Anna's Bloviations

It started this morning. Emerging from the bowels of Boston's subway system I saw a little old man dressed entirely in white with huge black-rimmed glasses. He looked perplexed. Then across the street I saw an unfathomably skinny man dressed all in black. And I was dressed today in gray.

The constituent whom I had never met and only spoken to by phone came by my office unannounced this afternoon. Meeting her made me realize that it is a whole lot easier being a liberal over the phone than in person. On the phone you can imagine the person the epitome of your constituent ideal. In my mind Karen was a small thin woman in her late forties. Smart albeit scattered. A person who had been dealt a deck of a whole-lot-of-bad-luck that I wanted to help make right.

For the last two months, I have been trying to help Karen avoid homelessness. Homelessness is a state that you don't want to be in the Commonwealth. There are two to four-year waiting lists for sub-standard 'affordable' housing. Below that are the shelters that make you want to vomit. Karen, my constituent, sat across from me trying to explain the altercation she had just had with her landlady who was now pressing assault charges. "I didn't hit her," she explained. "I would never do that. I did that once when I was drunk in college and really messed a girl up. No, I just pushed her because she was yelling in my face."

"You are your own worst enemy," I thought. You are what make people become Republicans.

Two hundred-and-fifty pounds sat before me on the couch exuding the singular smell of an almost-fifty-something individual who eats poorly, drinks plenty, and smokes incessantly. She had fake teeth no doubt paid for by Massachusetts’s 'MA-Health' program. She wants the Housing Authority to find her housing. She wants a continuation of her health care benefits she stands to lose because her soon-to-be ex-husband earns too much. She wants City X to pay her re-location expenses related to issues too complex and rambling to convey here. She wants to sue the city related to issues also too complex and rambling to convey here. She basically wants everybody else to pay for the very poor life decisions she has chosen thus far.

I wanted this rancid wreck of a body out of my office and although I have said unkind things about my colleague in the past, I am sincerely indebted to him for bailing me out today. "Anna don't forget about that 5 p.m. meeting you're supposed to go to upstairs..."

My liberal constitution somewhat shaken for the day, I went home and took a long walk with my dog when who should pull up along side me in a car but an almost fifty-something woman... But the antithesis of the other. A glowing smile of natural white teeth framed by high cheek bones and swept-up hair asked me whether I knew where a certain house was alongside the ocean. She had driven down from Newburyport (nice place) to find the house to which she had been invited the next day. She explained that she had been invited on a date; they were to meet at his house before going to a special event at the near-by yacht club. She was clearly in love and clearly giddy. She wanted to make sure she could find her way and so had taken this trial drive the day before. I pointed to the house. On the back of her Saab that sped away was a Kerry for President sticker. "Even if you had met Karen?" I wondered.

OK Mr. Choreographer up there. What Epiphany are we trying to impart?

I stand corrected. Not often but nonetheless... When I pinged the Fox News website for not covering Michael Moore's 9/11 movie they responded in a nano-second:

Actually, the news of its success has been on our site since last night.

In our Foxlife section, it's the third story:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,123873,00.html

Foxlife is our entertainment section. The story was included in our LATEST
HEADLINES area on root last night.

FOXNews.com

OK. But they did bury it...

CNN's CROSS FIRE. For the fun of it we sat in on a taping of Cross Fire with Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson while in D.C. Friday afternoon. The subject matter was Cheney's 'F'-bomb and Michael Moore's new film Fahrenheit 9/11. The Cross Fire show was not very good. Begala (spokesperson for the left) got going a little bit but Tucker (spokesperson for the right) was flat. On the other hand, if you had to be the conservie on this particular show after having seen a special screening of Moore's film, there just wasn't a whole lot to do but mumble lamely about the "incoherent story line."

But I digress. For the record, Cross Fire is a completely contrived show. For all we know, bow-tied Carlson is a closet liberal being paid a hefty paycheck for witty conservie quips. It's a day job. Begala and Carlson aren't 'discussing' anything. They are earning their bacon. Meanwhile the audience gets used for two purposes only -- as fresh fodder for the camera to pan over and as a source of applause. The predominantly Democrat audience gave Begala the claps.

Fahrenheit 9/11 was excellent but not nearly so jaw-dropping for anyone who has really been following the news carefully over the last few years. It too is contrived, but unlike Cross Fire, never makes any pretenses that it isn't. Throughout the movie there were gasps, and "Oh my god's" and a woman who sat crying next to me. There was also thunderous applause at the end. All of which is the sad consequence of an apathetic public just now realizing how far the wool was pulled over their eyes.

As much as Moore wishes otherwise, I'm not so sure the movie will influence the outcome of the election as he hopes. A conservie will watch this movie and still find a way to fit it to his/her conservie-world-view i.e. 'Moore is contorting the facts'; 'Bush might not be perfect but....'; 'The world is better off without Hussein'; 'There still might be weapons of mass destruction,' etc., etc. And don't forget that we have five more months of Kool-Aid making from both sides to endure. Who will concoct the better potion? Well Fox is off to a good start i.e. as of today Fox's website doesn't even make mention of Moore's record-breaking Fahrenheit 9/11 debut... Strange. Everyone else is talking about it. Could it possibly be that Fox News isn't the "fair and balanced" news organization they proclaim to be? Oh say it ain't so....

Not a bad way to go. Posted on Ananova.com is a report about a slaughterhouse in China that gives pigs showers, saunas and massages before they put them under. Light music is played as the pigs are pampered before being electrocuted. According to Guo Zianfeng, the manager, the pigs fall asleep after the sauna and massage and feel no pain when they are electrocuted. I would perhaps also request an exquisite last glass of wine, a chocolate truffle, and a French kiss from Fredrik Ljungberg at which point I just couldn't think of a more exquisite way to go. Certainly a lot better than hours spent looking out the window of a nursing home, waiting for the highlight of the day when an aide comes by to feed you mashed peas.

Off to harrowingly hot humidity. The entire Bloviation's family is flying down this afternoon to D.C. for the daughter's three-day college orientation. While she gets oriented, we will spend three days seeking ways to avoid the sticky heat. I'm thinking air-conditioned museums, good restaurants in Georgetown, and theater. As far as the extra $176 airfare for the son to go down with us, that's about $60-a-night's worth of peace of mind knowing we'll have a house to come home to (and be able to pass on to the new owner end of July). Yes, yes and of course we are very happy that he is joining us...

OK I know there are any number of conservies out there who are still buying Cheney and Bush's assertions that there was a link between Saddam Hussein/Iraq and Al-Qaeda. Well no I guess they aren't saying a link. They're saying a relationship.

Don't worry; I'm not going to waste your time arguing semantics. Suffice to say that when people are bent on seeing something there that isn't, they will. Kind of like falling in love with someone head over heels but they don't love you back. That doesn't stop you from spending every waking moment deluding yourself that his/her rebuffs are really somehow just a token of their undying affection for you. If you're lucky, you'll wake up out of your love-drenched stupor. If you're not lucky, you bumble along like Bush and Cheney the Ueber-delusionists.

Should the conservies still be reluctant to believe this is so, how about this case of hallucinatory wishful thinking on the part of Bush and the Republicans: Yesterday hubby got a personal invitation from President Bush and Laura to join the entire Republican Party leadership at a July 21st gathering in Washington, D.C. The event is to celebrate Bush's first term in office thanks to people like hubby who have made it all possible [???]. In fact Bush said in his letter that hubby's steadfast support has made the Republican Party America's majority party. Then the letter goes on to tout all of the Bush administration’s accomplishments: "America is safer because we rebuilt our military and are winning the War on Terror*...." blah, blah, blah. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert also enclosed a letter in the packet. So convinced is he that hubby will want to be with the President and First Lady on July 21st, he has gone ahead and personally reserved a seat for him. But if for some reason hubby can't go, he would at least like to list him as an Honorary Co-Chairman from the state of Massachusetts. Tickets are $2,500 each, or a table of ten may be purchased for $25,000.

* According to a recent Amnesty report released May 26th (Bush's letter was dated June 4th), the U.S.-led war on terror has made the world less safe. The U.S. State Department had to agree...

Readers should know that hubby is so far left politically that he borders on progressive socialism. He is not even an American citizen and thus can't vote. So either one of his colleagues thought it might be amusing to get him on a Republican mailing list (I can think of a few who would do this), or some really lousy demographics research group targeted him as a likely Republican. Let's look at the suppositions which might have led someone to assume hubby is Republican:

*He is Austrian. Arnold Schwarzenegger is Austrian. Schwarzenegger is Republican. Therefore hubby must be Republican.

*He belongs to the Upper-10-Percent-Club of Americans reaping the benefits of Bush's tax cuts. He would be crazy not to be Republican. Therefore he must be Republican.

*He has no tolerance for 'veaklings.' Neither do Republicans. Therefore he must be Republican.

*He is a VP of a London-based company. London is a U.S. ally. Therefore he must be Republican.

There you have it. And all these years I didn't know....

And you wonder why State employees take long lunch breaks....

DAILY STATE HOUSE SCHEDULE - MONDAY, JUNE 21, 2004

GOV. MITT ROMNEY

schedule not yet available

DAILY EVENTS

no events scheduled

THE LEGISLATURE

11:00....House meets in informal session [translation: everyone is off playing golf]
11:00....Senate meets in informal session [translation: everyone is off playing golf]

Free Tickets. Anna Bloviation's will provide free tickets to any of my existing conservie friends or virtual acquaintances brave enough to go see Michael Moore's upcoming 9/11 Fahrenheit, due to be released June 25th. Just tell me what theater you want to go to and when. Meanwhile, many conservies, particularly the organization "Move America Forward," have been aggressively trying to keep this movie out of theaters. Afraid are they? In anticipation of vicious attacks from the right, Moore has an entourage of folks combing through the movie to make sure that every single clip checks out factually. No wonder the conservies don't want you to see it...

Thanks again to the toy that Bandit gave me for my blogsite, I occasionally check out the search words that might prompt a search engine to cough up Anna's Bloviations blog page e.g. "Calvin Klein and Fredrik Ljungberg" or "Anna Kournikova." It's good to know that if you write randomly enough, you're more than likely to get hits from the outside world at some point or another...And who knows who might discover you? Whose world you will rock? Whose conservie outlook you'll enrage...or ideally change?

Add thirty more words to my Australian Shepherd's vocabulary. I forgot she is bilingual...(English/German). This still doesn't bring her to Rico the Border Collie's vocabulary of 200 words but it gets her at least to 60. Ditto for the college-aged son. Factor in that he can speak German and this doubles his vocabulary to 400. Of course the son could boast that he is tri-lingual, not just bi-lingual. But I'm not sure Neanderthal-grunt counts as a language....

Good thing the son has a job now. He'd be sans-lingual otherwise.

On I.Q.'s: Rico the Border Collie has just been pronounced as smart as a three-year-old human. With a 200-word German vocabulary, Rico can retrieve specific toys on demand and can even learn new words for new toys introduced to him. Since the article appeared, a number of people have approached me and asked whether my dog is a Border Collie. She looks a bit like a Border but is actually a tri-color Australian Shepard . And if I'm not mistaken, they rank second to Border Collies in the smarts department but I can attest that she has no where near a vocabulary of 200 words. I'm not sure my college-age son does either but that's another story. I'd say our dog has a vocabulary of thirty words max. She understands when she is asked to bring a toy although no matter which one you specify, her choice is completely random to your wishes. Having said that, our dog only has two toys to her name and no designated spot where they are kept so perhaps I should give her more credit for being able to find any toy at all. If you tell her to go to a specific family member she is usually pretty good at locating the right person. She'll stop on a dime if you tell her to and she knows all the generic commands like sit, down, heel, food, water, bad, good, etc. Is our dog less lovable because she has a lower I.Q. than Rico? Certainly not. But am I glad she isn't a seeing-eye-dog for someone dependent on her for 24/7 guidance? Yes.

Which brings me to Bush. There has been a plethora of speculation and jokes out there about Bush's I.Q. One report in particular (which started circulating in 2001), claimed that Bush had the lowest I.Q. of any of the last twelve presidents to serve. The 'report' turned out to be pure myth i.e. he appears to be smarter than he looks or is given credit for. Apparently he scored a 1206 out of a possible 1600 on his SAT's (566 verbal and 640 math) which might theoretically convert to an I.Q. of 129. Not the brightest bulb on the block but not stupid either. I frankly would have died for Bush's SAT math score. I am also admittedly surprised he got a 566 on his verbals when one considers the syntactical ineptitude he has demonstrated throughout his Supreme Court-appointed presidency. As a side note, an SAT score of 1206 these days would have you knocking on the doors of third-tier colleges, not Yale, no matter who you could boast as alumni.

I might well be able to live with a president with an I.Q. of 129 were it not for one disturbing factor. The context of Bush's decision making is based on the confines of his faith rather than synapse activity. In Bob Woodward's book, Bush admits as much by saying that at the end of the day, he is beholden to a 'higher father.' Unfortunately there has been untold carnage and injustice over the centuries in the name of that higher father and so I am mighty mistrustful of those who proclaim to be doing 'God's' bidding (after all isn't that exactly what the Islamist movement is claiming to be doing?). Add to that the fact that Bush's faith-based extrapolations are exacerbated by the neocon Straussians who surround him and whose motto is: We are superior to every one else in the world therefore our actions are noble and justified, and you've got trouble in Kansas City. I'd like to know how it is that a crazy man on the street who hears voices is locked up and given drugs, but the man who would be president and admits he heeds a higher order is given a blank check and allowed to send soldiers to die? Particularly that every single justification Bush gave for going to war with Iraq has turned out to be delusional ranting. Just a question....

On a light and not so lighter note from Harper's Index:

* Percentage change in Mattel's first-quarter earnings last winter, when Barbie and Ken's "break-up" was announced: -73

* Number of individual "songs" for sale in Apple's iTunes Music Store that consist of utter silence: 17

* Weeks the Patriot Act allowed the government this year to delay the ACLU's announcement of a suit over the Act itself: 3

* Seconds it took a Maryland consultant last winter to pick a Diebold voting machine's lock and remove its memory card: 10

The Mrs. of the house we are buying is having a nervous break-down. She won't let us or any contractor into the house again until closing because she "just can't deal with all the stress of moving." OK I'd be depressed too if I had to move to Cincinnati but that doesn't mean you get to have a melt down when someone has just agreed to your closing terms and paid above asking price on your house.

I have to say that 20+ years married to an Austrian makes such behavior highly intolerable. "Don't be a veakling" as Arnie-sound-alike hubby would say. Unfortunately such tantrum behavior turns out to be highly effective in getting one's way. "OK, so we'll just wait until closing before getting into the house again. We understand...." (even so it's almost impossible to line up contractors in the middle of summer and every day that goes by where we don't move the process along is a day we'll be moved into the house surrounded by workers plastering the cottage cheese ceilings or sanding the floors).

I spent many years of my young motherhood walking out of stores when my kids were having a tantrum rather than give in to their demands. It's frustrating to learn that the kids whose parents capitulated and gave them an ice-cream are now the adults who have a melt-down tantrum and get their way.

Move on woman. I have plans for your house.

One only has to work at the State House for a little while to observe that the Irish still figure prominently into the fabric of Boston. Honestly it's one big Outlook Global Address Book of Mc's, Mac's and O's.

Over the last decade, the Irish have also been flexing their muscle in the high-tech industry, whereby the Commonwealth has seen a steady influx of Irish techies coming and going along the Waltham-to-Reading 128 corridor. In fact the last high-tech company hubby worked for was Irish and at any given time there was a gaggle of them broguing their Power Points and business plans throughout the American-based office.

Their brogue charmed me for life that's for sure. I love how they pronounce 'fuck,' 'fook' i.e. an American would pronounce fuck to rhyme with duck and the Irish pronounce the same word to rhyme with 'book'). To boot the Irish are friendly, witty, funny, and oh-so-dark. They are also damn insightful. Below is an article that appeared in the Irish Times, June 15th 2004:

I'LL TAKE BERLIN, by Ian Kilroy

Living in the United States for the past year and a half felt a little like leading the double life of a spy. In the hysteria of Bush's US you learned to govern your tongue in public places, censor your thoughts at dinner parties and seek accurate reportage from underground sources. The atmosphere of Soviet Russia came to mind. In every public place was a television set spewing out the party line. Eventually, you parroted that line, albeit subconsciously.

Most of my US friends supported the war in Iraq. Most were convinced that there were weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein was about to nuke them. One felt that the war would be good for the economy, and most still believe that Iraq was involved in the September 11th attacks. To watch the use of fear in the manipulation of an entire population has been an education. So my wife and I have left Boston and come back to Ireland.

When we landed in the US, in January 2003, the country was in the throes of its new xenophobia. The drums of war were sounding and the terror level was high. People were buying chemical-warfare suits and taping up windows to guard against chemical attack. Everywhere the flag was flying, and soon the French would become Bart Simpson's cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Everyone who dissented became similarly simian.

My wife, Isabelle, is French. Once the war finally started the comments in bars quickly followed. "Who the f**k do the French think they are?" "We saved their asses at Normandy." Restaurants served up freedom fries, shops sold T-shirts saying: "First Iraq, then France." Isabelle had come to the US hoping to stay for up to five years. As the atmosphere grew uglier, we felt ever more eager to be off.

Most disturbing was the way some of our stateside Irish friends seemed to have been reprogrammed by the hysteria. They too railed against France, they too argued that the UN "were a bunch of weasels". The world didn't know what "we" in the US had done for them. How dare they dissent.

Even many in the civilized city of New York had lurched toward barbarity. In their analysis the war was a clash of civilizations: it was us or them. When the photographs emerged from Abu Ghraib talk-radio commentators dismissed them. "I'd pay good money to have women's underwear put on my head," said one. Donald Rumsfeld, the US defense secretary, publicly reveled in the death of 3,000 Iraqi troops; he also declared that he wanted to hunt down and kill terrorists. The old idea of arresting people, of due process, had gone out the window. An ugly atmosphere prevailed.

Despite all this, living in the US was still a positive experience. The informal ease and friendliness of the people, the greatness of American culture, the fundamental decency of much in American life made our lives full of pleasure. Boston is beautiful, the most European of US cities, with a public-transport system far superior to anything in Ireland. On our doorstep were the beaches of New England, New York was just a short bus ride away and public radio and television, although followed by few, meant there was an informed minority to converse with.

But one of my greatest pleasures was the discovery of baseball. Unlike the grunting violence of American football, baseball is a gentle, leisurely game; in many ways it's the antithesis of all that's crass in modern American life. One commentator said that when US civilization has passed it will be remembered for three great contributions: its Bill of Rights, jazz and baseball. I tend to agree.

Maybe it's just that we hit the US at a bad time. Maybe it's just that the New Deal US of Franklin D. Roosevelt long ago gave way to the heartless Chicago School economics of Ronald Reagan. As for the argument that the US is essentially an imperial power, well, it certainly feels like it from the inside.

Firstly, there is the militaristic cult of the modern US. Stationed, like Roman legionnaires, in countless overseas territories, the members of the army, navy and air force are worshipped like supermen, as if they were a higher order of citizen because they were abroad, "defending our freedoms".

Secondly, there is the belief that US citizenship is worth more than citizenship of other countries. Because many Americans believe that life in the US is superior to that in other countries, because they believe that the US is safer and more democratic than other nations, they feel that they are privileged to belong to "the greatest nation on earth". It is, of course, easy to maintain this belief, based as it is on ignorance of the outside world. Because Americans have so few holidays - about two weeks a year - they hardly ever travel abroad. Consequently, they know no reality other than their own.

They honeymoon in Hawaii or Alaska, and their national games are not played abroad, so even marriage and sport don't internationalize them. No wonder one American I met was so worried when I said I was relocating to Europe: he thought it was too dangerous, unlike the haven of his "homeland". He was too busy working to know any better.

As a freelance writer my experience of the US workplace was limited. But for Isabelle the long hours, the unpaid overtime and the fact that sick leave is deducted from your limited holidays meant that the quality of working life was low. Americans certainly spend far more time at work than Europeans. Many also have little security of employment. One woman we knew was given an hour to clear her desk after working with a company for seven years.

Of course, the upside is that salaries are higher. Food and accommodation cost about as much in Boston as they do in Ireland, so the better incomes make them more affordable. But the price exacted for that salary is too high. Work in the US takes over your life. Many of the people we knew had very poor social lives because of the hours they worked. They were too exhausted at the end of the day to do much at all - although one plus was that whatever social life they did have generally didn't involve developing an alcohol problem. In the US socializing involves activities other than drinking - something Isabelle certainly enjoyed as a Frenchwoman.

Something else in Americans' favor is their healthcare. If you have health cover there are no real waiting lists, cutting-edge technology is at your disposal and the doctors' expertise might well save your life. If you don't have cover, of course, you may be in serious trouble if you get sick. People on low incomes simply cannot afford treatment. And if you seek treatment without adequate cover don't be surprised if you have to remortgage your house. The cost of even a simple visit to the doctor is shocking to a European. Shocking too is that the receptionist may ask for your credit-card details before letting you in to the waiting room.

Yes, in the United States it's all about the almighty dollar. If you think likewise, then you'll love American life. But if you think that there's more to life, then maybe the gentler, more humane version of capitalism on offer in some European countries - not Ireland, particularly - will suit you better.

It would suit many Americans too. In poll after poll they say they favor universal healthcare, yet somehow it remains "politically impossible". Many Americans spoke out against the war, but they hardly made the airwaves. Quite simply, the US is not the monolith it appears from the outside. There is a great debate going on within the US. The only problem is that it's the prevailing foul wind of the neocons that's sweeping through the place right now.

So, 18 months on, Isabelle and I have mixed feelings about the United States. We were seduced and charmed by its people and culture but repulsed by the violence and reactionary intolerance of its current atmosphere. Certainly, individuals are very welcoming, but the society as a whole is anything but.

I suppose the most difficult thing is to say anything that's at all categorical about the United States. You can live your entire life through Spanish in the US, or through Chinese for that matter. It is a great country, with hospitable people and great cities, with stunning physical beauty and a progressive tradition of social change. Whether you're talking about Roe versus Wade, integrated education or the legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts, the US is much more than what Europeans stereotype it as.

As a society it is as tolerant as it is intolerant, and its ethnic diversity is one of its greatest strengths. Like Walt Whitman, its poet laureate, the US "contains multitudes". Yes, I hope there'll be a change in November, and, yes, I will miss it. But, for now at least, Mary Harney can have her imaginary Boston. I'll take Berlin.

The good . . . Friendly people
Positive attitudes
Literature, jazz and baseball
Ethnic diversity
Higher salaries
Cutting-edge medicine
The New England fall
. . . the bad and the ugly
Biased media
Militaristic society
Working conditions
Arrogance
Neocons
Lack of universal healthcare
Boston's bone-chilling winters

In my spreadsheet of savings-depleting new house expenses, I've already spent $4,500 and we haven't even moved into our new home. Furthermore we don't officially own the house but the purchased items are being shipped there. So hopefully everything will fall into place smoothly because otherwise the present owners of the house are going to have some mighty fine garden furniture as well as a beautiful day bed. The good news is that these purchases won't get swallowed whole by the house itself but rather can be taken with us on our next journey. The bad news is that the minute you buy this crap, it depreciates into ridiculous nothing-ling-ness once delivered.

Things are coming along though. Despite inevitable setbacks. But nothing I can’t handle. I did have to splay my claws big time to the Keyspan folks though. Keyspan is the monopolistic unionized company that delivers gas to New England. They have simply awesome incentive programs to get you to convert from oil to gas these days but unfortunately they are horrendously and pathetically lacking in the customer-relationship-building department i.e. a customer who is ready, willing, and able to spend money on products and services shouldn't have to hunt down the lone service rep for three-and-a-half weeks straight without one return phone call. In other words, you can never actually take advantage of the f****** incentive program Keyspan offers because you can never track down the damn rep to sign the contract. And even if you were lucky enough to nab the sales rep, you couldn't sign the contract because until you are the actual owner of the house, you can't do business with them. This means that if you move into a new house you want to convert to gas, you have to WAIT 4-6 WEEKS until Keyspan will come out to give you service (remind me not to buy a house in February). So... I had a little chat with the 'supervisor' today. I dropped the name of the legislative affairs contact I have for Keyspan and offered to forward him the Op-Ed piece I had ready to send to the Boston Globe North section. Ah the power of words...

My new future house has a beautiful garden that is frankly a key feature of the whole package. Its appeal for this minimalist is its minimalism which translates into relative low maintenance. Except for the grass. Grass is never low maintenance when measured by America's idiosyncratic penchant for perfectly weed-free, water-drenched, trimmed and edged green. Achieving this kelly-perfectness 'aint easy or inexpensive. It takes a whole lot of chemicals, precious water, and cheap labor (the combination of which is enough to cause sleepless nights for an environmentalist liberal like me).

So...if I can overcome two out of the three aforementioned moral hurdles, then I ought to be good, right? To this end I've been talking to a couple of legally-residing landscapers to price out their services for organic garden care. Turns out that landscapers aren't stupid and are extremely enthusiastic and well read up on organic gardening these days. The problem at this point is the price. Where as a conventional lawn fertilization program, chock full of chemicals to rid the lawn of grubs, crab grass, and the like, costs about $300 per season; an organic fertilization program costs around $1000 . In other words, while many might be interested in opting for a more environmentally friendly garden care system, most say no because of the exorbitant price.

So my idea is this. Once my Polish architect/landscaper friend arrives in July, I will give him an allowance to make my already WOW-garden into a garden that gets selected for the annual Town X garden tours (apparently this garden received such recognition by previous owners back in the early nineties). Then I will contact the Sales & Marketing Department of Organic Gardening Brand X. "Here," I will say, "are a few samples of my writing." I will offer to provide them all the press releases, interviews, photo-ops, and tours to promote my garden to all of the appropriate House & Garden magazines, local newspapers, television stations, eco-friendly organizations, and the like: "HOW TO CREATE A SHOWCASE GARDEN MAINTAINED ENTIRELY WITH ORGANIC PRODUCTS. THIS LUSH GARDEN DRIPS WITH WHOLESOMENESS. LOOK AT THE HEALTHY AND RADIANT OWNERS RECLINING IN THEIR $3500 PLANTATION-RAISED TEAK PATIO FURNITURE AMIDST THEIR ALL-NATURUAL GREENERY -- THEIR SHINY-COAT TEN-YEAR-OLD DOG ROMPING HAPPILY AND HEALTHFULLY ON THE CHEMICAL-FREE LAWN." Etc., etc... All they have to do is cover the expenses of my garden care. A great deal for them when one considers all of the millions of guilt-ridden gardeners I'll help reel in. At which point they can lower the price of their product. At which point I could actually afford to buy the product without having to pimp my garden. Once my organic garden was up and running, I would use less water because the grass you keep longer and water less often. And they all lived happily ever after...

Every little bit towards warding off the effects of senility and dementia are just fine by me...The Benefits of Bilingualism i.e. es ist schon hoeschste Zeit, dass ich einen Kurs bei der Goethe Institut um meine Deutschkenntnisse aufzufrischen mache....Oder veilleicht sollte ich einfach mit meinem Mann oefters Deutsch sprechen? Hmmmmm. Those two sentences would probably earn me a resounding 'F' for all the grammatical mistakes I just made. Good grief. Does this mean...?

Charlie's Angels couldn't have had more perfect weather or a more stunning setting for their afternoon graduation party yesterday. Held at Charlie's Angels 1 grandmother's house, the three halos of angelic blonde stood together in the garden holding three dozen festoon-ready green and pink balloons. Once the angels finished tying balloons to the upper deck, they made their way down to the pool area to wrap the tables in linens, gather ornate rocks from the garden to weight down the pink and green paper napkins, and fill cups with pink plastic forks, knives, and spoons.

Meanwhile Charlie's Angels 2's mother and I (which I guess makes me Charlie's Angels 3's mother) hauled ass to actually pull a party together that didn't appear to be on the grandmother's or Charlie's Angels 1 mother's calendar even so in thirty minutes one-hundred and fifty guests were due to arrive. You see the grandmother, an obviously former hippie, sat knitting in her chair when we arrived and her daughter (that would be Charlie's Angels 1's mother), was outside drinking a glass of wine and in deep conversation with her god child.

Well I guess when you are providing the perfect setting for a party, your work ends there. When you ARE the perfect setting i.e. three angels whose beautiful youthfulness can trump the harbor view into no-win humbleness, then your work is likewise done. That's not entirely fair. The angels were very good about accessorizing the area with feather-light ornamentation. They also made the fruit salad and filled bowls with candy. That left Anne (single working mom) and me (whose hubby was still recovering from jet lag yesterday) to haul in cases of drinks, boxes of burgers, bags of ice, folding tables, and umpteen bowls of salads. That left us to arrange the food, the outdoor chairs and tables, and start the grill.

However the moment the clock struck one and guests began to arrive, I positioned a pool chair facing the sun and pretty much didn't get up again until the end of the party when Anne and I were called upon for clean-up duty. I'm not complaining. The four hours of sun in such a pristine setting were enough to melt away entirely the long New England winter from my bones and to refresh my aesthetic sensibilities.

My own angel was quite helpful for a while with the clean-up but then joined the others to sort out their mountain of gifts. Charlie's Angel 1's mother sat by the pool polishing off another Corona ("She has a drinking problem," said the daughter angel later). "Look at you two! I haven't done a thing to help!!" But good for her. She had told me earlier that her father passed away recently and how emotional this party was for her. She had been crying all morning in fact. Did I think her eyes looked puffy?

Anne cried too that afternoon as we sat by the pool catching up. I had inquired about her ex-husband who used to help coach the son in soccer. The ex-husband can't beat his alcohol and drug addiction and is homeless and very sick. Death would be a blessing in a way because every time he comes into their lives for money or shelter, it tears their hearts out. They have finally realized that they have to 'let him go.' Anne is a fighter though and when gorgeous Charlie's Angel 2 came by to ask her mother whether they should bring out more fruit salad, Anne flashed a smile breathtaking enough to bedazzle the harbor, the sailboats, the crystal blue sky, and all three angels combined. I doubt Charlie's Angel 2 ever noticed the streak of tears around her mother's beautiful sad green eyes. If she did, Anne's daughter pretended not to notice as she flashed her own pearly white smile towards a group of smiling college-bound friends who had just arrived.

My insults to the selected Commander-in-Chief so infuriated one of my conservies yesterday, that he has asked to be removed from my email list. Heh, I'd be smarting too if as an intelligent individual I suddenly realized my ideology was grotesquely naive and not faring so well against the fan of world reality i.e. I'm tempted to paste a few of this guy's earlier emails about his supreme conviction of WMD's in Iraq and other blather but why kick a wounded wayward pragmatist?

Or maybe it was the PDF file I sent him that made him fly off the handle. The Wall Street Journal recently got hold of secret documents outlining the advice the Justice Department lawyers gave to the CIA regarding the torture of prisoners. I thought as a lawyer he might be interested to know that according to the Washington lawyers:

"None of the provisions of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (Aug. 12, 1949) apply to al Qaida detainees because...."

This conservie has always had difficulty seeing life from anything than a completely Americanesque view. I am indeed quite confident that he could find a compelling way to argue that of COURSE it's ok if America chucks the Geneva Conventions under the pretext that America's national security interests supersede anybody else's and so it's ok to humiliate and torture detainees (a number of which ended up not only humiliated and tortured but DEAD as well). Throw in a couple of Anna's choice words for the selected Commander-in-Chief and the guy starts hissing like an angry cornered cat.

If it helps him to have me not emailing him links or comments that might threaten his linear-thinking world, then so be it. Perhaps along with my promise not to send him anymore emails, I should also send him a little teddy bear to sleep with at night.... Coward!!

But lest you fear that Anna Bloviation's is doing nothing other than pissing off conservies to the extent that they are becoming even more ideologically entrenched, fear not. I have three success stories to boast as well. One of them is still a little shaky but I think by November he'll be ok. Otherwise I'll just duct tape him to his office chair so he can't go out to vote.

And BTW how can you hate the French when you read things like this?

BUSH'S ERRATIC BEHAVIOR WORRIES WHITE HOUSE AIDES. "In interviews with a number of White House staffers who were willing to talk off the record, a picture of an administration under siege has emerged, led by a man who declares his decisions to be “God’s will” and then tells aides to 'fuck over' anyone they consider to be an opponent of the administration."

If this is true, it can't be a good thing to have a guy with anger management problems and convinced he has a direct line to 'god' anywhere in the vicinity of a red button. I think it's time this selected President had a nice long rest in Crawford...Say November perhaps? Speaking of long rests, 40% of Bush's first year in office was spent vacationing. In April of 2004, Bush continued to vacation as uniformed men and women gave the ultimate sacrifice for his mis-guided crusade. In fact, Bush has thusfar taken 250-plus days and counting of vacation in his first term. And this is supposedly the 'wartime' president. Sorry but wartime presidents shouldn't be going down to the ranch to prune back the brush in the middle of the war - especially the ones they start.

I made an appointment with Crime and Death Scene Cleaning (CDSC)... No not to clean up Fritz-the-chocolate-thief-mouse's remains. For that we have pasty state employees dragged out from their musty offices to do the job. Rather CDSC has been assigned to clean up the cat urine smell in the small utility room of the new house we are buying.

I wonder if it is psychologically significant that the owner of Crime and Death Scene Cleaning is a former middle school teacher of 27 years. As it turns out, he used to teach at my kids' school and retired shortly after the youngest graduated (purely coincidental I'm sure). Proud of his work, he referenced a job he had just completed in my town. The house had been home to an elderly couple who kept four cats and a dog. When the new owners moved in, they had the house professionally cleaned to remove the acrid pet odors emanating from the basement. Apparently the cats had been getting in between the walls of the finished room which left Crime and Death Scene Cleaning to haul away 140 pounds of cat poop that had accumulated over the years. Heh why should I be the only one to suffer this disgusting story?

Now I am on my way to work to help an eighteen-year-old constituent born with very mild cerebral palsy who wants nothing more than to join the military and make something of himself. So far his requests have been denied. I predict for not much longer though and not because of my efforts. I predict it will be because the military is short on willing-and-able bodies. I predict they might even take the kid I tried to get in last month who had been denied because of a drug possession charge on his record. Today the military claims categorically not to want his ilk but tomorrow who knows? 'Cause lo' and behold it's funny how regulations are interpreted anew when it fits the occasion. Kind of like the Washington lawyers who deemed it acceptable to throw the Geneva Conventions out the window thus leaving a window open for detainees to be tortured for information under the pretext that it is in the United State's national best interest. One hundred forty pounds of cat poop pales in comparison to the stench of this hypocrisy.

At the risk of sounding like a very un-altruistic lefty liberal, I am seeking the death penalty for Fritz. That is if Fritz hasn't already suffered an excruciating death-by-chocolate over the weekend. If not, he might as well wish he were dead because no intestine-wrenching overdose of chocolate will compare to what Anna Bloviation's has in store for this thief.

For there is simply not anything more disappointing than to have looked forward to two Lindt truffles following lunch only to discover petite-and-tiny mouse turdettes surrounding the Lindt chocolate bag you stupidly left underneath your desk before leaving work early on a sunny Friday afternoon last week. Damn-it. And I thought Fritz was my friend. The little bastard....

Not only this, but the generously filled bag of creamy chocolate truffles was a gift from a very special friend who works here at the State House with me. She herself has been busy with the Senate budget, finals, a Goliath social calendar, and the distractions and excitement of expecting with child (a child I've already nick-named Long Lash in anticipation of the genetic likelihood that this kid will have world-record sweepers). Yet, my friend still found the time to buy me chocolate knowing I was stressed about all the house stuff going on.

The fact that the soles of my shoes can't help but step on the mouse mess around my work station as I write this really isn’t helping…. Nor is it helping the newspaper article in front of me about how the Vatican will be paying Cardinal Bernard Law, former disgraced Boston Archbishop, a $5,000-a-month stipend for a cozy position in Rome after having failed to protect thousands of Catholic children from pedophile priests. The same church that is as we speak failing thousands of parishioners across the Commonwealth by closing sixty-five churches in order to raise money for the lawsuits which have arisen from church abuse. The same church that just spent millions of dollars in a full-fledged marketing campaign against gay marriage.

Given that there is purportedly indeed a Hell,I hope to have a nice toasty balcony looking out to not only Little Fritz, but also to every last dispicable boy-diddling Catholic priest roasting on his spit below.

Having recently been presented the Most Creative and Effective Punishment Award by a group of awe-struck, admiring friends, this woman wins a tremendous amount of respect from Anna Bloviation's. Fed up by her thirteen-year-old's antics, mom hit hard and ruthlessly: Bye, bye Playstation. Be sure to scroll down to her reasoning. Pretty good.

Nonetheless, scheduling an appointment for the extraction of four wisdom teeth of a certain wayward son still takes the cake me thinks... Especially that his alternative destination was a beer-drenched beach vacation in Mexico. I am especially proud that the power of a 125 lb. mother can still instill such fear into a 6 ft., 19-year-old son to the extent that it wouldn't occur to him that he could have said, "Uh Mom... I don't think so..."

This posting appeared April 9 on www.armywives.com -- a rather weird website if there ever was one but this posting below is just great and I especially like point #27...:

Want to pretend you are deployed? Here is a lost of things you can do right in your own home

1. Sleep on a cot in the garage.
2. Replace the garage door with a curtain.
3. Two hours after you go to sleep have your wife or girlfriend whip open the curtain, shine a flashlight in your eyes, and mumble, "Sorry, wrong cot."
4. Hang a green plastic sheet down the middle of your bathtub and move the showerhead down to chest level. Keep four inches of soapy cold water on the floor. Stop cleaning the toilet and pee everywhere but in the toilet itself. For a more realistic experience, stop using your bathroom and use a neighbor's. Choose a neighbor who lives at least a quarter mile away.
5. When you take a shower, wear flip-flops and keep the lights off.
6. Every time there is a thunderstorm, go sit in a wobbly rocking chair and dump dirt on your head.
7. Put lube oil in your humidifier instead of water and set it on "high."
8. Don't watch TV except for movies in the middle of the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch and then show a different one.
9. Leave a lawn mower running in your living room twenty-four hours a day.
10. Have the paperboy give you a haircut.
11. Buy a trash compactor and use it only once a week. Store up garbage in the other side of your bathtub.
12. Set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the night. When it goes off, jump out of bed and get to the shower as fast as you can. Simulate that there is no hot water by running out into your yard and using the garden hose.
13. Once a month, take every major appliance completely apart and put it back together again.
14. Use eighteen scoops of coffee per pot and allow it to sit for five or six hours before drinking.
15. Invite at least 185 people you don't really like because of their hygiene habits to come and visit for a couple of months. Exchange clothes with them.
16. Have a fluorescent lamp installed on the bottom of your coffee table and lie under it to read.
17. Raise the thresholds and lower the top sills of your front and back doors so that you either stumble or hit your head every time you pass through.
18. Keep a roll of toilet paper on your nightstand and bring it to the bathroom with you along with a gun and a flashlight.
19. Wash only fifteen items of laundry per week. Roll up the semi-wet clean clothes in a ball. Place them in a cloth sack in the corner of the garage where the cat pees. After a week, unroll them and, without ironing or removing the mildew, wear them to professional meetings and family gatherings. Pretend you don't know what you look or smell like.
20. Demand each family member be limited to ten minutes per week for a morale phone call. Enforce this with your teenage daughter.
21. Sandbag the floor of your car to protect from mine blasts and fragmentation.
22. While traveling down roads in your car, stop at each overpass and culvert and inspect them for remotely detonated explosives before proceeding.
22. Fire off fifty cherry bombs simultaneously in your driveway at 3:00 a.m. When startled neighbors appear, tell them all is well, you are just registering mortars.
23. Spread gravel throughout your house and yard.
24. Make your family dig a survivability position with overhead cover in the back yard. Complain that the 4x4s are not on center and make them rebuild it.
25. When your five-year-old asks for a stick of gum, have him find the exact stick and flavor he wants on the Internet and print out the web page. Type up a form and staple the web page to the back. Submit the paperwork to your spouse for processing. After two weeks, give your son the gum.
26. Wait for the coldest/hottest day of the year and announce to your family that there will be no heat/air-conditioning that day so you can perform much needed maintenance on the heater/air conditioner. Tell them you are doing this so they won't get cold/hot.
27. Go to the most crime-infested place you can find, heavily armed, wearing a flak jacket and a Kevlar helmet. Set up shop in a tent in a vacant lot. Announce to the residents that you are there to help them.

The sixteen-year-old New Zealand singer whose name I couldn't remember is Hayley Westenra. "A voice of an angel takes flight" says The New York Times." The same New York Times we all should be boycotting right now for their unconscionably slack reporting on the Iraq war.

Want to read Anna Bloviation's in French? Thanks to Bandit, who kindly provided my blog page with a new toy, I was able to discover this intriguing development.

Gee I haven't heard much from my clucking know-it-all conservies lately. In fact I couldn't tell you the last time I got a note admonishing me for my anti-patriotic, doom-sayer, French-loving, pinky liberal rhetoric. Quiet as mice they have become. Especially the one who is not only a misguided conservative but a lawyer as well. Poor guy must be half comatose drunk in a bar somewhere trying to drown down his ethically and ideologically dichotomous life. Yes folks. When arrogant ideology hits the fan of reality, you get mighty quiet conservies. It would be funny were the stakes not so high and the morass not so terribly deep. For an inspiring speech on just how much this administration has f***** up, read or listen to President Al Gore’s recent speech (he did win the popular vote remember)on May 26th of 2004. You don’t hear speeches like that much anymore. He nails it, and I have to think it's the last time anyone will refer to him as a piece of wood. Go Al!

The visiting third graders come to see the Massachusetts State House must surely be warped for life as far as their perceptions of government go this June 2nd 2004. For today was New Zealand Day. Well actually it wasn't so much New Zealand Day as a chance for a new restaurant in Newburyport to launch a brilliant marketing campaign for their new restaurant called The Kiwi Grill.

What must have the little third graders thought as authentic New Zealand Maori dancers -- flax skirted, faces painted, and chests bared -- energetically chanted and drummed their songs throughout the hallowed Puritan/Anglo/Catholic hallways of the State House? Following this performance came the 'famous' sixteen-year-old New Zealand angel whose free CD I left on my desk and so I'll have to get back to you on her name. Various dignitaries addressed the crowd and then Senator X of Newburyport (who has to be the cutest Senator on the block) invited all to help themselves to a complimentary lunch provided by The Kiwi Grille.

Well you know Anna Bloviation's was the first in line for grub and had wonderful conversations with the good-looking Zealander staff as to whether they didn't want to expand to my town X. My town X is breath-takingly beautiful but is the pits in terms of good restaurants.

The travel brochures on New Zealand are mouth-watering. But ever practical hubby pointed out that we now have no money to visit this Wonderland given we just plunked down a substantial amount on a house. And more money is to be plunked on aesthetic upgrades. For starters guess how much it will cost to remove the urine odor from the utility room wherein the previous owner's 19-year-old cat 'left its mark'? $500. This includes a power wash, chemical treatment, and sealant. Needless to say 'Sunshine Cleaners' won't be available to do the job. In fact their number has been disconnected just like the three or four other numbers with nice euphemistic names (there seems to be a high turnover rate in this business). The ones still around at this point are Crime and Death Scene Cleaning, TSV Cleaning, and Trauma Clean. It turns out they all treat pet odor problems but by and large they would rather tell you about the process of elimanating bodily secretions of expired subjects from tangential materials such as floors, rafters, beds, what-have-you. Hmmmm. "Mommy when I grow up I want to have an industrial cleaning company that cleans up rotting dead bodies..." "Oh that's wonderful honey!"

Harper's Tidbits -- the things we hold dear:

Ratio of the average number of vehicles to the number of children per U.S. household: 5:2
Ratio of the average number of television sets to the number of children: 7:2
Minimum number of times a Houston woman stabbed her husband last year: 193