My subconscious still surprises me at times

Normally, I think it's boorish to talk about dreams, but I was just surprised to find that my subconscious is so slow on the uptake.

Backstory: There's a recurring theme in my dreams where I am present when my (maternal) grandparents' graves are unearthed--sometimes with purpose, sometimes through freakish accident. Another theme is that I'm venturing into their house (which was control-burned by the Fire Dept. something like 20 years ago). Once, Grandma was somehow alive despite the fact I knew in the dream that she wasn't supposed to be.

I lost an uncle just over a month back, and last night was the first night I returned in my dreams to the house in which he and my aunt (still living, albeit in a nursing home) shared for decades. Almost returned, anyway--I woke up before the fact. Now I wonder how often I'll be returning in sleep to that house, which is on the opposite end of the road on which my grandparents' house stood.

...And yet you will weep, and know why...It is Margaret you mourn for...

Nice call-out

I can't say I'm a fan of what's become of health care reform, particularly given the anti-choice poison-pills and the big fat, chocolate-dipped giveaway to insurance companies in the form of the coverage mandate. Frankly, I hope the reconciled version dies and the process begins again--with rather less hysteria. What will be remembered of the 2009 putsch, though, is how close it came...and that the GOP lost the round.

That being said, I thought that the smackdown the Associated Press handed the hypocrites in the Grandstanding Old Party was ace: Democrats see GOP Hypocrisy in health care debate.

The bleat that "the economy has changed since the Medicare expansion" just doesn't wash. When you pass an entitlement in perpetuity, do you assume that the coffers will be full and still expect to balance a budget during the lean times? I call bull$#!+ on that line of self-excusing spin. Particularly as the economy was rather precarious even after things settled down post-9/11. I knew it at the time, and I've had six whole credits of Economics. And these so-called leaders couldn't figure that out? Really?

Just goes to show what not having to do your own grocery shopping and balance your own checkbook does to your mindset, I guess. Man, I hope these pinheads are handed their heads in 2010...

D-minus way-too-friggin'-little

The second to last piece dropped into our laps last night, largely thanks to Dearest's persistence, and the last piece was handed to me early this evening. All should--Flying Spaghetti Monster willing--be safely stashed in the fire safe now. Weather permitting, I should be able to FedEx the whole lot to the paralegal no later than Monday.

I won't moon Fate by considering this a done deal: There could be any number of hurdles, delays and other bureaucratic nightmares in store--in fact, I'll be shocked if there are not. But I'm celebrating this milestone nevertheless...and toasting from my usual half-empty cup, hoping that I/we haven't overlooked something. I just wish that I could share the Snoopy-dance with a few more folks.

My most immediate boss took the news pretty well, all in all, and was actively looking to find ways to keep me working for the firm even after the (still hypothetical) move goes down many months hence. Which was quite touching. Still is, actually.

D minus 70

Finally was able to drop the bomb on the boss as discreetly as possible. It seemed to go well enough, particularly as I held out the possibility of either working as a contractor or with folks already up there. The funny part is that he asked me to write the first draft of my own job documentation letter for the immigration service. Tonight's gonna be full, with the workout and all.

D minus 88

My second-to-last document came in today. I'm holding off asking for a letter of reference (more like a description of what I do, but oh, well...) for a bit longer, for reasons that should be obvious. Dearest's last school is driving me up a wall--I'm almost ready to grab the wheel on this bus and make life miserable for the superior of the woman who's supposed to be (but patently isn't) figuring out why there's no record of graduation on file.

Grrrrrrr....and I thought I loathed the gatekeepers at my last mega-corporation job... Then again, it's been about a decade since the last time I had to push the "Screaming Unreasonable Bitch" button, so maybe I'm due.

This had better be worth the annoyance and expense. But, on the positive side as of next Monday, it will be illegal to use a cellphone (the usual way) while driving in the province of Ontario. Something that should be a no-brainer, but you could line up American idiots from here to the moon who will scream that insisting that they stop endangering other people's lives is a violation of free speech. Actually, I rather like the prospect of lining them up to the moon, because that means that most of them will have to be in space, which will definitely keep them off the roads...and hopefully chlorinate the gene pool in the process.

So maybe the annoyance isn't quite so annoying nor the expense quite so dear...assuming that the immigration process goes reasonably smoothly, of course.

Keep ranting your way to insolvency, moron

Just wanted to send a big fat, double-middle-finger-laced razzberry to Rupert Murdoch tonight after reading about his little tantrum that involved verbal Molotov cocktails like "kleptomanic" and "flat-earther." It's a testament to how deeply into the red the needle on my Hypocrite Meter was just buried that I'll actually resort to profanity on this blog, but here goes:

Fuck you, you festering thrice-used douchebag. You overpay and give airtime to enough sociopathic know-nothings that you, sir, have precisely fuck-all to say about either kleptomania or flat-eartherism.

Look, you old goat: If you don't get that the business model is changing, that's your problem--and the only pity is that you won't live long enough to see me laugh at you pissing away your sleaze-mongering empire while trying to boil the ocean. Granted, I didn't spend much more than a year as a member of The Fourth Estate, but it was long enough to learn that subscriptions were a pittance compared to advertising revenues. In fact, I would be surprised to learn that the consumer revenue fully covered printing and distribution costs.

If you're worried about breaking even, perhaps you should stop hiring delusional prima donnas that consider the First Amendment carte blanche to project their "fair and balanced" pornographically paranoid fantasies onto the adults trying to duct tape this f*cked country back together after the thugs and morons you lionized trashed it for eight years. Here's a novel thought: How's about pretending to be a professional rather than a neocon mafia padrone? Because, yeah, you can probably rile up the base for another year...no one's gonna expect the economy or the job market to stop sucking before then. That's a lot of discontent you can milk.

But after that...ooh, you're really rolling the bones there, jack. Because maybe--just maybe--Joe America's gonna get bored with checking under his bed for the re-education camps and death panels and floridated water supplies you've been "warning" him about. Maybe you'll get lucky and there'll be another terrorist strike on U.S. soil. Or, more likely, some teabagging nutcase's pot-shot will get past the Secret Service. Or you can fabricate/augment some juicy financial or sex scandal to keep pushing your litterbox-liner. But if you can't...what then? Doubling down on an already bull$#!+ product might not be such a good idea. I hope for its own sake that history plays out differently from the scenarios that would put more ill-gotten gelt in your bank account. But I'll save a sliver of enjoyment for your discomfiture if it does.

Calling out more faux outrage

To be a Theocon, one must pair any number of conflicting beliefs that, in a sufficiently developed intellect would be tantamount to mixing matter and anti-matter.

But those screaming about America's "moral" obligation to avoid saddling "our grandchildren" with stimulus debt are largely the same ones who don't give a rat's backside about trashing the world those grandchildren will inhabit.

So, folks: Why so...selective in your high-horse sense of "responsibility?" (And I thought it didn't matter anyway, because you all would be Raptured out of any consequences?) I'm dying to hear the rationalizations: Dazzle me.

Bulldozer tracks

I once quipped to a friend that the problem with setting out to bulldoze your past is that sometimes it bulldozes you instead.  I spent a chunk of this morning pulling old greeting cards and letters (that had just been pulled from storage boxes) from their envelopes and putting them into piles to be stored in a smaller box until after the next move.

Sobering enough to read the writing of those now dead, in some cases almost hearing their voices read the words.  And humbling--with the telescoping of twenty years or so--to see how faithfully cards had been sent at birthdays, Christmas, sometimes even Valentine's Day.  But, most of all, deeply shaming to realize how little I reciprocated.  A futile and utterly childish exercise, crying the way I did--wishing I could have those folks back for even a few minutes to tell them that I really did love them, despite being the selfish and self-absorbed @$$hole that I was...and still largely am.

So I guess if there's any point to this post other than sheer navel-gazing, it's to encourage my gentle reader to visualize reading each greeting card or letter they receive twenty years hence.  As much as I've avoided contact with Christmas, though, the experience has changed my thinking on digging out the boxes of cards and reviving the tradition of sending them out.  

D minus 130

Huzzah, three more documents rolled in today. That leaves four apiece for Dearest and me. And the passport photos. But those are an instant gratification kind of thing, so I'm not really counting them.

One little mystery solved

According to the folks at Kourtaki wineries, 85% of retsina is made from a grape called Savatiano. So now I just need to track down a flavor profile and try to approximate it with the kit wines on the market. Oh, yeah, and find pine resin suitable for food use. But if wine-making isn't an adventure, then you're doing something wrong...

D minus 131

Frabjous day, three sets of school transcripts arrived in today's mail, leaving only one of those in the "pending" state. Not that I'm feeling complacent--just a bit of gratification.

I couldn't help but notice, though, that the attorney's flunkie wouldn't give me a straight answer to my timeline question. Even more frustrating, the Canadian Immigration website won't release processing time estimates, purportedly because they don't have enough data after jacking around the process to jiggle the queue. (Ummm...I'm expected to do it, and with far more unknowns, folks!)

But even another baby step forward is encouraging at this point. I'm just hoping we make it out before the crazee gets too thick.

Another meal for the monkey

Oh, awesomeness. Double-dipped-in-dark-chocolate awesomeness. Cheeseburger poisoning at its finest, hot off the intertubes:

1. A corrupt California legislator is caught accepting favors from a lobby directly under his jurisdiction.
2. Sexual favors.
3. Kinky sexual favors.
4. From two (2) women, one nineteen (19) years his junior.
5. Because he bragged about about it without realizing that the mic was hot.
6. He's (of course) Republican and married.
7. And opposes same-sex marriage.

Short of Duvall living at C-Street and being a DC pol, does it get much better, I ask you? I think I'm going to start rating sex scandals on a scale of one to a hundred, just like wines are rated. Might even develop my own vocabulary, too. This one's solidly in the lower-nineties.

D minus 132

Yay, something to fret about! Dearest is missing one employment letter of reference and a diploma. So not quite everything is in flight, even after yesterday's jaunt to the post office for certified letter and money order. Oh yeah, and we still need the passport photos. So that's something else to take my mind off the exercise of wondering whether letters/checks were lost in the mail or are being ignored until the last minute by a bureaucrat (public or private).

You've no idea how badly the geek in me wants to plug all this into project-/bug-tracking software like Mantis...

D minus 134

Well, it seems my reputation for being the ever-so-slightly more organized one. Dearest emerged from the dusty-box spelunking adventure with the high school diploma and college degree; I only found the former. So it will set me back forty clams and 6 - 8 weeks to get a copy of my Bachelor's degree. Still more running around in the morning on behalf of other documentation that will cost only $20...but requires the nuisance of a money order.

Fortunately--in a silver lining sort of way--I already have to stop at the Post Office to send a registered letter to the afore-mentioned previous employer who, I suspect is the proverbial dry husk of its former self. The other real prize of my foraging among old papers and other memorabilia is more documentation for my time with that employer--things like performance reviews, recognitions, etc.--in the event that my gut feeling is correct and they will ignore all requests for documentation.

Hopefully, though, tomorrow will see the last of the requests going out the door. Between the processing fees Canadian Immigration, the extra we're paying the lawyer to help us dot "i"s and cross "t"s and the (partially self-inflicted) nickel-and-dime "incidentals," Permanent Residency is not a trivial expense. Canada had better be the Promised Land, I tell ya... ;-)

After tomorrow comes the hard part--a.k.a. the waiting. Actually, no--scratch that. We still need to have a handful of passport-style photos taken. Maybe I'll procrastinate on that so that it doesn't feel quite as though waiting is the only option. ;-) ;-)

D minus 137

Kind of mind-blowing, really, how much of the day just a few letters/forms can chew up. I'm sending out requests for school transcripts and getting the info. for Plan B, if things like degrees/diplomas/etc. can't be found in the boxes in the garage.

If I gave bureaucracies any credit for human introspection, I'd suspect that the paper-gathering required for this move is not only an attempt to weed out those lacking will, but also to force people to think about the past from which they are--geographically--distancing themselves. There's a bit of that, but it's the proverbial two-edged sword. Writing to my high school to request transcripts brings back fond memories of the playground it truly was (after the prison that was junior high), but also makes me feel chagrined at the disparity between the then-certainty that I would do something enviably remarkable, and the reality that is the latter-day workaday me.

But, don't they always say at commencement that every end is a new beginning? I can sip a of rejuvenative hope and perhaps even courage from that bowl.

And with that, it is time to send several pieces of paper through the printer and out the door...

D minus 139

Eek! In the stressing over the extraneous personal check, I totally missed the fact that the visa applications were actually delivered yesterday. That would have been D minus 140 for producing the rest of the documentation. Nothing like an extra shot of adrenaline to go with the coffee-spiked milk I just poured...

Am officially taking Friday off to make all the calls that would be impolitic to do at work, even over lunch locked in the coat room with my cellphone. Still wrestling with the issue of whether or not to trust my current employer to be adult and professional about this, though. Gotta make the mind up soon...

This is your brain on a caffeine deficit...

As part of the Canadian visa process, Dearest and I have to have documentation from the FBI that shows that neither has a criminal record. We bundled up our fingerprint forms and credit card authorizations and such up into separate envelopes last night, which was all well and good.

But when I was at the FedEx office this morning, I completely spaced the fact that the credit card authorizations were in the packets, had a minor panic, scribbled out a check, and tossed it into the packet. Now I'm fretting-fretting-fretting-fretting-fretting that the folks at the FBI will take one look at the check (which is not a valid form of payment) and use it as an excuse to can our apps without even opening them.

Frack, frack, frack, frack, freakity-fricking-frack.

Don't it always seem to go...

Just had an email from the immigration attorney's paralegal to the effect that the Permanent Residency applications for Dearest and me have been formally submitted. So the bacon's in the pan, and the scramble to muscle or scrounge supporting documentation resumes in earnest. We're at D-minus-140.

Knowing that the arrow has been loosed has me fighting off a little freakitude, which isn't surprising for someone whose brain waits for the sound of one of life's doors swinging closing behind her to turn around to see what's being lost. Whether what's being lost is actually of consequence is itself inconsequential, but that's not the point. There are any number of people I will miss, and some are guaranteed to drop off my radar purely from inertia as life moves ahead.

Yet one look at the headlines--liberal, conservative, or non-partisan--is enough to tell me that we're doing the right thing. Pathetic that I have to move to another country to find the values that I was raised to believe were the hallmark of democracy. More pathetic still that the target country is, nominally, a monarchy. I read The Toronto Star (week)daily, so I like to think I have some idea of what we're getting into, politically and otherwise. No paradise, certainly, and more certainly not lily-white. But nevertheless politically saner and more fiscally sound than what's below their southern border. And if Putin keeps that crypto-right-winger Harper busy playing Tom Clancy cat-and-mouse games in the arctic, at least that's fewer CPU cycles he has for trying to re-create the rest of Canada in Alberta's image.

But, at any rate, I can officially say it's Game On, after years of ranting and desultorily collecting paperwork. [Deep breath.]

From the B-side

Giving credit where it's due, it's good to see that a few adults are still knocking around the GOP: GOP blasts Idaho candidate's "Obama tags" comment. I will admit I'm impressed and the swiftness and lack of equivocation in Senator Crapo's and Governor Otter's condemnations.

Figures you'd get that kind of self-centered stupidity from a guy who makes his gelt raising wild animals, just so rich, manhood-challenged wankers can have the kind of "hunt" that leaves powder burns on the critter's hide.

Channeling FDR

More completely concocted hysteria from the GOP: Fundraising letter hints GOP health care at risk

While children and adults are dying or having their lives stunted by an insurance oligopoly Every. Goddamn. Day., THIS is the best you can do? Outright lies about death panels and suicide manuals and pulling the plug on Grandma, and now partisan-based health care?

The longer this drags on, the more I keep hearing the echo of FDR: "I ask you to judge me by the enemies I've made." If I and any number of progressives are making enemies willing to lie their faces off--and so preposterously--to keep the unwashed masses from crashing their gated community, I consider it a badge of honor.

Good question

George Carlin on phone plans:

"When did the phone bill become life's most critical document? In a country where you can buy cinnamon dental floss, cheese in a spray-can, and edible womens' panties, are people really breaking their balls to save nine cents on a fucking phone call?"

- "Back in Town"

Irony overload

So I'm on my morning commute this morning, and wind up behind a truck (naturally) driven by an old dude (naturally) that bore three bumper-stickers.

1. The first stated the obvious, that Planned Parenthood was the largest provider of abortions in America. [snark]Really? Whodathunkit?[/snark].
2. The second proclaimed that you can't be Catholic and "Pro-abortion." No-brainer there. Why? Because absolutely no one is "pro-abortion." There is pro-choice and there is anti-choice. That's it. [snark]Good job: You've "framed" yourself into logical irrelevance.[/snark].
3. The third was the familiar ribbon shape, reading "Pray for Our Troops." Somehow I suspect the prayers I was being exhorted to offer were intended to wash the blood of an illegal war from their hands. [no-snark]As much as I prize my copy of Mark Twain's "The War Prayer," I would have happily tied it to a brick to put through the window of that truck, just to make sure this clueless hypocrite got the point. [/no-snark]
   

In other words, the standard "pro-lifer" who doesn't give a rat's backside about the embryo after it's born, and double that if it's not a Christian American, preferably white.

Dumbest headline ever?

"Organic has no health benefits"

How about dumping poison into the environment to run into waterways and ground water? How about excessive fertilization wreaking havoc to water bodies as well with algae blooms that suck the oxygen--meaning the life--out of those water bodies?How about reflexively pumping livestock full of antibiotics that could be responsible for the next superbug? Don't those count as "unhealthy"?

Wow, talk about completely missing the point. It's all the difference in the world between self-centered short-term thinking and taking responsibility for one's impact on the world at large.

And speaking of Republican hypocrisy...

Oh, how I've been jonesing for another viciously homophobic, anti-choice, white GOP douchebag to be outed. It's a monkey I can't get off my back, but I refuse to kick the addiction to schadenfreude. In fact, I can even wish that 1.) the intern in question had been male, and 2.) that Stanley (like Vitter, Ensign, and Sanford--who each called for Bill Clinton's resignation in the wake of the Lewinsky scandal) hadn't resigned.

The reason I dropped the d-bomb above is this gem:

"Whatever I stood for and advocated, I still believe to be true," he said during an interview Tuesday with Memphis radio station WREC-AM. "And just because I fell far short of what God's standard was for me and my wife, doesn't mean that that standard is reduced in the least bit."

No, Mr. Stanley. If the "standard" that you try to shove down the throats of law-abiding tax-payers in defiance of reason, data, and basic human dignity is not good enough for you (not to mention of a whole host of your ilk), it isn't good enough for anyone else--including those who doesn't presume to legislate their state and country into theocracy. Figgo to your fantasies about talking to sky-fairies who--quelle surprise--happen to agree with all of your bigoted notions, and give you a free pass for hypocrisy as well as abusing the power you were trusted with.

Republican hypocrisy...umm...shot down

Kudos to the Senate--which includes some of its GOP alumni--for smacking down, however barely, a bill that would have allowed residents of "concealed carry" to pack hidden heat in states that did not have that (cough) "right."

That the measure gained 58 votes is a travesty in itself, but that's another rant for another day.

Funny, ain't it, how the GOP was all about "states rights" when it was a dog-whistle term for restoring segregation. Funny how they're willing to look the other way when states (and Christian terrorists) whittle away at Roe v. Wade. But if it's about letting states decide that they don't, in fact, want nutballs living out vigilante fantasies inside their borders, of course that's completely different, donchaknow?

The irony of me writing this is that, in about thirty-odd hours, I'll be at an NRA class learning how to safely use a handgun. So anyone who calls my cred. into question can just suck it.

Porn for liberals

I'm thinkin' "Meghan McCain vs. Liz Cheney catfight." You like? Mind you, I don't exactly hold a special place in my heart for bottle-blonde GOPrincesses, but I'd totally, totally root for Meghan.

Another sign of the times

Yesterday's run to the grocery store was more of a supplies run than a quick one-off. So instead of the $5 food pantry or animal shelter donation bag, I grabbed a $10 one. I've been noticing lately that the checkout folks have actually been thanking me for doing that, which they didn't do, say, a year a go. I sort'a wondered why. Yesterday I had my answer: After the cashier thanked me the second time, I covered my twinge of embarrassment by saying, "Well, thank you guys for making it easy to do that." "Not many people do it anymore," he replied with palpable sadness.

I loaded my bags into the trunk for the drive home and climbed into the driver's seat. Which is when I noticed the mini-booklet that someone had slipped into the passenger's side window I'd cracked to keep the interior from overheating. You guessed it: A religious tract. Paraphrasing to the back, I can begin a new life in Christ if I

1. Read my Bible every day.
2. Talk to God in prayer.
3. Tell others about Jesus.
4. Worship and serve in a Christian church.
5. "As Christ's representative in a needy world," show my "love and concern" for others.

Dudes, you have the priorities exactly backwards. Here I am, an infidel non-believer in a supposedly Christian nation, among the small minority willing to help fellow creatures when it's friggin' impossible not to notice the means to do so every time I buy groceries.

Do me a favor, peeps: The next time you talk to God, tell him that some manna would come in especially handy just now. Or at least he could send junior with some loaves and fishes. It's not that I mind carrying the ball--I'd do that in any case. That's just how I'm wired. But I do resent that so many on the benches and sidelines won't even get on the playing field--but won't give me credit for the points I score, just because I don't take my orders from their coach.

"Independence" Day

Judas Priest, but I'm loathing this holiday even more than usual this year. It mostly has to do with the fact that Dearest is under the weather, but can't get any consistent rest. It's not even close to dark out, but the fireworks have been going off (on and off) for hours. The only surprise--and mercy--is that the neighbor's drama queen beagle hasn't been going off as well.

Why-oh-why can't we have sensible holidays that revolve around the tangible rather than the abstract? Why isn't there a Humane Society holiday? Or a Local Food Pantry Day? (The closest I can come to that is Eid Al Fitr, actually, but I'll be d--ned if I sign on to that creed, either...)

One of my college History profs. claimed that the notion of "freedom" in Colonial America was less a matter of freedom from the British empire than it was what he called "freedom from the vices of one's neighbors."

Listen. I have absolutely no yuppie ambitions of tearing up a portion of forest to "live out in the country." But, daaaaang. If I want to listen to music, that's what an iPod is for. If I want to stroke my ego with the constant sense of presence that a dog brings, I'll go to the pound and adopt one. If I want to listen to drunken inanity at midnight, I'll crash yer friggin' party. If I want to hear brat-children scream incessantly, I'll squeeze out a few of my own and skip that fussy little nicety we call parental discipline.

You know: Swinging arms meeting noses and all that. And bah humbug to any "freedom" that doesn't have responsibility as its B-side

Paging Dean Wormer...

Oh, for pity's sake, next we'll all be on double-secret probation: FBI compounds mystery with secret justification of gag order. Hmmph. Alberto and the gang must've been Omega Theta Pi...

Some musing on the overlap of the conservative and Christian Right

A recent blog post at Stupid Evil Bastard made me think again that a certain fundamentalist mentality overlaps on the right. People there tend to read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in the way they read the Bible, think in terms of the Founding Fathers in the same terms as prophets or saints, and tend to want to impose their notion of 1776 "fundamentalism" in rather the same manner.

If it didn't make me want to throw up in my mouth, I'd laugh. Under the "America" that the Founding Fathers envisioned, most of these folks wouldn't own enough property (in relative terms) to vote...and that's assuming that they weren't considered chattel in the mock-aristocracy that prevailed in post-Colonial America.

Dearest likes to say that ignorance can be cured; stupidity is forever. I'm not even sure that ignorance is that easy to overcome. I just want to wedgie the next mouth-breather who repeats the lie that liberalism and The Enlightenment are somehow antithetical to the America we've managed to create in spite of--d'ya hear me? IN SPITE OF--class warfare and sexism and racism and genocide and every artificial distinction that oozes from the underbelly of human nature.

Enough hagiography. And enough pretending that the Constitution was written on stone tablets brought down from Mount Vernon by George Washington. (Eek--throw in Charlton Heston and the NRA and you now have the Right in a nutshell. Sorry 'bout the mental image, folks...)

Awesome two liner

From today's Questionable Content webcomic:

Intern: "Doesn't it bother you to get paid so much for such utter crap?"
Sven: "Meh. My artistic integrity wears a gimp suit and lives in a box."

I think that you can fairly say the same thing about integrity in general in many, many circles.

Playing catch-up...

...and hoping that I'm not actually chasing my tail.

Huzzahs and handsprings, but the semester's done and the backlog is starting to recede a bit. Or at least it feels as though I can start to swim to shore after treading water for so long.

I had to go heads-down at work today to fill in for QA, and found myself listening to an album that I also had (on cassette, rendered off vinyl for that purpose) a quarter-century ago. And in realizing its age--and in consequence my own, arithmetic being implacable that way--I also thought, "Youth is overrated, but health is not."

So here's to looking ahead at a relatively unencumbered summer, with--almost assuredly--more breathing room for the things I love. Including writing for its own sake.

Oh, yeah

First off, apologies for the (mostly) uncharacteristic hiatus. A few projects have stacked up, and I'm still behind. But this bijou from Daily Kos was too precious not to pass on: Rape is "Enhanced Dating".

'Nuff said.

Of bumper-marks and puppy-noses

Earlier today, I felt like the proverbial puppy who caught the car it was chasing--the combination of exhilaration overlaid with "Now what?" The graphic artist who created some marketing images for me wrote to know whether I'd be interested in collaborating on a website that needs back-end code and database work.

Truth be told, I was hoping for exactly that scenario last Fall when I first commissioned the graphics from him. I can't yet afford to drop the day-job and freelance-fund larger projects at the moment. Having someone else pounding the pavement, drubbing up business seemed like a rather efficient way to build a portfolio before hanging out one's own shingle.

Yet--you knew there would be a "yet," didn't you?--while the work started out well enough, I had to prod the artist for its completion. Today, when I requested meeting to discuss the project, there was no response. Only this evening came a not-reply to the effect that he had somehow lost the client's phone number and didn't have an email address.

Not promising omens, any of them. So I did my due diligence and emailed the questions that had come to mind as I looked at the proposed website content and the example. But I fail to see how the gig will progress any further. A large part of me is straining at the metaphorical leash toward building a business of my own, so the disappointment is pretty palpable at the moment. The bounce in my step and glitter in my eye from this morning are gone.

So, if you'll excuse me, I need to go find them.

Republican revisionism well underway

It didn't take long for RNC head Steele to cave, did it?

The takeaway is this: The GOP--you remember them, the "Party of Moral Values"--is now taking its orders from a double-chinned, thrice-divorced drug addict who can't manage stay out of trouble while on probation.

And yet, overeducated morons like David Brooks can delude themselves that the "polarization" lies solely at the feet of the left. That his ilk, which championed gay-bashing, immigrant-bashing, elective war, torture, tax cuts in the middle of a recession, union-busting, permanent Republican majorities, no bid contracts, private armies, et cetera ad nauseum, are "moderate" and "fiscally responsible."

If I were the believing sort, I would offer whatever libations and supplications were needed to bring down the wrath of the Gods of Politics and the swift execution of the Laws of Karma on the GOP's head. But not being that sort, I can only hope that the finger-pointing and revisionism and hypocrisy come home to roost for the next ten election cycles.

Buh-bye, "conscience rule"

It seems nearly certain that the Obama Administration will repeal the "conscience rule," and it should come as no surprise to my gentle reader that my reaction was, "Yee-esssssss!" May it be a little balm for troubled ghost of George Orwell, whose spirit must have been restless these past eight years.

I've blogged about this subject previously, so I won't add more flogger stripes to the equine carcass. I can only proffer my fervent prayer to whatever Political Gods may be listening that the example of steady, competent adults in the Executive Branch will begin the process of American De-weinification. I don't expect a complete rollback, but a palpable decrease in the denialist, anti-intellectual, whiny, me-too, finger-pointing, magical-thinking, lazy, paparazzi culture would be a huge, HUGE improvement.

Memo to American Culture: Just because you believe it doesn't make it true. Just because you wish for it doesn't mean you deserve to have it happen. Just because you've convinced yourself that you're "good" doesn't mean you are. See, there's this flip side to your Mom telling you that you're special. So did everybody else's Mom. And the Moms were all correct. And you need to grok the ramifications of that.

Now put down the Cheezey-Poofs, grab some challenging non-fiction and get that over-indulged @$$ on the StairMaster. You've got eight years to make up for, America.

Awesome send-up

Gotta find me some more Keith Blanchard after this: Attention K-Mart Shoppers: Could America's Throwaway Holiday Crap Industry Be Next To Fail?

Actually, just did. Mind you, I'll admit that it's tough to square that attitude with Blanchard being a co-founder of Maxim, which just feeds double-bacon cheeseburgers the entitlement mentality of the American male. (A contradiction not unlike someone working at a weight club and a fast food joint.) Sharp, funny writing, though. Today, that's enough for my mood.

Whimper

New York Times slideshow of the Venetian Carnevale. Somebody get me a bellini.

Can I get a "Ramen!" brothers and sisters?

(Oh, and pretty-please do me the huge favor of laughing directly and conspicuously in the face of the next free market apologist who utters the word "accountablility." Obliged, as always.)

As if we needed further proof...

...that the party of Lincoln has become the party of Douglas.

Exhibit A: Mitt Romney. (with all due apologies to Monty Python)

Point One: You pathetically passe, flip-flopping, pandering git.

Point Two: When your peeps--the party of Moola Uber Alles--can't understand the economics of contraception, how do you expect to have the brains to figure out how to pay for all the unwanted zygotes that will flood the social system? Better yet--why don't you volunteer to adopt them ALL? Squelching contraceptive funding has consequences. And you should bear them (and personally, dammit!) more than anyone when you presume to make life-decisions for those far more vulnerable than you, who will never, EVER have to worry about making the rent.

Point Three: You pathetically passe, flip-flopping, pandering git.

Point : Contrary to your puerile Presidential power-fantasies (not unlike Spaceballs' Lord Dark Helmet's action figure role-playing), EX-GOVERNOR, EX-CANDIDATE, EX-RELEVANT Mister Romney, Gitmo's policies are not, in fact, the handiwork of the Executive Branch. You might have glossed over it in your law classes, but there are actually three branches of Government. That's what separates us--albeit barely in this day and age--from dictatorship. In case you didn't notice it during your round of glad-handing, not everyone agrees that the Bush Junta exercised the best judgment in what, exactly constituted "the worst of the worst." And by "best judgment" I also mean not making $#!+ up out of pure childish spite at not getting your way.

Point Five: You pathetically passe, flip-flopping, pandering git.

Point Six: There is NOOOOO!!! Point six.

Point Seven: You pathetically passe, flip-flopping, pandering git.

. . .

Actually, I could go on (and on) about the Mitster's predictions for the "fallout" from the stimulus package, but I think that the hypocrisy is pretty self-evident. Do a simple Google search for "Romney" and "bailout" or "Romney" and "TARP" and all but the Limbaugh-sucking Kool-Aid-snorters will see quite clearly that government spending is only socialist and irresponsible and dangerous when it's not handed to suits who make a [cough] "living" [cough] shoving numbers around on spreadsheets when they're not schmoozing with other, more alpha-suits.

(Not that I'm a fan of much of huge spending, mind you; it's the mind-boggling, sociopathic country club tribalism of the hypocrisy that galls me more than anything. I want to see these fat bastard kleptocrats and their enablers ostracized, pauperized and just plain ground into the filth as only hopeless poverty can grind a spirit.)

But, back in the Reality-based Community, Mittens has to get over himself: Right now he's basically Sarah Palin minus the nylons and pumps. Even the grandstanding Guiliani has more dignity, and he's actually donned nylons and pumps. Not exactly the high ground there, hey, Mitt?

On the bright side, though, I hope that Romney and Limbaugh and O'Reilly and Coulter and Hannity and the whole auto-fellating lot of them keep screeching. Loudly. Ringing in the ears of those who actually work for a living...or would be working if the bankrollers of these louts hadn't swept every last crumb out when they raided America's cookie-jar. America's historic memory once in a great while runs long. Remember 2004? Laissez-faire capitalism and "moral values" don't exactly pay the bills in 2009, now do they? Neither does immigrant-bashing, gay-baiting, stem-cell-coddling or politicizing-everything-that-isn't-red-hot. Bottom line: Even faith-based initiatives are grounded in cold, hard cash. And so I hope that the silver lining of the recession of 2009 and 2010 is that it brands into our race-memory the lesson that obsessing over bedroom shenanigans to the complete exclusion of boardroom criminality has very dire consequences for a society.

As much as I want to see a vibrant multi-party system, I'm still hoping that the GOP still doesn't get it. Understand that don't mean to detract in the least from Michael Steele's resounding achievement being elected as the head of the RNC today. (Take THAT, Strom Thurmond, you hypocritical child-molester) But my gut says that anyone--and I do mean anyone--elected to that post is like the Prime Minister of a coalition government, and doomed accordingly. The racist underpinnings of the GOP (David Duke, anyone?) have become too emboldened by the troglodytes-in-charge for the last fifteen years and more. Steele will be thrown under the bus--assuming that he isn't blatantly ordered to sit at the back of it--and replaced by someone of sufficiently Neanderthal political leanings. Or the party will split after another drubbing in the polls.

Either way, good riddance to them and their @#$%^&-up priorities.

Knocking it out of the park

For reasons I can never quite put my finger on, I'm normally more of a grudging admirer of Arianna Huffington. But her The Era of Not Getting It: The Marie Antoinettes of the Meltdown is an exception. Laser-precision and not sparing either political party...and well worth a few minutes of your reading time, IMO.

Uh-oh, Part II

I'm a programmer by trade, so I can't claim to be unbiased when it comes to offshoring. Partly, it's the insult of the double-speak that brasses me off. To wit: I can't get full concentration when I need it because The Powers That Be insist that being stuffed into an eight-cube "pod" makes me more "collaborative." Yet the same suits have no problem putting half the friggin' planet between those who dictate the specifications for software and those who implement them. (To contemplate such contradictions does not lead to Zen-like enlightenment; rather, it is the short road to madness.)

But quite apart from the headline-hogging aspects of offshoring our manufacturing base or our brain trust (and with it any motivation for new generations to opt for useful trades), there is the the question of whether or not America's corporate kleptocrats are digging our graves in more than a purely economic sense.

As if the profits made by Big Pharma weren't obscene enough, let's talk about the "side effects" of offshoring drug manufacturing to squeeze a few more drops of cream from that cash cow:

1. First, there's the strategic aspect. If medicines, particularly vaccines, are primarily manufactured in China, the question of availability (particularly in times of pandemic) are second only to those of quality, given the litany of tainted and/or deadly products in the headlines. In the event of pandemic, the Chinese government will--quite understandably--attempt to take care of its own. Except for those who can be bribed to turn a blind eye to the black market. Which, naturally, will be positively rife with tainted, counterfeit or under-dosed stock.
   
2. Now let's throw into the mix the abysmal environmental track record of these nations, this time turning to India's slice of pharmaceutical manufacturing. The take-away: "Those Indian factories produce drugs for much of the world, including many Americans. The result: Some of India's poor are unwittingly consuming an array of chemicals that may be harmful, and could lead to the proliferation of drug-resistant bacteria." [emphasis mine] Yes, I realize that bacteria and viruses are different things, but viruses mutate too, and randomly messing with peoples' immune systems most certainly doesn't help matters.
   
3. Finally, let's connect the last dots by considering the geography of avian influenza. The Spanish Flu pandemic spread world-wide in the considerably slower-paced WWI era. We, on the other hand, live in a world where an iPod is engraved in China Tuesday afternoon and on my desk Thursday morning.
   

Anyone else hear a ticking sound?

*This* is what I voted for, peeps

Copied directly from Daily Kos (with mad props):

On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we are reminded that this decision not only protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose.

While this is a sensitive and often divisive issue, no matter what our views, we are united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make. To accomplish these goals, we must work to find common ground to expand access to affordable contraception, accurate health information, and preventative services.

On this anniversary, we must also recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights and opportunities as our sons: the chance to attain a world-class education; to have fulfilling careers in any industry; to be treated fairly and paid equally for their work; and to have no limits on their dreams. That is what I want for women everywhere.

Ramen, brothers and sisters. Ramen.

Why am I reading about this in "The Daily Beast"?

Just makes you fantasize about putting the the "lynch" in "Merrill Lynch" doesn't it? John Thain's $87,000 rug. Fantasize. With a little extra flourish of blisters on manicured hands--bleeding from the work of digging their own grave.

Mind you, "fantasize" is the operative word. If this day sees the order that ends some measure of the petty, indiscriminate vindictiveness embodied in Guantanamo Bay, surely I can lend my small echo to the return of rule of law.

But my fantasies are my own.

So my question for the Fourth Estate is: Why aren't headlines screaming variations of this story Every Mother-Loving Day until every last corner-suite kleptocratic wanker is exposed, investigated, and brought to court in class-action lawsuit(s) and/or criminal trial? It can't be lack of material, that's for d--n sure.

Update, 01.23.2008: I heard the $1.2 office upgrade discussed on the other side of the cubicle wall, so the word is getting out. These are pretty down-to-earth guys, too. Do I perchance feel the first tremors of the coming revolution???

Hahahahahahahahahaha

H/t to Daily Kos for linking to: DC's High-level Social Scene Now Mingles Black and White.

Cue Lily von Shtupp: "Is it twue how zey say zat you people are...gifted?"

giggle

giggle

...

SNORRRRRT!!!

Seriously, though, my Inner History Nerd can't help but wonder whether the salons of 19th century Washington DC were cultivating dudes in coonskin caps following the elections of Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. Wouldn't surprise me.

In a way, I'm even kinda hoping that at least one of the First Daughters morphs into something sassy enough to give Princess Alice a run for her money.

A good working definition of irony

(Coincidentally, I just received Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" back from the co-worker who'd borrowed it. She hated it, but she's glad she read it, if that makes any sense...)

Anyhoo...does anyone else find it in the least ironic that those who would ban the book from a Canadian high school would be the ones most likely to salivate over the prospect of living in the Republic of Gilead?

Memo: Homeschool if you can't bear the thought of exposing little Johnny to the real world. But for love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, don't be surprised when neither he nor your grandkids ever visit you in the nursing home. (Grandkids, of course, being predicated on you arranging his marriage for him.)

Now, I realize that a democracy (and a civilized society in general) hinges upon multiple points of view. But the sense of entitlement of these parochial, super-sized toddlers masquerading as parents or upright citizens really (and I do mean really) stretches the limits of my polite tolerance.

Gaaagh. I just wish to Grethor that the U.N. could section off some corner of the planet where these sissypants ninnyhammers could live in their little bubble, hermetically sealed off from any possibility of contamination by capital-R Reality, much less the awe-inducing burden of critical thought. There, @$holes: Have your evolution denial and your global warming denial and your abstinence-only fairy-tales and your big hair and your Hummers and your Wal-Marts and your 57 channels of insipid "family" programming and your slave-manufactured plastic-craptastic "Wait 'til the Joneses see this" gewgaws by the cargo container.

Great. Now just stay the @#$% out of my Universe, you @#$%ing @#$%wits.

Almost wish, anyway. As much good as it would do the rest of the world to be rid of the Talibangelist mentality (no matter the religion), I can't in good conscience wish that on the children they would bring into their bubble. And they'd have 'em by the boatload--make no mistake about that.

But as it never will happen--the Religious Wrong's lion-chow persecution fantasies to the contrary--I can enjoy a bit of wishful thinking...

Drowning in vinegar and water

A Pundit Kitchen caption from a couple day ago: "There's a fine line between being a badass and a douchebag. You just crossed it." I think that we can safely say that Israel is unequivocally Douchebag Central right now:

"It's a total disaster for us," Ging said, adding that the U.N. had warned the Israeli military that the compound was in peril from shelling that had begun overnight. U.N. officials say they have provided Israel with GPS coordinates of all U.N. installations in Gaza to prevent such attacks. [emphasis mine]

So let me get this straight: The nearly-departed Bush Regime unilaterally invaded Iraq because a bottled-up Saddam Hussein was thumbing his nose at the UN. Yet we not only condone, but coddle a belligerent Israel, which has has been defying the same UN with its delusions of Manifest Destiny for over four decades? We blow the living snot out of nations to "bring democracy" to them, while Israel jerry-rigs its political process to disenfranchise the people it can't bomb. [snark]What, it doesn't make sense?[/snark]. Well, apparently it does to people who should know better.

Feh. So far as I'm concerned, barring children and those now politically powerless, any evil that befalls Israel now is the crop of its own planting. More tragically, we have the dirt of their fields under our fingernails here in America: The Democratic party is so knee-jerk about defending anyone perceived as a "minority," while the Republican party is run by people who cheer-lead butchery as the short road to The Rapture.

A perfect storm, in other words.

Lunchbox heroines

I had planned a snarky "In other news, water is still wet" kind of post. But it was trumped by a far more important theme. Namely the near-heartbreaking tenacity of the human spirit. Most especially in these young women.

(P.S. to the Taliban: Suck it, bitches.)

Geeky shout-out

Yes, I realize that SVG is going by the wayside in favor of (twitch, twitch) Flash, but these folks saved my bacon this morning, and I think that they deserve a hat-tip: https://www.ecrion.com/Support/Resources/XFRenderingServerHelp/index.html?pie_chart.htm

Tell me they didn't receive grant money for this...

Personally, I was a little incensed that somebody's deliberately coking up honeybees, particularly when the "research" basically confirms what's already known about behavioral reactions to the drug. How it's supposed to dislodge the spoon from a socialite's nose or the needle from a crack-addict's veins I fail to understand, unless a blocker drug is concocted. For cocaine anyway. But then there's the whole smorgasbord of (ahem) pharmaceutical--contraband or not--alternatives. Not to mention that blocker drugs do bupkis for the whole context of addiction. Feh. I guess what bothers me is that this seems like another silver bullet "solution" that may just end up contributing to the problem in the long run.

Or maybe I'm just cynical.

Part 1603 of "You know you're a costume geek when..."

...your go-to catalog is discontinuing its corset-making supplies and you're figuring out how many yards of stuff you can rationalize at 15% off.