Know when to take your own advice

Today's quote:

"In any country, if you don't have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development," Rice told reporters after meeting with human-rights activists.

I think the Bush administration that she (Rice) represents needs to take these very same words to heart. Executive priviledge is a falsehood.

Quote of the Day

I haven't felt like writing much lately. I bit overwhelmed I guess. So, in my absence here is a quote of the day. I always thought A. Bourdain a bit of a pompous ass, but he's right on target here.

"The crotchety cook made it clear he’s not coming from some moral high ground. “I'm not a very ethical guy,” Anthony said. “I don't have a lot of principles. But somehow that seems to me over the line. Juvenile diabetes has exploded. Half of Americans don't have necks. And (Rachael’s) up there saying, ‘Eat some [bleeping] Dunkin' Donuts. You look great in that swimsuit — eat another doughnut!’ That's evil.”

I get tired...

Things I should never have to say, but have said.

- I have cleaned the kitchen 2 times today. Any further cleaning will not be done by me.
- Please take your dirty socks off of the table.
- Put on your skateboard helmet.
- Do not spit in the sink.
- Why are your panties in the living room?

These types of things wear me out. No wonder I look 30. heh.

today...

There are some days where you shouldn't get out of bed. Today was that day for me. After a plethora of early morning mishaps I went to work only to have power go off indefinitely. I came home to work, but by the time I got home I had a migraine. This is the first migraine I've had in over a year, but I really pushed it last night. I had a glass of red wine. Bad Smoooochie!! I know better than to indulge in red wine, but I did it anyway.

I am feeling better and things already seem to be looking up. I was able to finish my work. I made a neighbor happy by giving him some fresh tomatoes out of our tomato garden. And last, but most definitely not least, The Tree Brain has emerged!!! Here is some additional information on the Tree Brain.

I wonder if the brain would go good with red wine...

WASH YOUR HANDS!!!

"The gender gap has widened when it comes to hygiene, according to the latest stakeout by the "hand washing police." One-third of men didn't bother to wash after using the bathroom, compared with 12 percent of women, said the researchers who spy on people in public restrooms. They reported their latest findings Monday at a meeting of infectious disease scientists. "


That is just disgusting. Just wash your freakin' hands people. Honestly, show that you have some home training and wash your hands. And for the record I think that 12% is a low number, because I regularly see women who do not wash their hands. Washing being doing more than running your fingertips under the water for two seconds and drying them off. No, that isn't washing so don't even pretend like it is. Washing involves soap, water and some friction. 33%!!! GROSS!!!

News Flash- Bush isn't the only cocky SOB in Washington!!

Thanks to Mickey for showing me this little gem of a quote.

"I’m told researchers like to come and dig through my files, to see if anything interesting turns up. I want to wish them luck - but the files are pretty thin. I learned early on that if you don’t want your memos to get you in trouble some day, just don’t write any."

Vice President Cheney, speaking at the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan

filler

I went to my 20th class reunion last night. I am trying to figure out something to say about it other than "it was fun." It was fun, but there is more. Until I figure out what the more is here are a few photos.

He's right.

From Jonathan Carroll's blog:

Almost everyone has some person from the past who continues to stick in
their soul like a deep splinter. You know who I'm talking about. The most
obvious example is the lover who dumped you years ago for reasons you still
don't understand, or accept. The bully who tormented you in school, the teacher
who inspired you and opened doors in your brain or soul that you didn't know
existed. A neighbor who suffered and died with dignity but remained kind and
thoughtful right up until the end. Ironically in some cases if you were to go to
these people now and tell them what a lasting effect they have had on you, they
would be genuinely surprised or perplexed. Because in truth you were only a very
small cloud on their horizon, a blip on their screen, or someone they forgot
very quickly. But boy, you sure remember *them*.

Weezer, poetry and a Balinese dancer

Smashing Pumpkins are playing on my web radio (ww.radioio.com) and the little paperclip guy is up in the corner watching and waiting to help me out with any Word issues. (Yeah, I do have an old version of Word, but it works alright.) There are a number of things floating around in my head about various subjects.

I read a poem today on J.C.’s website and it made me think of a dream I had several years ago. I think what got me was this verse:

So if I ever die, look up into the dark and find me hundreds of times there,
each place you can faintly imagine a line tracing the shape of a valentine.
(Francette Cerulli)

It really is not directly related to the dream at all, but it still brought the dream to the forefront of my mind. I suppose I should recount the dream here.

I was staying at a bed and breakfast on vacation. It was a beautiful house with a garden lush and green. It wasn’t hot or cold, but just the temperature that beckons you to open the windows and enjoy the air. I was standing at the end of a hallway that opened up to a living room with big picture windows that open up to the garden and the hills beyond. The hall was about 8 feet wide and had bamboo wood flooring that was gleaming from being cleaned. In front of me on the landing to the living room there is a Balinese dancer. She’s in full regalia and dancing a story. I don’t know the story, but just her movements are mesmerizing. As I stood there someone walked up behind me and put their arms over my shoulders lovingly. We were just standing watching her as lost in her movements as she was and it felt perfect.

This is the problem with dreams. They have the ability to feel solidly real, but are intangible in the reality of things. They have no substance other than what our logical awake mind gives them, but they are illogical creations our subconscious needs. I know this and yet that dream still feels like it was important and real.

While writing this several songs have played. Mostly stuff I’m not sure of, but now Weezer is on with “El Scorcho.” And somehow that seems appropriate as I end this post. Goddamned you half-Balinese girls…

I wish I could get my head out of the sand 'Cause I think we'd make a good team
And you would keep my fingernails clean But that's just a stupid dream that I
won't realize 'Cause I can't even look in your eyes Without shakin', and I ain't
fakin' I'll bring home the turkey if you bring home the bacon.

Happy Birthday Scissors!!!

One of my dearest, most loved friends having a birthday today. Woohoo!! Through thick and thin he's been there for me always with is wit and cynicism to make me laugh and think.

Lurve you, Scissors!! Happy Birthday!!

When I hear this song and the album it's on it always brings me back to center. I will always be grateful to M. LaFetra for introducing me to David Sylvian all those years ago. Another piece of my history that continues to be real and significant.

Personal History

The tragedy in my life has been fairly minimal. It wasn't the obvious things like the abusive marriage or my grandparents (who raised me) dying. Those events were hard, but time has a way of healing the pain of loss. The loss that is more evident over time has been the loss of personal history that the sad events in my life have eliminated. I don't know if this is how it works for everyone, but my personal history and things that happened in my past made me who I am so the loss of the people that were there has been difficult. I can't call up my grandmother and ask her about "that time when." Because of the abusive past I would never call up my ex-husband and chat about old times when things were much different between us. It's just gone, and the quietness of not having someone to share it with makes it feel all the more distant and a bit unreal.

My 20th year high school reunion is next weekend. Just one week away and as the event approaches I find myself getting more and more excited. I will again be in touch with people that I spent a good part of my childhood with and reliving memories that we shared. A history that we shared. It has seemed so far away and almost even like it belonged to someone else. After looking through my year books, reading the things people wrote, and thinking about those times it all seems closer. This simple bit of review has taken a chunk of my past that was tucked away and somewhat unavailable and brought it out into the open. It's somewhat hard to articulate how it feels and saying it sounds strange, but I am happy to discover that I do have a personal history that hasn't been alienated from me by loss. I do have a history. It's real, and it's longer than the last crazy decade of ups and downs. It's solid and good.

Personal history is such a given that we often forget how important it is to our foundation and to connecting us into what created who we are today. It can be good or it can be bad, but it should always be there to be accessed for guidance. I'm glad I decided to go to the reunion. There is a strange comfort that there are others out there that I have a shared history with still.

Bush rephrases reality...again.

"We're kicking ass," Bush said to Vaile Tuesday, according the Herald, after the deputy prime minister inquired about his trip to Iraq.

The question isn't whether or not we are kicking ass. The question is whose ass are we kicking. From my vantage point it seems to be our own.

Go! Abby, Go!

My friend Abby (the one behind the camera) has a huge test tomorrow. She's totally ready and able, but she just needs a little pre-test cheer! So,

GO! GO! GO!! YOU CAN DO IT!!!! GO! ABBY! GO! WOOOHOOO!!! GO! GO! GO!

on blogging

I was just reading Jonathan Carroll’s blog. I hadn’t read it in sometime, but was having a slow day at work and it occurred to me that I missed my old “friend.” His blog, like Neil Gaiman’s, is a source of enjoyment to me. I realized how I’d missed it. It’s now bookmarked on this computer so I can keep in touch, so to speak.

One of the things that I like about his blog is that it’s varied. There are things he’s read or watched on You Tube that he wants to share, three sentence long vignettes, or whole paragraphs about “a time when…” It’s the kind of blog that makes me want to write more than I do, because it’s fun to create and it also reminds me that it doesn’t have to be big, useful or important to be something that is enjoyed.

I am going to try and keep that in mind as I continue to write my little blog here. It’s small and opinionated, but it’s something I enjoy. So, on with the show.

GAO reports FAILURE!

The GAO report that was leaked last week now has been modified. Who knows if it was done to make the report not look as dismal, but they didn’t go quite far enough. The report had 18 benchmarks that were supposed to be met. Only 3 benchmarks were met completely and then another 4 were met half way. The spin on this is that 7 benchmarks passed. Where I come from 50% isn’t complete and you don’t get a passing grade for doing half the work. So, best case scenario is that they can count the 4 half-assed benchmarks as 2 giving them a total of 5 met goals. Let’s do the math.

If 100% is 18 benchmarks, and Bagdad meets 5 of them, what is their score?

That’s right class! Bagdad got just under 28%!! Again, that’s FAILING!! Not even close to passing the grade. This isn’t the men and women over there in uniform that are doing their best. No, this is the government that Bush installed to bring American democracy to Iraq so that he could steal as much oil as he wanted. Well, they failed and so has he.

Impeach Bush & Co. now before they try and repeat this failure in Iran or anywhere else!

Just in Case You'd Forgotten

Just a reminder.

Just a thought

"This is the face of a little girl that lives in Iraq. This is how the fortunate look in Iraq. We created this situation because we believed the lies that the Bush administration told us, and we have done nothing to stop them. Just a thought."

So, that is what I wrote earlier. I've been thinking about it and that's just an easy out. It was an easy out on my part rather than really saying how this photo made me feel.
I was sitting at my desk looking at this little girl and I nearly started crying at work. This could be my daughter looking at the camera. And yes, she is one of the luckier ones because the unlucky ones are in graves. These are the same people that we went in to "give democracy to." I don't think democracy looks like this. It also makes me feel really ashamed, and like I haven't done enough to voice how much we need to end this war. I'm ashamed that I haven't pressed my Congress people harder to force the issue. It makes me angry to know that the Bush Administration is still just as intent on "winning" this war as they ever were and yet children just like this little girl are dying every day. And even saying all of this is somewhat of an easy out because I don't know what we as a collective or me as an individual can do to get us off this crazy path. I just don't know.

snippet

"I do think the Republican Party is more in keeping with the attitudes and
values of the American people," said President Bush's departing chief political
strategist.

So, is what he's saying is that he thinks that most Americans are lying agenda driven haters that put their own ideology above the good/will of the country? That seems to be what his Republican party has been all about. A government full of people who say they are Republicans running about covering up their misdeeds with pseudo-legal principal and smoke. Disdain for the American people like that is exactly what we should see in our political advisors to the President, right?

It is appalling that this criminal is making commentary about what American people are like, because he just doesn't have a clue about what hard working, honest Americans are like. He doesn't know what a mother is like that has just lost her child in this ridiculous war. He doesn't know what a father is like who is struggling to find a job because his was sent to India. He doesn't know what it's like for an immigrant who lives with 3 other families just to make sure his children get the chance at a good education.

Pardon me for my rant, but screw you Mr. Rove for thinking so little of Americans that you would align any values you hold with the good, honest people in this country.

Do the Crime, Do the Time

Just reading about "poor" M. Vick of the Atlanta Falcons.

NFL officials have been mum on whether they would allow Vick to play if he is
convicted on felony charges.
“That’s the dilemma Michael Vick faces right
now. He doesn’t know what the NFL or the Atlanta Falcons will say and he’d like
to have that information before he pleads. That’s what has him whip-sawed. He’s
in a situation where he has to cut a deal with the government without knowing
the consequences that are really important to him,” said University of Richmond
Legal Analyst Carl Tobias.

Boo fucking hoo!! This guy had a $150 MILLION deal to play a freaking GAME and he risked it all to engage in an activity that is not only highly illegal, but very, very cruel. I say send his stupid ass to jail. He doesn't deserve the football deal, the endorsements and all the other gloss that goes with it. He's just another criminal who fucked up a good thing that thousands of young, honest men would have died for.