Blah blah

yeah yeah busy busy.

Like you people are really interested in my pathetic existence.

I think someone's Republican card is about to be pulled!

Dancing in the Streets

Thank the powers that be - it FINALLY rained - a real gully washer. Thunder, lightening, the whole kit, kaboodle and kitchen sink. People were in the parking lots and streets dancing - seriously. OK - well, we were in Midtown, afterall! Thirty degree temp drop in an hour. We are now at a nippy 75 and falling. WEEEEEEE!

Power went out at a LaserQuest b-day party we were attending, but the staff dragged the tables out into the lobby so the kids could have cake and ice cream. Liz, of course, was in the top 5 of the game they did play. She's bloodthirsty. And crafty - she snuck up behind some middle school girls who were lurking in a corner and shot them like 10 times repeatedly. They whined - who's shooting us? That's so not fair - Liz said "Me. That's the point of the game!" and then ran before they could get her. They rounded up like 8 other girls to hunt Liz down and then the power went out. Ha! Ha! Ha!

Mother of the year

See this skank ho?. She beat her boy bloody in a Walmart - no, not in Ferriday, although that is a good guess. In Mesa, AZ. The story is here. She is on LIFETIME probation for child abuse. The 911 was apparently flooded with calls from shoppers who witnessed it all and recorded it on their cell phones. God bless technology!

To abuse a child, any child, much less your own, is something I cannot fathom. She carried that child, bore that child, and then beats him bloody, not for the first time, because he didn't like a shirt she picked out for him. There is not a bulldike butch enough to do to her what I want done to her in prison.

HOT HOT HOT!

It's so hot here - I got sunburned walking to my car yesterday! and no- I'm not exaggerating- y'all know I am a frail flower of southern femininity. I am ususally sheltered from those dastardly UV rays by my layers of petticoats and large organza hats.

I say, I do believe I need a mint julep.

A.

Yet another reason I want to move to Midtown

Cohen signs on as co-sponsor of bill to impeach Cheney

As if we didn't know this already . . .

Your Inner European is Irish!

Sprited and boisterous! You drink everyone under the table.

Who's Your Inner European?

Money changers in the Temple

I generally don't read Wendi Thomas- actually, I rarely read the Commercial Appeal. But her latest column is something I wish certain factions in this city, and nation, would take to heart. The fact that these "men of God" are willfully ignoring the facts of the proposed law and essentially endorsing violence against other human beings in the name of their interpretation of "God's law" makes me physically ill. Thomas makes excellent points - are these people incapable of stringing together words that support their (supposedly) faith-based aversion to homosexuality without advocating violence? How limited is their vocabulary? How shallow is their faith that they can't allow for difference?

The absolute refusal of people like these ministers, and our president, to accept incontrovertible facts, not only infuriates me, it saddens me. To see a faith that has potential to change the world warped and perverted to further bigotry, hatred, and ignorance is disheartening. Not that I remotely classify myself as "Christian," at least not by their standards, but the faith does have tenets I attempt to live by - compassion, honesty, sacrifice of self for the greater good. I get so angry when professed "Christians" act decidedly unChrsitlike in the name of Christ. Hypocrisy is a pet peeve of mine, as it was of Jesus.

I am reading a collection of essays by Peter Onuf about the mind of Jefferson. There is an excellent piece about his take on religion. Jefferson viewed himself as a Christian in an almost Unitarian sense (nod to Laura P. - I'll pass it along later)- Christ was not divine, but set forth guidelines that, if followed, brought the individual closer to the divine within him/herself. He abhorred organized religion because of the tendency of the bureaucracy to corrupt faith in the pursuit of temporal power. I feel a lot like that.

'Bout damn time

The most important thing to remember about the drowning of New Orleans is that it wasn't a natural disaster. It was a man-made disaster, created by lousy engineering, misplaced priorities and pork-barrel politics.

Read the whole article here.

The good news is that scientists believe they know how to save it. They want the Corps to let go of the river in strategic areas so it can get back to work building land, even if that requires rearranging navigation at the mouth of the Mississippi. They want to fill in oil and gas canals, constrict the Gulf Outlet and start pumping sediment back into ridges and barrier islands. The Corps developed $14 billion worth of Louisiana restoration plans before Katrina, but Bush scaled them back to $2 billion.

OK - so we KNOW how to fix it - why the bleppity bleep bleep aren't we?! Oh wait there it is - BUSH. I know it's not ALL his fault, but damn man. Get the hell out of the way and let the grown-ups take care of this.

Name that Republican

Freedonian said...

I love how they're trying to pretend he's a "Washington Outsider". The two bit actor has never had a tougher role to play than that one.

Seventeen years as a K Street lobbyist, a term in the Senate, and time spent as Dick Noxon's mole. He could have been born with the spire on the Capitol Building hanging out of his ass and not been any more "insider" than that.

hmmm- who could it be?

Riddle me this

How does this:

The legislation would roll back nearly $16 billion in tax breaks for oil companies and provide a broad array of tax incentives and other measures to spur development of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency programs. It would establish new efficiency standards for appliances and other equipment and government support for research into alternative energy such as batteries for plug-in hybrid-electric cars.

not "make "serious attempts to increase our energy security or address high energy costs"?

because Bush is a tool - of the oil industry, I mean.

excerpts from cnn.com

Sisyphus: The Jena Six update: “White tree” is now firewood

Sisyphus: The Jena Six update: “White tree” is now firewood

What you talking 'bout, Fliffis'?

Pottermania

I am, I am Superman?

No! You're Siddhartha! by Hermann Hesse

You simply don't know what to believe, but you're willing to try anything once. Western values, Eastern values, hedonism and minimalism, you've spent some time in every camp. But you still don't have any idea what camp you belong in. This makes you an individualist of the highest order, but also really lonely. It's time to chill out under a tree. And realize that at least you believe in ferries.

Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

(thanks to LAWP for this link)

The more things change . . .

the more they stay the same.

Meet the Jena Six:

"In September 2006, a group of African American high school students in Jena, Louisiana, asked the school for permission to sit beneath a "whites only" shade tree. There was an unwritten rule that blacks couldn't sit beneath the tree. The school said they didn't care where students sat. The next day, students arrived at school to see three nooses (in school colors) hanging from the tree."( from http://www.whileseated.org/photo/003244.shtml)

Timeline/details of the case (from Friends of Justice)

• When black students staged an impromptu protest under the tree on Wednesday, September 6, 2006, a school assembly was hastily convened. Flanked by police officers, District Attorney Reed Walters warned black students that additional unrest would be treated as a criminal matter. According to multiple witnesses, Walters warned the black student protestors that, "I can make your lives disappear with a stroke of my pen." This was widely interpreted as a reference to the filing of charges carrying a maximum sentence of life in prison.
  

• Shortly after the lunch hour of Monday, December 4, 2006, a fight between a white student and a black student reportedly ended with the white student being knocked to the floor.Several black students reportedly attacked the white student as he lay unconscious.Because the incident took place in a crowded area and was over in a matter of seconds eye witness accounts vary widely.Written statements from students closest to the scene (in space and time) suggest that the incident was sparked by an angry exchange in the gymnasium moments before in which the black student assaulted at the Fair Barn was taunted for having his “ass whipped”.

• The victim of the attack is close friends of the boys who have admitted to hanging the nooses in September of 20

• Within an hour of the fight, six black students were arrested and charged with aggravated battery. According to The Jena Times, at least a dozen teachers subsequently threatened a "sick-out" if discipline was not restored to the school. According to the Alexandria Town Talk, District Attorney Reed Walters responded to the teacher's threat by upping the charges on the six boys to attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder—charges carrying a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Injustice in Jena as Nooses Hang From the "White Tree" - backstory and update of the first trial from Truthout.org

Petition to demand the intervention of the Department of Justice



Updates

Well, DUH!

You Are a Liberal for Life

You've got a bleeding heart - and you're proud of it. For you, liberal means being compassionate, pro-government, and anti-business. You believe in equality for every person, and you consider yourself universally empathetic. Helping others is not just political for you ... it's very personal too.

What's Your Political Persuasion?

I Believe

When I was young and full of grace
and spirited--a rattlesnake.
When I was young and fever fell
My spirit, I will not tell
You're on your honor not to tell

I believe in coyotes and time as an abstract
Explain the change, the difference between
What you want and what you need, there's the key,
Your adventure for today, what do you do
Between the horns of the day?

I believe my shirt is wearing thin
And change is what I believe in

When I was young and give and take
And foolish said my fool awake
When I was young and fever fell
My spirit, I will not tell
You're on your honor, on your honor

Trust in your calling, make sure your calling's true
Think of others, the others think of you
Silly rule golden words make, practice, practice makes perfect,
Perfect is a fault, and fault lines change

I believe my humor's wearing thin
And change is what I believe in

I believe my shirt is wearing thin
And change is what I believe in

When I was young and full of grace
As spirited a rattlesnake
When I was young and fever fell
My spirit, I will not tell
You're on your honor, on your honor
I believe in example
I believe my throat hurts
Example is the checker to the king

I believe my humor's wearing thin
And I believe the poles are shifting

I believe my shirt is wearing thin
And change is what I believe in

What we all learned from Molly Ivins

Molly Ivins taught a whole generation of women writers the most useful trick out there, more useful, even, than faking bravery: Get the boys to laugh with you, and you stand a pretty decent chance of being taken seriously.

I love Dahlia Lithwick

The Queen is Dead

Should've been us