Thursday, April 29, 2004
When Words Change Before Your Ears. Yes I admit it. I am slightly annoyed with democratic presidential hopeful John F. Kerry. He needs to start saying what he means and mean what he says i.e. did you throw your damn medals/ribbons over the fence or didn't you? And if you did, that's ok, just stand up for it will you? Ditto for your S.U.V. comment that it is your wife who owns seven gas-guzzlers, not you... What kind of Clintonesque semantical fuzziness is that? In other words, you would have the American public believe that you have a vision for alternative energy and are willing to stand up to the big oil company interests yet are too chicken to stand up and tell your wife to go buy a hybrid?
When Words Change Before Your Eyes. Remember the recent story about the American soldier standing next to young Iraqi boys holding a cardboard sign that read, "Lcpl Boudreaux killed my dad then he knocked up my sister?" The Marines are still investigating this incident and the jury is still out as to whether the text was manipulated or not. Easy enough to do using a photo editing application. For instance... Or, write something yourself!
When Words Change Before Your Eyes. Remember the recent story about the American soldier standing next to young Iraqi boys holding a cardboard sign that read, "Lcpl Boudreaux killed my dad then he knocked up my sister?" The Marines are still investigating this incident and the jury is still out as to whether the text was manipulated or not. Easy enough to do using a photo editing application. For instance... Or, write something yourself!
Monday, April 26, 2004
Two-tiered, tuliped Chicago. Those are the first striking impressions you get by taxi coming in from the airport. Regarding the two-tieredness of Chicago, the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel , for instance, is actually on the eighth floor. The floors beneath cascade down to an eventual rendezvous with the Chicago river below. And then you step out of the taxi and get the wind for which the city is famous. And then you walk the city for two days and get lots more impressions while the hubby attends a Gartner Conference of computer-world-schmoozing.
There are a couple of things I'd like to say about Chicago. For starters I could never live there. It really is too damn windy; a lake just isn't an ocean; the acoustics are terrible i.e. the two-tieredness makes for a reverberating sound system of constant noise no matter where you are downtown. And most disturbing, the city is a disaster for directionally challenged people such as myself. Rather than just going in big circles like I usually do in a new city, I rather go in big orbs , due again to the stacked-like quality of the city. For instance, you can be sitting on a bench underneath the shade of a tree and at the same time be looking out at the top of a tree , one that if you shimmied down it thirty feet would be flush with the pea-soup green Chicago river. Disconcerting for the likes of me but a feather in the cap of the city's engineers that the sub-city isn't a dark thing. Rather the sky scrapers rest gently atop steel-supported platforms spaced strategically to create airy plazas and open swaths of park or roadway below.
The city is spending literally millions on upgrading its inferiority-complexed facade. Mind you I'd never been to Chicago so I'm going completely on first impressions here but one has the sense that Chicago is trying to prove something i.e. Quick! While all of the other major U.S. cities far-superior-to-our-own deteriorate under the weight of their state deficits, let's pull out all the stops, invest heavily, and hope to god someone will say, "Heh, Chicago is pretty cool!" New bike paths, lampposts, walkways, bridges, pavements, buildings, and parks all glisten in their newness.
I have to think that all of the upgrades are being orchestrated by some centralized point because everything has a "coordinated-by-one-project-director" feel to it. In a four square-mile radius, all of the afore-mentioned upgrades appear in complementary shades of gray, rusty red, teal, and silver. Or, maybe it is the ghosts of the Germans and Poles that populated Chicago in the mid-nineteenth century that leave their indelible collective stamp on the coordinated, clean, and functional consistency of Chicago's new aura e.g. everyone is on the same page regarding tulips; every crevice, edging, pot, box, and park of soil is canvassed with purple, yellow, red, and orange tulip (it is gorgeous really although spring tulips are certainly short-lived and I wonder what replaces them when they fade and shrivel a few weeks from now). The city as a whole is one of the most scrubbed and shining I've ever seen and I am again tempted to think that the Germans and Poles have left their indelible stamp on the city.
Chicagonians dress like tulips I noted. I never saw anyone wearing anything not as austere and stream-lined as the stern tulip poking erect and brave against the granite beige bearing down on them.
Like all things in life there is an underbelly to Chicago. There is great loose jazz for instance. Better even than the live jazz performance of Rene-Marie that hubby and I took in was a lone black man playing the saxophone on one of the lone car-noise-protected street corners of Chicago. There are great steak restaurants in Chicago which defy franchising. The one we went to (aptly named the Chicago Steak House) is frequented by locals and was painted the same pea-green soup color as the sludging river a few blocks away. But this underbelly exists as an adjunct to the city, not a part of it. The city as a whole lacks soul in my opinion. In less of course you are the afore-mentioned blogged Darwinian specimen that thrives on concrete and un-naturally planted trees.
There are a couple of things I'd like to say about Chicago. For starters I could never live there. It really is too damn windy; a lake just isn't an ocean; the acoustics are terrible i.e. the two-tieredness makes for a reverberating sound system of constant noise no matter where you are downtown. And most disturbing, the city is a disaster for directionally challenged people such as myself. Rather than just going in big circles like I usually do in a new city, I rather go in big orbs , due again to the stacked-like quality of the city. For instance, you can be sitting on a bench underneath the shade of a tree and at the same time be looking out at the top of a tree , one that if you shimmied down it thirty feet would be flush with the pea-soup green Chicago river. Disconcerting for the likes of me but a feather in the cap of the city's engineers that the sub-city isn't a dark thing. Rather the sky scrapers rest gently atop steel-supported platforms spaced strategically to create airy plazas and open swaths of park or roadway below.
The city is spending literally millions on upgrading its inferiority-complexed facade. Mind you I'd never been to Chicago so I'm going completely on first impressions here but one has the sense that Chicago is trying to prove something i.e. Quick! While all of the other major U.S. cities far-superior-to-our-own deteriorate under the weight of their state deficits, let's pull out all the stops, invest heavily, and hope to god someone will say, "Heh, Chicago is pretty cool!" New bike paths, lampposts, walkways, bridges, pavements, buildings, and parks all glisten in their newness.
I have to think that all of the upgrades are being orchestrated by some centralized point because everything has a "coordinated-by-one-project-director" feel to it. In a four square-mile radius, all of the afore-mentioned upgrades appear in complementary shades of gray, rusty red, teal, and silver. Or, maybe it is the ghosts of the Germans and Poles that populated Chicago in the mid-nineteenth century that leave their indelible collective stamp on the coordinated, clean, and functional consistency of Chicago's new aura e.g. everyone is on the same page regarding tulips; every crevice, edging, pot, box, and park of soil is canvassed with purple, yellow, red, and orange tulip (it is gorgeous really although spring tulips are certainly short-lived and I wonder what replaces them when they fade and shrivel a few weeks from now). The city as a whole is one of the most scrubbed and shining I've ever seen and I am again tempted to think that the Germans and Poles have left their indelible stamp on the city.
Chicagonians dress like tulips I noted. I never saw anyone wearing anything not as austere and stream-lined as the stern tulip poking erect and brave against the granite beige bearing down on them.
Like all things in life there is an underbelly to Chicago. There is great loose jazz for instance. Better even than the live jazz performance of Rene-Marie that hubby and I took in was a lone black man playing the saxophone on one of the lone car-noise-protected street corners of Chicago. There are great steak restaurants in Chicago which defy franchising. The one we went to (aptly named the Chicago Steak House) is frequented by locals and was painted the same pea-green soup color as the sludging river a few blocks away. But this underbelly exists as an adjunct to the city, not a part of it. The city as a whole lacks soul in my opinion. In less of course you are the afore-mentioned blogged Darwinian specimen that thrives on concrete and un-naturally planted trees.
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Wreath Record. Late March was the record hold-out-date for discarding Christmas wreaths. I thought. But this year a new, New England record was set. On someone's trash bin today I saw a brown-and-withered evergreen wreath and a ditto-Christmas kissing ball. I guess the only thing that surprised me was that the red and metallic gold ribbons hadn't been carefully removed to perhaps use on next year's holiday greens.
Why Not Take a Day Off and spend it at the XXX Juvenile District Court with the honor-student daughter who was caught at the wrong place at the wrong time i.e. a Friday-afternoon bust at a house filled with sixty-seven new-and-used blue plastic cups ready to receive humungous quantities of expensive beer on the premises? So many kids were charged that the court had to stagger the summons to accommodate a sustainable number of kids at one time. The day the daughter and I went she was cast together with seven suit-and-tied boys. My daughter whispered to my ear: "This doesn't look good. I look like the drunken slut in a gang bang." I looked adoringly at daughter. Hmmm. You're kind of right I thought.
The daughter was taken in first. "You're the only one who didn't smirk when we were talking to you," said the juvenile justice coordinator. "You can fight this in court if you think you are innocent or you can choose diversion. In the first instance this will be on your record FOREVER -- even if you are found innocent. In the second instance, you can choose 20 hours of community service plus 8 hours of counseling and this will keep your record unblemished. Soooo..... What would you like to do?"
The town, that heard the case, of the gaggle-of-kids, caught, in the affluent community, at 4 p.m., in the afternoon, guzzling expensive beers…. border-line hates the town in which these kids were nabbed. "I'm sure you all have bright futures at prestigious colleges, don't you?" Translation: choose diversion because this nets XXX city that hates you thousands of dollars of federally-matched funds and we relish the thought of you driving your SUV/Jetta/X-brand car to skid-row counseling center to sit around with sketchy heroine addicts talking about drug addiction.
The thing is that I am thrilled. I could have throttled all seven of those kids sitting in the magistrate’s office waiting to be heard today. Their personas radiated a: isn't-this-all-just funny attitude that might have been funny save for the fact that they have lost four friends in the course of two years because of stupid, stupid alcohol/drug related incidents.
You won't believe this but the daughter was totally innocent in this particular episode. She had stopped by to pick up her boyfriend after having completed voluntary community service. At the same time the cops pulled up. She was not in the house but was asked to stand in the garden while the police took names. Bottom line, however, is that she would have been inside the house full of alcohol and no adult supervision had the police arrived five minutes later. Which is why the only support she got from mom was to accompany her to said sketchy courthouse in town XXX. I was pleased to see her visibly shaking as her name was read. Authoritarian fathers do wonders to instill a healthy fear of authoritarian figures. Having said that, I secretely hope that she will one day learn to stand up to them. Authoritarian does not always make them right...
One of the aforementioned kids waiting on the bench can only be described as a 'townie.' His tattooed father nearly punched out the officer who read the report and the tank-topped son scowled when he heard he would not be able to participate in the 'diversion' program due to a prior conviction. Instead he was 'sentenced' to twice-a-week AA meetings. "How the f*** am I going to do all the meetings they want me to do? I'm going to Paris Island end of May." Which prompted one of the non-townie-affluent-moms-of-our-community to say, "Oh, are you and your family going on vacation? Where is Paris Island?"
The embarrassed Jewish son of said mother -- the one who kept insisting the reason he wasn't going to be seen until last was because he was Jewish, said, "Mommmm, Paris Island is Marines....Colorado." And then Iraq ,I thought.
Thank god I didn't open my mouth. I had no idea and had been myself wondering why I had never heard of this Paris Island vacation resort....
Why Not Take a Day Off and spend it at the XXX Juvenile District Court with the honor-student daughter who was caught at the wrong place at the wrong time i.e. a Friday-afternoon bust at a house filled with sixty-seven new-and-used blue plastic cups ready to receive humungous quantities of expensive beer on the premises? So many kids were charged that the court had to stagger the summons to accommodate a sustainable number of kids at one time. The day the daughter and I went she was cast together with seven suit-and-tied boys. My daughter whispered to my ear: "This doesn't look good. I look like the drunken slut in a gang bang." I looked adoringly at daughter. Hmmm. You're kind of right I thought.
The daughter was taken in first. "You're the only one who didn't smirk when we were talking to you," said the juvenile justice coordinator. "You can fight this in court if you think you are innocent or you can choose diversion. In the first instance this will be on your record FOREVER -- even if you are found innocent. In the second instance, you can choose 20 hours of community service plus 8 hours of counseling and this will keep your record unblemished. Soooo..... What would you like to do?"
The town, that heard the case, of the gaggle-of-kids, caught, in the affluent community, at 4 p.m., in the afternoon, guzzling expensive beers…. border-line hates the town in which these kids were nabbed. "I'm sure you all have bright futures at prestigious colleges, don't you?" Translation: choose diversion because this nets XXX city that hates you thousands of dollars of federally-matched funds and we relish the thought of you driving your SUV/Jetta/X-brand car to skid-row counseling center to sit around with sketchy heroine addicts talking about drug addiction.
The thing is that I am thrilled. I could have throttled all seven of those kids sitting in the magistrate’s office waiting to be heard today. Their personas radiated a: isn't-this-all-just funny attitude that might have been funny save for the fact that they have lost four friends in the course of two years because of stupid, stupid alcohol/drug related incidents.
You won't believe this but the daughter was totally innocent in this particular episode. She had stopped by to pick up her boyfriend after having completed voluntary community service. At the same time the cops pulled up. She was not in the house but was asked to stand in the garden while the police took names. Bottom line, however, is that she would have been inside the house full of alcohol and no adult supervision had the police arrived five minutes later. Which is why the only support she got from mom was to accompany her to said sketchy courthouse in town XXX. I was pleased to see her visibly shaking as her name was read. Authoritarian fathers do wonders to instill a healthy fear of authoritarian figures. Having said that, I secretely hope that she will one day learn to stand up to them. Authoritarian does not always make them right...
One of the aforementioned kids waiting on the bench can only be described as a 'townie.' His tattooed father nearly punched out the officer who read the report and the tank-topped son scowled when he heard he would not be able to participate in the 'diversion' program due to a prior conviction. Instead he was 'sentenced' to twice-a-week AA meetings. "How the f*** am I going to do all the meetings they want me to do? I'm going to Paris Island end of May." Which prompted one of the non-townie-affluent-moms-of-our-community to say, "Oh, are you and your family going on vacation? Where is Paris Island?"
The embarrassed Jewish son of said mother -- the one who kept insisting the reason he wasn't going to be seen until last was because he was Jewish, said, "Mommmm, Paris Island is Marines....Colorado." And then Iraq ,I thought.
Thank god I didn't open my mouth. I had no idea and had been myself wondering why I had never heard of this Paris Island vacation resort....
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
A Darwinian Realization... Nineteen years and a few months' ago today, alarm bells should have gone off when I was informed I would need a cesarean to deliver my first baby. Not one century before, I would have died under similar circumstances and that would have been that. Evolution would have weeded out this Twiggy-woman with hips too narrow for a nine-pound baby to pass through. But modern medicine allowed me not only to corrupt the gene-pool with this evolutionarily undesirable trait, it allowed me to procreate further and have a second child by the same means. But let's back up further for a moment before I get to my main point. Were it frankly not for an unprecedented economy here in the States, one that allowed this insatiably hungry Twiggy to never have to go more than a couple of hours at a stretch without food, well I probably never would have gotten to the stage of considering a caesarian. I'd be dead of starvation -- an inefficient energy machine in need of much more fuel than realistically available except in exceptionally gluttonous times. One less liberal the pebble in some poor repressed conservative's shoe.
But there is a third thing that makes me a Darwinian disaster and which brings me to my point. Except when hubby spends thousands of dollars to bring me to one of the few remaining sanctuaries of the world -- one either untouched by man or one that has found a unique and charming harmony between man and nature, I for the most part feel AESTHETICALLY ASSAULTED by my surroundings on a daily basis. Everyday I tense physically and mentally from the ugly gashes and scars mankind leaves in its wake. Asphalted gnarls of roadway, jutting angles of cheaply constructed buildings, chain-link fences, grimy subways and yawning strip malls assail my sensibilities. Then there is the fact that mankind has been around for so many thousands' of years only to be bashing one another's heads in like never before. This saps enormous energy in terms of being able to remain positive and hopeful about our future.
I am not seeking sympathy. Rather I am presenting a hard-cold fact. The thousands' of years of genetic programming that whisper through my DNA are just not those that look likely to successfully survive this world I already feel eerily alien to. Too bad for me but perhaps great for someone else whose genetic gusto is best suited to adapt to this new 21st century landscape. Just as the computer was able to ideally channel the talents of individuals otherwise lost in a world of paper and pen, so will the eco-challenged world be an optimum environment for certain individuals whose abilities are not dependent upon, or influenced by, requisite conditions to their physical surroundings.
Luck, I suppose, will be the determining factor as to whether I will have the fortune in my old age to afford an environment that is conducive to my aesthetic needs. If not then please just give me a f****** gun before I am subjected to an illiterate staff person spoon-feeding me mashed peas in a nursing home sandwiched between a gas station and a convenience store. That's not living. That's sustaining. Something I am not genetically programmed to do. But who knows. A year-and-a-half ago I never would have predicted that I would be where I am. Life is mysterious. Perhaps I am genetically coded in such a way that aesthetic sensibilities will suddenly melt away and become unimportant. Reading to grandchildren or caring for an elderly parent become the all-consuming drivers of one's existence. I do, however, know one thing. No amount of external danger, be they terrorists, Patriot Acts, or home-grown neo-conservative activism will ever keep me from going where I want to go, when I want to go, or doing what I want to do, when I want to do it. So she said at a sassy forty-four....
But there is a third thing that makes me a Darwinian disaster and which brings me to my point. Except when hubby spends thousands of dollars to bring me to one of the few remaining sanctuaries of the world -- one either untouched by man or one that has found a unique and charming harmony between man and nature, I for the most part feel AESTHETICALLY ASSAULTED by my surroundings on a daily basis. Everyday I tense physically and mentally from the ugly gashes and scars mankind leaves in its wake. Asphalted gnarls of roadway, jutting angles of cheaply constructed buildings, chain-link fences, grimy subways and yawning strip malls assail my sensibilities. Then there is the fact that mankind has been around for so many thousands' of years only to be bashing one another's heads in like never before. This saps enormous energy in terms of being able to remain positive and hopeful about our future.
I am not seeking sympathy. Rather I am presenting a hard-cold fact. The thousands' of years of genetic programming that whisper through my DNA are just not those that look likely to successfully survive this world I already feel eerily alien to. Too bad for me but perhaps great for someone else whose genetic gusto is best suited to adapt to this new 21st century landscape. Just as the computer was able to ideally channel the talents of individuals otherwise lost in a world of paper and pen, so will the eco-challenged world be an optimum environment for certain individuals whose abilities are not dependent upon, or influenced by, requisite conditions to their physical surroundings.
Luck, I suppose, will be the determining factor as to whether I will have the fortune in my old age to afford an environment that is conducive to my aesthetic needs. If not then please just give me a f****** gun before I am subjected to an illiterate staff person spoon-feeding me mashed peas in a nursing home sandwiched between a gas station and a convenience store. That's not living. That's sustaining. Something I am not genetically programmed to do. But who knows. A year-and-a-half ago I never would have predicted that I would be where I am. Life is mysterious. Perhaps I am genetically coded in such a way that aesthetic sensibilities will suddenly melt away and become unimportant. Reading to grandchildren or caring for an elderly parent become the all-consuming drivers of one's existence. I do, however, know one thing. No amount of external danger, be they terrorists, Patriot Acts, or home-grown neo-conservative activism will ever keep me from going where I want to go, when I want to go, or doing what I want to do, when I want to do it. So she said at a sassy forty-four....
A Few Harper's Index Tidbits:
Chance that an American adult believes that "politics and government are too complicated to understand": 1 in 3
Chance that an American who was home-schooled feels this way: 1 in 25
Percentage of the 958 same-sex unions granted to Vermont residents since July 2000 that have since been dissolved: 3
Percentage of U.S. heterosexual marriages that are dissolved within five years: 20
Anecdote for the Day: Last night, in my capacity as dutiful corporate wife, I attended a dinner with a number of stately venture capitalists and business leaders from the U.K. Curious as to how our 'staunchest allies' view U.S. politics these days, I risked a few conversations that strayed from the 'safe zone' of weather and vacation destinations. Every single person I asked views this administration's policies as one of the darkest and most ominous periods in America's history. ..
Chance that an American adult believes that "politics and government are too complicated to understand": 1 in 3
Chance that an American who was home-schooled feels this way: 1 in 25
Percentage of the 958 same-sex unions granted to Vermont residents since July 2000 that have since been dissolved: 3
Percentage of U.S. heterosexual marriages that are dissolved within five years: 20
Anecdote for the Day: Last night, in my capacity as dutiful corporate wife, I attended a dinner with a number of stately venture capitalists and business leaders from the U.K. Curious as to how our 'staunchest allies' view U.S. politics these days, I risked a few conversations that strayed from the 'safe zone' of weather and vacation destinations. Every single person I asked views this administration's policies as one of the darkest and most ominous periods in America's history. ..
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
One of my conservie acquaintances recently referred to Richard Clarke as an opportunistic, asshole traitor (or something to that effect). I have to wonder how long he will continue to disparage anyone and everyone who has the audacity to question the Bush administration's foreign policies before he spouts a wooly fleece and is picked up by Hollywood for a role in Animal Farm. Guess this means he'll be launching character assassinations next against Bob Woodward, Colin Powell and the other seventy or so high-up people who spoke on and off the record for Woodward's book (including the army's high brass). He'll claim I suppose that these guys too are all French-loving, unpatriotic, terrorist-abetting traitors....
I don't think that my virtual conservie was brave enough to venture beyond Fox News Sunday evening to catch the 60 Minutes exclusive with Bob Woodward. Had he done so, he might have learned that much of what was revealed in this expose supports what many(including Clarke), have been saying all along -- that Bush and Cheney were obsessed with going to war with Iraq. BTW, did Mr. Bush ask his father for any advice? “I asked the president about this. And President Bush said, ‘Well, no,’ and then he got defensive about it,” says Woodward. “Then he said something that really struck me. He said of his father, ‘He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength.’ And then he said, ‘There's a higher Father that I appeal to."
The sucking sound you hear are the billions of dollars being funneled into Iraq instead of fighting the real terrorists. You know... the terrorists who are even more fanatically enraged and committed to destroying the U.S. since Bush preemptively waged war on a country that had absolutely nothing to do with Al Quaeda or 9/11 (and which also possess no WMD..[the reason we went to war, remember?]).
Meanwhile at home, Bush's policies wreak havoc on the environment, alienate the
international community, and explode the deficit. I would love to hear some cogent arguments from conservatives out there why a clandestine blowjob with an intern is worse than what this English-challenged, born-again idiot has brought to bear. Mind you I am being generous here. If it were up to me, I would impeach the bastard solely on the fact that this world leader can't string two coherent sentences together. Which is why I cut Bush's evil twin brother Blair so much more slack. The guy is delicious to listen to on CSPAN....
I don't think that my virtual conservie was brave enough to venture beyond Fox News Sunday evening to catch the 60 Minutes exclusive with Bob Woodward. Had he done so, he might have learned that much of what was revealed in this expose supports what many(including Clarke), have been saying all along -- that Bush and Cheney were obsessed with going to war with Iraq. BTW, did Mr. Bush ask his father for any advice? “I asked the president about this. And President Bush said, ‘Well, no,’ and then he got defensive about it,” says Woodward. “Then he said something that really struck me. He said of his father, ‘He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength.’ And then he said, ‘There's a higher Father that I appeal to."
The sucking sound you hear are the billions of dollars being funneled into Iraq instead of fighting the real terrorists. You know... the terrorists who are even more fanatically enraged and committed to destroying the U.S. since Bush preemptively waged war on a country that had absolutely nothing to do with Al Quaeda or 9/11 (and which also possess no WMD..[the reason we went to war, remember?]).
Meanwhile at home, Bush's policies wreak havoc on the environment, alienate the
international community, and explode the deficit. I would love to hear some cogent arguments from conservatives out there why a clandestine blowjob with an intern is worse than what this English-challenged, born-again idiot has brought to bear. Mind you I am being generous here. If it were up to me, I would impeach the bastard solely on the fact that this world leader can't string two coherent sentences together. Which is why I cut Bush's evil twin brother Blair so much more slack. The guy is delicious to listen to on CSPAN....
Monday, April 19, 2004
It is many more tons of seashells than seven which get carted away each year from Sanibel Island. My math was based on there being 16,000 visitors during the winter months (vs. six thousand otherwise). But the 16,000 represent the number of visitors during any given week from December through April. In other words, sixteen thousand visitors a week are plucking seven tons of seashells from the shores of Sanibel. Right? Times twenty weeks or so. I'm sure there is an algebraic expression in here somewhere….
It doesn't take a mathematician to figure out that the draft will have to be instated sometime soon. We can't keep the National Guard in Iraq forever. At some point we are going to have to supply some fresh new bodies to fight what is arguably one of the most ill-conceived, badly planned, least justifiable wars in history. We impeach Clinton for lying about a blowjob but keep a man in office who hears voices from God telling him what to do. The fact that Rumsfeld is 'surprised' at how many soldiers have been killed so far is deplorable and unforgivable. How is it that millions of people worldwide knew this would happen and he didn't?
Kerry doesn't even have to go on the attack. Bush's pals are doing a fine job all on their own i.e. I don't know how long the conservatives can keep deluding themselves that all of Bush's critics are simply opportunists and traitors. Bob Woodward's new book supports much of what Richard Clarke testified under oath in front of the 9/11 commission. So is Woodward a traitor too? How about Colin Powell? Even Bill O'Reilly is starting to ask some pointed questions about this administration. I have to think any conservative brave enough to watch the 60 Minutes exclusive with Bob Woodward last night, no matter how ardent a conservative, has to be feeling just a little queasy about this administration.
I liked this Woodward tidbit: Woodward told 60 Minutes that Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia has promised the president (with whom he is friends) that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election - to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day... Good grief.
It doesn't take a mathematician to figure out that the draft will have to be instated sometime soon. We can't keep the National Guard in Iraq forever. At some point we are going to have to supply some fresh new bodies to fight what is arguably one of the most ill-conceived, badly planned, least justifiable wars in history. We impeach Clinton for lying about a blowjob but keep a man in office who hears voices from God telling him what to do. The fact that Rumsfeld is 'surprised' at how many soldiers have been killed so far is deplorable and unforgivable. How is it that millions of people worldwide knew this would happen and he didn't?
Kerry doesn't even have to go on the attack. Bush's pals are doing a fine job all on their own i.e. I don't know how long the conservatives can keep deluding themselves that all of Bush's critics are simply opportunists and traitors. Bob Woodward's new book supports much of what Richard Clarke testified under oath in front of the 9/11 commission. So is Woodward a traitor too? How about Colin Powell? Even Bill O'Reilly is starting to ask some pointed questions about this administration. I have to think any conservative brave enough to watch the 60 Minutes exclusive with Bob Woodward last night, no matter how ardent a conservative, has to be feeling just a little queasy about this administration.
I liked this Woodward tidbit: Woodward told 60 Minutes that Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia has promised the president (with whom he is friends) that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election - to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day... Good grief.
Friday, April 16, 2004
Delta Airlines has a new low-fare carrier called SONG which we flew back on from Ft. Meyers. Non-alcoholic drinks and entertainment are complimentary but everything else has a price tag. Want lunch? That will be four dollars please. Their in-flight entertainment system is quite smart. Installed at every seat, the system has 24 channels of live satellite television, 24 channels of music and an interactive trivia game on a monitor installed in the back of each seat. Remnants of thunderstorms made our flight a very bumpy one and I must say that even FOX News is comfortingly distracting when the low-budget flight attendants have just told you that heavy, heavy turbulence will be preventing them from getting up from their seats to collect empty cups from your tray, and by the way, would the people sitting near the emergency exits please make sure that nothing is blocking the door...
Sanibel Island is Bush/Cheney country. Thankfully the garlands of garlic warded off the ill effects so many Republicans were having on my otherwise blissful vacation.This Republican stronghold called Sanibel boasts miles upon miles of white sandy beaches bespeckled with trophy seashells for the taking. To add to our growing collection at home, we brought back a small fig shell, pear whelks, whelks, juvenile horse conchs, fighting conchs, and a turkey wing. Most beachcombers had buckets of seashells and if they were all to be carted back home, I did the math and figured that the beaches of Sanibel must lose approximately 7 tons of shells a year!
Sanibel's three-thousand-acres-plus of the J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge is home to a host of endangered species who thrive in the estuarine habitat. The part open to the public is about a three-and-a-half stretch that can be accessed by foot, bicycle, or car. Why one would want to drive through I have no idea. I think people are under the mistaken assumption that the refuge is going to be like a Disney ride and that alligators are going to waddle across the rode in front of them on cue, stop to be photographed, before slithering back into the mud flats on the other side; snakes will drop from a low-hanging branch just as the mini-van drives beneath it; a bald eagle will swoop over the water, a pike in its talons, just as an American crocodile emerges onto the sandy water's edge for its afternoon sunning. No wonder the park's visitors look so bored as they exit the refuge. They haven't seen or heard much of anything. No, one must walk through the refuge to appreciate all that it has to offer. Even biking one misses out on the quiet goings-on of the habitat. Over the course of our two-hour walk we saw two eastern indigo snakes, three American alligators, one American crocodile, a loggerhead turtle, a wild raccoon (about half the size of its trash-fed, fat suburban cousins), lizards galore, roseate spoonbills, the white ibis, great egrets, snowy egrets, blue herons, pelicans, cormorants, ospreys and as a special treat, a blue bunting.
We are all very suntanned now. My good friend at the State House commented that I finally look like I am supposed to look, meaning that I am more often tan as I am pale. "And I see you wore a light blouse to show off your tan today," she said. "Damn straight," I replied. "If I'm going to risk skin cancer and premature aging, I'm going to at least look good the few years I have left before my skin irrevocably goes down to shriveldom!"
Couple of random notes. How brilliant is MacDonald’s? First they make ka-zillions making people fat. Now they are going to make ka-zillions getting them slimmer again. Did anyone notice that in the President's speech the other night DEMOCRACY was never mentioned as something we were trying to bring Iraqis anymore? Guess they've finally realized that might be far-fetched. And how about Apple's reported earnings this quarter? Go iPods!
Sanibel Island is Bush/Cheney country. Thankfully the garlands of garlic warded off the ill effects so many Republicans were having on my otherwise blissful vacation.This Republican stronghold called Sanibel boasts miles upon miles of white sandy beaches bespeckled with trophy seashells for the taking. To add to our growing collection at home, we brought back a small fig shell, pear whelks, whelks, juvenile horse conchs, fighting conchs, and a turkey wing. Most beachcombers had buckets of seashells and if they were all to be carted back home, I did the math and figured that the beaches of Sanibel must lose approximately 7 tons of shells a year!
Sanibel's three-thousand-acres-plus of the J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge is home to a host of endangered species who thrive in the estuarine habitat. The part open to the public is about a three-and-a-half stretch that can be accessed by foot, bicycle, or car. Why one would want to drive through I have no idea. I think people are under the mistaken assumption that the refuge is going to be like a Disney ride and that alligators are going to waddle across the rode in front of them on cue, stop to be photographed, before slithering back into the mud flats on the other side; snakes will drop from a low-hanging branch just as the mini-van drives beneath it; a bald eagle will swoop over the water, a pike in its talons, just as an American crocodile emerges onto the sandy water's edge for its afternoon sunning. No wonder the park's visitors look so bored as they exit the refuge. They haven't seen or heard much of anything. No, one must walk through the refuge to appreciate all that it has to offer. Even biking one misses out on the quiet goings-on of the habitat. Over the course of our two-hour walk we saw two eastern indigo snakes, three American alligators, one American crocodile, a loggerhead turtle, a wild raccoon (about half the size of its trash-fed, fat suburban cousins), lizards galore, roseate spoonbills, the white ibis, great egrets, snowy egrets, blue herons, pelicans, cormorants, ospreys and as a special treat, a blue bunting.
We are all very suntanned now. My good friend at the State House commented that I finally look like I am supposed to look, meaning that I am more often tan as I am pale. "And I see you wore a light blouse to show off your tan today," she said. "Damn straight," I replied. "If I'm going to risk skin cancer and premature aging, I'm going to at least look good the few years I have left before my skin irrevocably goes down to shriveldom!"
Couple of random notes. How brilliant is MacDonald’s? First they make ka-zillions making people fat. Now they are going to make ka-zillions getting them slimmer again. Did anyone notice that in the President's speech the other night DEMOCRACY was never mentioned as something we were trying to bring Iraqis anymore? Guess they've finally realized that might be far-fetched. And how about Apple's reported earnings this quarter? Go iPods!
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
I've been told that I sound like I'm gloating in my last post... gloating because my cleaning lady is confined to dreaming about my husband rather than actually being able to live out her fantasies in a more corporal fashion.
Wow. I thought I was being rather generous myself. I mean how many wives give free dreaming reign to another woman's pinings for her husband? If I sound anything I'd rather say that I sound snobbish: I grant the cleaning lady her fantasies knowing full well that hubby wouldn't give her the time of day. She would physically repulse him. Would I be as generous to the beautiful MIT graduate working for hubby if I knew for a fact that she too lusted after my husband? Probably not. Or maybe I would. I don't know. The world has become such an un-fun place to live these days; why should I not do my part to concede a few moments of sensual daydreaming if it alleviates a harried day?
The fact of the matter is that my cleaning lady's life has SCREWED written all over it and nothing short of a jackpot win is likely to change it. I have no answers to the humongous divide that separates my reality from hers. A conservative might say that her fate is in her own hands. If she works hard, gets training, blah, blah, blah, she has just as much of a chance to make it as the next person. This is pure crock of course. She has no health care, no money, no prospects, no support from family. No I am not gloating when I imagine myself the lucky one on Sanibel Island in search of alligators while she dreams of my husband in her dismal basement apartment. I am completely saddened by her fate. There is no reason, really, that her reality might not have been mine had l, for instance, eloped with the Harley Davidson, pony-tailed, Allman-Brothers-loving lout I fell madly in love with when I was seventeen... Although you can be quite sure that even in the darkest dank of a trailer park, I would never have bleached my hair. Never.
Wow. I thought I was being rather generous myself. I mean how many wives give free dreaming reign to another woman's pinings for her husband? If I sound anything I'd rather say that I sound snobbish: I grant the cleaning lady her fantasies knowing full well that hubby wouldn't give her the time of day. She would physically repulse him. Would I be as generous to the beautiful MIT graduate working for hubby if I knew for a fact that she too lusted after my husband? Probably not. Or maybe I would. I don't know. The world has become such an un-fun place to live these days; why should I not do my part to concede a few moments of sensual daydreaming if it alleviates a harried day?
The fact of the matter is that my cleaning lady's life has SCREWED written all over it and nothing short of a jackpot win is likely to change it. I have no answers to the humongous divide that separates my reality from hers. A conservative might say that her fate is in her own hands. If she works hard, gets training, blah, blah, blah, she has just as much of a chance to make it as the next person. This is pure crock of course. She has no health care, no money, no prospects, no support from family. No I am not gloating when I imagine myself the lucky one on Sanibel Island in search of alligators while she dreams of my husband in her dismal basement apartment. I am completely saddened by her fate. There is no reason, really, that her reality might not have been mine had l, for instance, eloped with the Harley Davidson, pony-tailed, Allman-Brothers-loving lout I fell madly in love with when I was seventeen... Although you can be quite sure that even in the darkest dank of a trailer park, I would never have bleached my hair. Never.
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
Lunch with my dear Italian friend yesterday brought with it startling revelations. For instance I learned that my cleaning lady, whom we share, apparently lusts after my husband. It is only her respect for me that keeps her from pouncing on him on the days he works from home and she is there. Oh but if you could see her. She is everything you envision white trash to be – a caricature straight out of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. She is thirty. She is heavy. She is peroxide-blond with alarming black roots. Her fingernails are painted blue. She has loser men in her life and two young children to raise on food stamps and the money she earns cleaning houses. She lives in a basement apartment with no windows. She has no health insurance. She cannot clean houses for very many years more. It is too exhausting. If dreaming of my husband every night eases her pain, it is the least I can give her. But that's all I'm giving her.
Spring is such an elusive thing here in New England. At 7 a.m. this morning the thermostat read 27 degrees Fahrenheit. Nonetheless, a few determined blades of tulip leaves poke bravely through last year's leftover leaves. But not these jade shoots or the morning blue sky is enough to alleviate the mud-colored treescape morose and brooding in my garden. Will it ever be spring?
At the State House I spend an hour this morning in the office OF A VERY PROMINANT PERSON to help an aide with her computer. Not that this is my job. It had just become impossible to communicate with her electronically and so I decided to help her out. Someone had to because the completely incompetent IT Department sure can't be counted on to help. Come to find out that this office is positively Medieval. Nobody uses Outlook. The concept of a share drive is non-existent. Hardly anyone uses email. "Well He likes everything written on hard copy. Then we shred everything once a month," says she as I work to heal her ailing computer. "I see..."
Three more days. Three more days... and I will be awash in the color and sunshine of Sanibel. As will the daughter. As will the hubby. And as we ride our bicyles through the nearby sanctuary in search of aligators, he will be dreamt about by a woman awash in a dead-end life.
Spring is such an elusive thing here in New England. At 7 a.m. this morning the thermostat read 27 degrees Fahrenheit. Nonetheless, a few determined blades of tulip leaves poke bravely through last year's leftover leaves. But not these jade shoots or the morning blue sky is enough to alleviate the mud-colored treescape morose and brooding in my garden. Will it ever be spring?
At the State House I spend an hour this morning in the office OF A VERY PROMINANT PERSON to help an aide with her computer. Not that this is my job. It had just become impossible to communicate with her electronically and so I decided to help her out. Someone had to because the completely incompetent IT Department sure can't be counted on to help. Come to find out that this office is positively Medieval. Nobody uses Outlook. The concept of a share drive is non-existent. Hardly anyone uses email. "Well He likes everything written on hard copy. Then we shred everything once a month," says she as I work to heal her ailing computer. "I see..."
Three more days. Three more days... and I will be awash in the color and sunshine of Sanibel. As will the daughter. As will the hubby. And as we ride our bicyles through the nearby sanctuary in search of aligators, he will be dreamt about by a woman awash in a dead-end life.
Saturday, April 03, 2004
Champagne and sighs of relief and thank-god-it's-over. A congratulatory phone call from her older brother. She has made it across the abyss of college uncertainty. Fate has decreed what side of the continent will shape her character over the next four years. The weather she will feel. The many friends and lovers soon to meet. The indelible stamp that will make her who she is to become as an adult.
Almost. The choreographers above thought it might be fun to test her just a bit further... Go to this fabulous school but get no tuition break. Or go to this almost as fabulous school that will give you an academic scholarship. Austrian hubby looks on incredulously at the spectacle. He has learned not to interfere. It would be a no-brainer for him given these two choices but after 20 years in America, he realizes there are cultural nuances and idiosyncrasies that simply render his Germanic logic moot.
Almost. The choreographers above thought it might be fun to test her just a bit further... Go to this fabulous school but get no tuition break. Or go to this almost as fabulous school that will give you an academic scholarship. Austrian hubby looks on incredulously at the spectacle. He has learned not to interfere. It would be a no-brainer for him given these two choices but after 20 years in America, he realizes there are cultural nuances and idiosyncrasies that simply render his Germanic logic moot.
