys me even more than the constant celebrity coverage of who is dating who, what they're wearing, who might win what awards (who cares!!). But the political polls are scary because they actually affect the way the sheep vote. I know we're in a seriously desperate position right now (the impending end of the world, the end of our civil liberties, etc.) but can't we exercise at least a little bit of free thought?

Also this past weekend marked the Spring Equinox, a happy Ostara to everyone. Thanks to Bacon, Cheese & Oatcakes for the excellent link, I was at a loss. (I spent the weekend blog surfing, found lots of Pagan links and yet another category to add!) Due to my non-stop crappy health I stayed home instead of participating in the services. It's hell being Wiccan when your allergies won't let you go outside and incense sends you into sneezing convulsions :-(

Oh yes, and I got to see Courtney Love going apeshit wild on Letterman last week which was lots of fun, though her arrest the next day was stupid. I still want her new album, though, it's being compared with Live Through This, you've got to admit, the girl can rock.

My beloved eBay screwed me over again this past week by basically eliminating every single subcategory for their DVD section (and music also) without telling anyone in advance. I spent almost an hour the other night having a panic attack thinking my listing program wasn't working then realized it was eBay's fault. So now if I want my DVD listings to be halfway searchable I'm going to have to manually revise every auction I list to add their "item specifics", which my listing program people can't add (they're freaked out by the changes also). I think it's all part of eBay's plot to force everyone to use their "pre-filled" stock descriptions and photos for entertainment items, which I'd rather not use, thank you very much. eBay doesn't even bother to offer any Mac compatible software and now they're trying to run all the third party software companies out of business, what are they thinking? I see they're also playing with the URL's for our stores, which can't be a good thing. I'm having some serious PMS this week, I don't need something else to piss me off...

Oh yes, and we're STILL fighting the damned fleas! They're biting the crap out of me and Phoebe and I still haven't seen one yet. And most of our house has hardwoods, this shouldn't be that hard. We've sprayed twice, treated Phoebe twice and washed every piece of linen in the house at least twice. I swear, even when we leave the house I feel like I'm itching, this is driving me nuts.

Important stuff, go to Million4Roe this weekend to see what you can do about the urgent abortion rights crisis. We're only one vote away from losing our rights. The Never Go Back fund is matching donations until 8 pm this Saturday night so please check it out right away.

More peeves, I'm in a peevy mood today...

I've been trying to move a bunch of my auction images to the new storage site and eBay has been driving me fricking insane all night. They have a bug, which is only getting worse, where they make you login over and over again instead of once as it's supposed to be, and I'd get halfway through updating an auction and it would tell me I'm not the seller and make me login again. Eventually it just completely stalled out and I gave up. I don't even think I'm halfway through one store (with 200+ images) and I still have my main store to work on. I was trying to get them all done before the end of the month so I could get accurate traffic stats for March without the eBay hits.

Even though I've stopped eating/taking everything I can think of that would make me break out in hives I'm still getting the damned things. I look like I had a fight with a rose bush, and my eyes are itching and tearing. Plus the mosquitoes seem to have awoken from their hibernation and I'm one of those people they seek out. They never bite Sparky, they've been after me my whole life, maybe it's my blood type, I dunno.

Never did start my period (sometimes I don't, I'd much rather it be that way than the problems most women my age have, of too much), restarted by BC pills and some of the hot flashes have abated, though I spent the whole morning tossing and turning.

My glasses are REALLY bothering me big time. I actually shilled out big bucks to get some prescription reading and distance ones made, and the optometrist made the reading ones way too strong and put an astigmatism correction on the left eye on both pairs and it makes me dizzy to wear the damned things. He said give it a month and try it, but I don't think I'm going to be able to get used to either pair, and am going to have to have the left lenses remade. My non-prescription reading glasses are getting old and seem to constantly be dirty, which is giving me little panic attacks. I was born with rotten vision, but when I was like 18 I got contact lenses and wore them for about 8 years or so until I got RK. Then everything (except my night vision) was great until a few years ago when basically a combination of the RK, my MS, and age started making my vision just go to hell. And I'm told I can't wear soft contacts again, perhaps special (expensive) hard ones. but anyway, I hate wearing glasses again, even though they're not half an inch thick anymore. It appears like I'm looking through a tunnel and it makes me feel very vulnerable and helpless, which is not a feeling I'm used to...

And don't even get me started on Ralph Nader. The Democratic debates were fun tonight, I noticed Kerry and Edwards were making nice references to each other and kind of shying away from Al and Dennis, who, having nothing to lose, were going all out. I'm still getting Dean emails, I still have a Dean sticker in my car window, his camp is working on some sort of continuing project, but I'm not really sure what.

Damn the heater came on again, got to go turn the temperature down to 69, I'm not looking forward to sweating in the shower before bed (yuck). I'm actually looking forward to being able to have the AC on again.

What did I do today? I slept, damned near all day. It stormed all day here and I haven't had even a semi-normal night's sleep in weeks so today seemed like a good day to just sleep. Then when I got up and flipped over to the watch the news while I ate a bowl of cereal, it hit me what day it is. I'd just spent the entire day in a state of oblivion, which isn't such a bad thing.

What was I doing 2 years ago? Ironically, my husband and I got up very early that morning because we had our annual physicals scheduled for that morning. He got up before I did and turned on the TV and came running in to tell me that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, which got me out of bed immediately. We were both sitting there watching when the second plane hit and we knew the world as we knew it had been irrevocably changed. Still, we had doctor's appointments to get to. We continued watching as the first tower fell, and then in the car driving over, we heard that the second tower had fallen also. In a surreal state of mine, we went and signed in for our appointments, and when we were called in, the nurses and doctors were all running around worried, speculating on what else would happen today. There were rumors that a passenger plane had been lost from radar in the Houston area, we heard bits and pieces about the Pentagon being hit, and the fourth plane which had crashed in a field.

In the months following 9/11, I participated in eBay's "Auction for America", which helped to raise money for different 9/11 charities. I donated costume jewelry and other items to help. I also sort of lost my sense of fear and began spending too much money and not really worrying about the consequences. My brain went into a "live for today" sort of mode and stayed there for well over a year. My actual sense of unreality began with the 2000 Presidential election, and 9/11 just seemed to sort of cement it into place that the end of civilization as we knew it had begun. I can't really say I was afraid, suburban Houston doesn't seem like much of a target for terrorists, but I knew that alternate reality world had begun. We never went as far as the duct tape route, but I did stop by Academy and buy some extra bullets in the days following 9/11. And we put up the flag my parents had given us years before (still new in it's package) on the front of our house where it stayed until the mounting finally got wobbly, and we were so disgusted with what had happened in the government that by that time we wanted to take it down.

No, 9/11 didn't frighten me for my own safety. It deeply saddened me, my husband had stayed at the WTC Marriott several times during the 90's, the Dark Shadows convention that he normally went to annually had just taken place in August 2001 at the World Trade Center, he didn't go that year. I just kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, the sense of "something else is coming" would not go away. It's still there hovering in the back of my mind today. A sense of unease, and the continuing feeling of enjoy today, just in case.

All I can hope is that the world will someday get back on track, especially the US. I thought that 9/11 might have shocked the average American into realizing what a mess the world had become, but instead it prompted people to put American flags on their SUV's, and buy even bigger cars to "protect" themselves. The story goes that US intelligence knew about the strike on Pearl Harbor in advance, but they allowed it to happen to shock the isolationistic Americans into participating in WWII to literally help "save the world" from the path it was on. And it worked. But in the self-centered, ego and power driven society of today I don't know if anything will put us on the right path again.

Just thinking of the damage the Bush administration has managed to wreak in just a few short years, we've managed to go from a balanced budget to the largest deficit in history. From a seemingly happy normal world to a virtual depression of unemployment and despair. From a land of free speech to a land of suppression and hostility towards those of us who disagree. Our civil rights are being continually stripped away from us in the name of "our own good".

To finish this rant off, a few words of wisdom from Benjamin Franklin:

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Let's see if I can make it through this post without my Mac freezing up again...
OK, Sparky missed his daily dose of TalkBack Live Tuesday and when we checked CNN's site, all references of it's existence had been effectively obliterated. I wasn't a huge fan personally, but the thought of another venue of free speech disappearing is more than a little unnerving. I had to go to an Arthel Neville fan site to see any mention that it had even been officially cancelled. First Bill Maher's network show is cancelled, then Rosie O'Donnell abandons ship, then Phil Donahue is cancelled... hmmm...

The good news on CNN today was that Elizabeth Smart has been found after 9 months and was actually still alive! I'm sure she's going to have some problems after this, so far no one really knows what she went through, but judging by the two scags that were holding her, it couldn't have been too pretty. I know America's Most Wanted profiled the guy not too long ago, I hope they get some credit for this capture.

In other news, the government tested what they described as the mother of all bombs by blowing up part of Florida Tuesday, I'm sure the locals appreciated that. And we're trying to figure out why the rest of the world doesn't want to play war with us *sigh*.

Sparky and I are huge Donahue fans and we had tuned in tonight to watch during dinner on MSNBC, but there was a "Countdown Iraq" show on, which we assumed was a special because of Dubya's speech earlier (which was an obvious attempt to distract people from Dan Rather's Interview with Saddam Hussein a few hours later). A few minutes ago, we were watching Conan O'Brien's show and guest Dana Carvey blurts out 'So Donahue's show was cancelled yesterday...' and we both looked at each other in shock.

So the first thing I did is run in and check MSNBC's website, which still shows Donahue in their listings, their website people aren't too efficient I suppose. And of course, they have no mention of the cancellation. So I flipped over to USA Today's site and there's the article. Then over to the NY Times, and there's a whole string of articles including a rebuttal from Phil on how MSNBC is trying to "Out-fox Fox" by bringing in more conservatives to it's lineup.

I don't know about you, but this really scares me. Besides being a terrific interviewer, Phil Donahue was one of the last liberal voices on TV. He also did a great job of letting both sides voice their opinions, which hardly anyone else does anymore on TV. His last show was with Rosie O'Donnell, who is, of course, against the was on Iraq. This is about more than ratings kids.

More links -
MSNBC Cancels Phil Donahue - NY Times
MSNBC Dumps Donahue Show, Cites Weak Ratings

OK, so I told you I don't like snow... I also don't like crowds. Standing only 5'1" I have a reason to be nervous. 96 people died at a night club fire in Rhode Island because a metal band apparently decided a pyrotechnics would enhance their performance. Watching the amazing video that was shot on the scene, apparently most of the crowd thought the flames were just part of the show.

This all on the heels of the stampede in a nightclub in Chicago a few days before where 21 people were trampled to death trying to get out of the one exit for a nightclub... because someone sprayed pepper spray inside. What would we do if a real terrorist attacked? Apparently all you have to do is yell "poison gas" and Americans will gladly kill each other in their panic. Thanks Homeland Security department! All of your scare tactics seem to be working.

Be afraid America, and be ready... for something, we're not really quite sure what, but be ready! That's the Homeland Security department's new message, complete with TV commercials and a snazzy new website. Finally, all my Girl Scout training will come in handy. Also all the years of having to crouch on the floor under my desk at school on a periodic basis should serve me well. That's part of their advice in case of an explosion, hide under your desk... no, really. Eat table salt in case of a nuclear attack, and if you catch fire, for God's sake don't run!

I think the most practical suggestion is if you're trapped under mounds of debris, use a flashlight to signal for help. I know the average person carries a flashlight while wandering around during the day at work. Strangely enough, after working years of private security, I actually do have a flashlight near me most of the time. But I'm weird. I have a tiny Photon LED light (highly recommended, BTW) on my keychain, a 7 cell Mag-lite in my car (makes a great self-defense weapon also), and several smaller Mag-lites scattered strategically around the house. And extra batteries and bulbs. I used to work in an eleven story office building with no windows, so I actually even kept a flashlight at my desk. If you've ever been in an office building during a power outage you'll know why. If someone dropped a bomb on me though, I'm honestly not sure if I'd be able to get to it a flashlight before I was covered by falling debris. I'm actually one of the most prepared people I know when it comes to emergencies, I have two handguns, lots of ammo, a cell phone, and we keep bottled water, canned foods, matches and candles, etc. No duct tape, though. We have storm windows on the house, though, so perhaps that will keep all the radiation and poisonous chemicals out.

But what I really want to know is why the hell their diagram for a Radiation Threat has a map of Texas with an arrow POINTING TO HOUSTON? Do they know something we don't? What did we do to them? There are other big industrial centers in the world, why irradiate us? Is the world pissed off at us because Dubya's last job was as our Governor? Hey, we're not too happy with that either. I voted for Ann Richards, personally, I wish everyone would stop calling Bush a "cowboy", he wasn't even born here, he's giving all Texans a bad name...

Where does one escape when our fucked up modern world is too overwhelming? The 80's is nice and comforting. After having an hours long debate with my husband over "why are we paying a fortune for health insurance every month when they're not paying any of our claims", I retreated to flipping through the channels trying to find a nice mind-numbing escape and landed on VH1 Classic watching back to back Fixx videos, *ahhh*. Red Skies at night... yea, something I can understand on a basic comfort level without having to wrack my brain till it hurts. I usually turn to HGTV for mind-numbing, but they were handpainting little designs on wall borders and that was just a little too slow even for me. Watching our old Dark Shadows videos usually puts me in a nice comfortably numb state too :-)

We've been paying self-employed health insurance for the last year now... we added it up to be almost $5000 we shelled out total, and now we're starting to receive bills from Kelsey-Seybold saying that our stupid insurance company is not paying for even half of the claims for the total of four office visits my husband and I had for all of 2002, combined! Just routine things, too, well-woman checkup, my annual cholesterol check. I'm too spoiled by having group insurance to like 14 years and being able to go in whenever I needed to, which is a helluva lot more than four times a year. I dunno, we've got to do something different, I don't know how people with kids make it in today's world, just paying for the bills for two adults can be too much at times. A lot of our friends have lost their jobs over the last few years of Dubya's term of office, something's got to give, I don't know how we're even going to last two more years.

I'm the designated problem solver, researcher, legal and medical translator, etc. for our little family and sometimes I just do not have the answer to everything. My poor little head just feels like it's going to explode. After awhile I just want to scream "I don't know everything, dammit!".

Nostalgia is always a good reality escape for me, though. Things seemed much simpler back when I was putting on black spandex jeans and going to hang out at the Rocksy and listening to the early New Wave groups. That's when I really got back in to music, went out and bought records again. The first album that really hit me was The Cars "Shake It Up", I played my little cassette till it wore out. I'd given up on most popular music during the 70's because it was mostly crap, too much disco, then came New Wave. I still have most of my old records, many have been replaced by CD's, but I don't think I could ever give up the memories inspired by groups like Missing Persons, Nina Hagen, Lene Lovich or Ultravox. MTV was just starting and I still remember watching the very first video they aired, The Buggles "Video Killed the Radio Star". I know people watching the reruns of the early videos think they look really archaic now, but they were so cool then, so slick and modern compared to the glittery disco era that was slowly fading away. Enough nostalgia for tonight, I'm starting to feel old. Sparky and I both discussed how we need to go see an eye doctor to get prescriptions for real reading glasses soon...

I'm feeling a bit better than the last few days, Sparky also seems to be a little cheerier. We've both been encouraged by watching the worldwide anti-war protests on TV today. MSNBC's website has some really stunning photos. For the larger versions of the pics scroll down on this page to "slide shows" and click.

The skies look really dark and stormy outside, it rained this morning but this afternoon has been nice. A friend's coming over tonight for a two-in-one birthday celebration, his is tomorrow and Sparky's was earlier this week. Hope the weather behaves. So far digital cable TV has been pretty interesting. Sparky taped Batman off of TV Land last night to watch today, I've gotten to watch a little of VH1 Classic, the Independent Film Channel had two horror documentaries on last night. I'll actually be able to watch Six Feet Under this season since we got HBO (Bill Maher's new show starts this Friday night on HBO so we had to get it finally). There are a few annoyances, it takes longer to change channels and each time we do a huge banner with ads pops up near the bottom of the screen. Also the built-in guide only shows one time slot at a time and starts over at channel 1 each time instead of the channel we're on. I went in and programmed a bunch of favorite channels so at least I can mindlessly flip and only see things I might actually have some interest in watching...

I've been working offline on my main site, trying to streamline & unclutter my new Java home page. I've always wanted to be a minimalist, but never really come close *sigh*. I'm using Adobe GoLive 6.0, which I'm still trying to learn properly. Since I have several large sub-sections, I'm trying to get the hang of using style sheets to make updating the monster a bit easier. I'm keeping the same basic links for the sake of Google, but I'm trying to re-organize everything into more relevant chunks. I have so many updates to do to the entire site, it's rather daunting. I did manage to get a new banner up on my Batman page and update the links. I have a bunch of new photos and much smaller thumbnails ready to add to it, I just have to find a minute to do it.

Brief entry, my thoughts are with the families of the crew of the Columbia space shuttle. My husband has been watching the coverage on TV since this morning, he woke me up to tell me when he first heard the news. Since Houston is home of the Johnson Space Center, and most of the debris landed just north of here, our local news has been on it all day. Apparently when the national news was discussing it this morning, Dan Rather took a live phone call from someone in Texas who supposedely had some debris nearby. Then he called Dan an idiot and said something really sick... I'll not repeat it, but I'm not surprised by people like that. I'm sure someone has already tried to list some of the debris for sale on eBay (don't laugh, they did it for the WTC tragedy).

Some of the busy online people are already blaming Bush for the crash, some are saying it's terrorism, someone said it's because of American arrogance. An excellent response to this allegation, plus other relevant info can be found at the Blog of the Moderate Left. I honestly believe it's just a tragic accident, and the odds were against them this time. (Though I am beginning to wonder about the Wubya's timing relating to disasters) I think if any blame is to be placed though, it could be placed at the feet of the government who has never given the space progam adequate funding. Now if NASA could devise a way to wage war from outer space I'm sure they'd be rolling in dough. The fact that the Houston area Space Center seems to make most of it's revenue as a kiddie amusement park is evidence where the governments priorities are.

I do remember where I was when I heard about the Challenger disaster, BTW, I have a snapshot in my head of driving down South Braeswood and hearing about it on my car radio and just being stunned. Things like this happen, unfortunately, though knowing it's just the chances that people take we pursue such grand idealogies as space travel doesn't lessen the sorrow felt when tragedy strikes.

Related links & local news:
Houston Chronicle main story
Space Center Staff In Shock
From Dallas to Houston, people see shuttle breaking apart

Serious stuff from the Feminist Majority, take a few seconds and pop an email off to protest:

The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on Miguel EstradaÇs nomination to
the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, January 30, 2003. Estrada
has not demonstrated commitment to womenÇs rights or civil rights and has
refused to answer questions about his commitment to abortion rights or
basic civil rights. He should not be confirmed.

Urge Senators to Vote Against the Nomination of Miguel Estrada

Similar to Clarence Thomas, Estrada has refused to reveal his position on
critical legal issues. During his hearing, Estrada was asked whether he
thought Roe v. Wade, and Romer v. Evans (the case that struck down
Colorado's anti-gay rights measure), were correctly decided. He declined
to answer, stating that he had not read the briefs, listened to the
arguments or researched the issues. He gave a similar answer when asked
about Supreme Court cases in the areas of environmental protection and
labor rights.

Senator Leahy noted in his statement on the Estrada nomination that the
Judiciary Committee has an "insufficient record" on which to predict his
ability to be a fair and impartial judge. After the Estrada hearing,
Senator Leahy stated: "I was hoping that the hearing would allay concerns
that have been raised about this nomination, but I was left with more
questions than answers after all of the steps Mr. Estrada took to avoid
answering questions at that hearing." Senator Schumer told Mr. Estrada
during his hearing: "We donÇt know you, and the purpose of this hearing is
to get to know you a little better. And in all due respect, you are not
letting us do that hardly at all."

The burden should be on the nominee for a lifetime appointment to show
that he deserves to serve as a federal judge. EstradaÇs lack of an
established record and unwillingness to answer questions means that he has
failed to make this showing. Senators should vote against his nomination.

Related links:

Million 4 Roe.com

Add your support to the virtual sit-in for the 30th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Read the other supporters messages regarding choice and leave your own, this is too important a right to let Bush's thugs take it away while no one is looking. If you haven't noticed, he has been hacking away steadily at our rights since he got in office, I think his people have a "do as much damage as possible in four years in case we don't get re-elected" agenda. No wonder the rest of the world is afraid of us...

I went through last night and added to and reorganized my links in the right column. I added more women's issues links, more liberal political links, a bunch of anti-war links and some self-defense links aimed at women, most of them pro-gun. I know that sounds like a weird contradiction... how can she be pro-peace, anti-war and pro-gun?? To me, self-defense has always been a very basic human right, like being able to choose what god(dess) to worship, and whether or not I want to have a child. I grew up around guns, and respect them as what they are, good for target practice and essential for self-defense in our modern world. I live in one of the largest cities in America, I worked in law enforcement for many years and I've seen both the damage and the good that guns can do. I also am trained to use one and know that if someone broke into our house and threatened me or my husband, I wouldn't think twice about defending us. If you are considering getting a gun for self-defense, that's the number one question you need to ask yourself, could I use it if needed? If not, invest in a good alarm system and some baseball bats. If you answered yes, take some classes, go to the range and get familiar with the weapon so it's not a mysterious taboo thing, just another tool that you need to respect, like your car. You wouldn't buy a car without knowing how to drive? It's a deadly weapon also, a woman here in Houston used her Mercedes to kill her husband just recently. Cars don't kill people, people kill people...

I worked apartment security during the early 80's and on many of my jobs we were not allowed to carry guns, but I did have a nice big patrol car. I always used to think "if someone steps out into the parking lot and aims a gun at me my only option is to flatten him". As the late great satirist Bill Hicks said, in response to the poor truck driver beat during the LA riots, "step on the fucking gas!". Not to lend support to the woman who ran over her husband, then backed over him, then ran over him again, then... She's a psycho, she was also being filmed by the PI's she hired to follow him, and her 16 year old step-daughter was in the car with her, talk about traumatized. All said though, if your choice is between being shot in the face by a bad guy (or worse, being kidnapped, raped and tortured) or going to court for possible manslaughter charges for running down a guy with a gun, there's not really much of a choice there, IMHO.

One of the more nicely done gun info sites aimed at women is Self-Defense - A Basic Human Right, it also has some really stunning visual propaganda images promoting gun ownership. If you've never been around real crime, or been a victim, I know the thought that you might actually need something as extreme as a gun to defend yourself is probably a fairly abstract idea, but you really are responsible for your own safety, waiting around for someone else to save you is not a very good option in real life. Take precautions, always be alert, at home and away, but having something solid to fall back upon if something does happen is not a bad idea. Not trying to scare anyone, I'd just rather err on the side of being overly prepared than suffer the consequences of not being so. I'm 5'1", l have a concealed-carry permit, and I've owned my own handgun since I was 21. I have a Smith & Wesson model 66 .357 for home protection, and target practice. If you're not going to carry it, get the 4 inch barrel, it's more accurate and easier to shoot. I have a 2 inch, in case I want to carry it, and I have a S&W airweight hammerless .38 as a carry gun, it's a lot lighter, but it's harder to shoot. I'm hoping I never have to shoot it anywhere but on a range. I prefer revolvers, they're the easiest to work with, they don't misfire very often. They also don't spit shell casings out in your face, and it's much harder to injure yourself because they have fewer dangerous moving parts (I cut my hand open on an automatic slide once, long story).

Alas, I'm coming down with some sort of sinus infection. The weather has gone from freezing to the high 70's in just a few days, I wonder why I'm sick all the time? I have that achy feeling in my ears and the back of my throat, I think I'll head to bed early tonight.

Get out and vote on Tuesday! In case you haven't noticed lately, the US is hurtling towards a bleak future with idiots like Bush running the country (pending nuclear holocausts, world war, stock market crashes) and the only way we can make this madness stop is for everyone with a conscience to get out and vote so the Democrats can keep the tentative lead they have as the majority.

I know lots of folks want to vote Independent, and technically I'm actually a Libertarian, but the only logical thing to do at this time is to vote out as many Republicans as possible before they've completely destroyed what's left of our economy, and set off WWIII.

So PLEASE get off your butts and go out and vote Democrat on Tuesday!

Banned Books Week begins this morning, it runs September 21st-28th. I saw a nice display for it at our local Half Price Books the other day and even a small display at Barnes & Noble this evening. Since my first job was as a library assistant, this subject is close to my heart. I still can't believe we have a need to even argue the whole point of free speech, but then I don't understand why middle-aged white men stand in picket lines in front of abortion clinics... Actually I do, it's because they're afraid the white race is dying out because of women like me who don't want to accidentally get pregnant and just "have to have it", we actually want to plan life altering events like pregnancy. I've been one of those people who has always known I'm not mother material, I'm finally at the age now where people have pretty much stopped bothering me. The anti-choice people will argue that they want to save lives, but there a million other truly humane things they could do other than harrass (and kill) doctors and patients, like maybe adopt some of the thousands of children who are already in the world and need homes. My brother and I were both adopted, it worked nicely for us.

OK, off the soapbox (for now ;-). I picked up a copy of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 a few months ago after seeing part of the film on TV. Somehow I was never required to read it in school, and had never seen the movie, but it seems appropriate reading material for this week. Let's see, what other thought provoking selections can I pull from my bookshelves... I have a preference for female writers, so here are some of my favorites:

Shirley Jackson is my all-time favorite author, good ones for this week would be The Road Through the Wall, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, The Bird's Nest, and of course, The Haunting of Hill House. Also worth reading is her hilarious novel about raising her own children, Life Among the Savages.

Alice Hoffman is incredible, try Practical Magic (in an entirely different league than the movie "based" on the book), or the disturbing Here On Earth.

Another female writer with a very unique style is Valerie Martin. Mary Reilly, Alexandra, The Great Divorce (look for used or check the link, it's apparently being reprinted in February 2003), and Set In Motion are all excellent (the last two are set in New Orleans, which always adds points to a book for me, it's my favorite city ;-)

Ann Arensberg's Sister Wolf has happily been reprinted because of the release of Incubus (which I own but haven't read yet). Sister Wolf is a terrific book, really hard to describe.

Carol O'Connell has one of the smartest, toughest female detective in literature in her character Kathy Mallory. I've read about half of the series, I discovered it four novels into it and was hooked. Chronologically it's: Mallory's Oracle, The Man Who Cast Two Shadows, Killing Critics, Stone Angel (my favorite), Shell Game and Crime School. She also has another novel that's not part of the series (in my "to read" stack) that's gotten great reviews, Judas Child.

There are many more novels I'm not mentioning (don't flame me for leaving your favorite out!), but I'm just going by what I've read in recent years and what has personally touched me. Most of my reading is actually vampire & horror novels, and lots of non-fiction, but that's for another day.

I've spent the day sort of wandering past the TV that my husband leaves on 24/7 (all news, all the time) seeing the flags, memorial services and catching too many flashes of Bush's face out of the corner of my eye. I think the nation is oversaturated with 9/11 programming, though the irony is we can never truly pay tribute to those who died a year ago. I live in Texas, I've never ventured as far north as New York, though my husband has stayed at the WTC Marriott multiple times... I can't even begin to imagine the pain the families and friends of the victims must have experienced this past year.
My goal for today was to write this entry and to listen to two albums, Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits and David Bowie's Heathen. Why? Read on and I'll tell you the how they both relate to my personal experience with September 11th...

David Bowie swears that his latest album was completed pre 9/11, but upon repeated listenings, it's hard to believe.
If you've ever thought that perhaps Bowie really is a bit of an "alien", or even somewhat psychic, Heathen will validate your imaginings. The album and even it's bonus CD seem to be a tribute to our post-apocalyptic world and to New York especially. While the eerie undertones might have gone unnoticed prior to last September, in this overly aware world we live in today the songs seem to be fraught with hidden meanings.
Personally, I've been seriously rediscovering Bowie the last few years, Earthling caught my attention and I've been working backwards since then. The morning of 9/11 my husband and I were actually awake and had the ever-present TV on, we had appointments for our annual physicals at 9 am (CST). I work nights and rarely rise before 2 or 3 in the afternoon, which made the day even longer and more surreal. While I lay in bed trying to wake up, my perky hubby was trying to catch some of the Today Show before we had to leave, so the first thing I heard that day was "Come here and look at this, a plane has hit the World Trade Center!". OK, that woke me up.
We sat and watched the frantic and confused newscasters, and then saw the second plane hit, and the realization hit that this wasn't an accident. Then before we walked out the door to leave, the first of the two buildings crumbled to dust. Listening to the radio in the car, we heard the news that the remaining tower had fallen also. The rest of the day was spent in sort of a haze... two more planes had crashed... our doctor had a daughter who had just returned from New York... a nurse heard on TV there was a plane missing from radar in the Houston area (we'd make a nice combustible target)... rumors flew everywhere while the country waited for the non-existent next shoe to fall.
When my brain is overwhelmed, songs get stuck through my head in an endless loop. The song that played in my head was Simon & Garfunkel's "America". Not sure why, it's a nice song but not really a favorite or anything. I had always thought that when something of this magnitude actually happened, I would hear R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It", always seemed the logical choice.
We sat and diligently watched the first 9/11 telethon, and when the second one aired we settled in to watch it also (yes, we sat through the entire thing). A single spotlight came up and there sat David Bowie cross-legged on a darkened stage with a little synthesizer. As soon as he began to sing, I realized it was "America", the song that had been running through my head non-stop since the attacks. I screamed outloud, scaring the hell out of my husband, who couldn't even recall the original song in his head. But I realized right there that David Bowie IS psychic or some sort of preternatural being.
I pre-ordered the special edition of "Heathen" (with the bonus CD) with high hopes and wasn't disappointed by even a single song. I haven't been able to stop playing it since I received it...