Ho Hum

Just lazy lately, I guess. Here's what's up in my life lately:

1. John. Just...John.
2. The Pens meet Carolina tonight for Game 1. Glow, are you listening? Your boy better be on this series, mkay? All hands on deck. Or all birds on deck. Or..whatever.
3. My cracked in the head wacko Christianist staff assistant who is getting divorced for the fifth time just spent $7000 on plastic surgery to make her upper arms not jiggle when she wears short sleeves. Seriously. And I fail to see any difference. The fact that she could have gotten better and thousands of dollars less expensive results by losing the 50 pounds she is overweight through diet and exercise does not seem a valid argument to her. But putting $7000 in plastic surgery on her credit card is completely valid. Somehow.
4. There will be five weeks between now and the end of July where I will be working only 3 days a week. If I must be overwhelmed with work over the summer, this is the way to do it.
5. Survivor sucked this season. Not a bit of suspense.
6. I am truly looking forward to the new season of Top Chef: Masters. It should be some fun with all those massive egos. Tom Colicchio is an evil genius. I adore him.
7. Speaking of Tom Colicchio, I made my first dish from his Think Like a Chef book. It seemed simple, but getting the technique just right was the hard part. I'm pretty sure I managed it, judging by how it tasted.
8. I now know why my parents never wanted any of us to take dance. The fucking recitals are brutal! On average, each of my nieces' recitals take up about 3-5 hours. No kidding. And just for added fun, both of the nieces' dance schools have scheduled their recitals for the same weekend. So I should average about 8 hours in high school auditoriums, waiting around through dozens of dancing children whom I don't know and don't care about for the 3 or 4 dance routines of each of my nieces the second weekend in June. Hopefully, I'll get some extra good karma for the effort.
9. I'm getting fat. Every time I get happy, I get fat. Damn it. Gotta start working out more regularly. Boy, am I glad my crazy ass staff assistant decided that plastic surgery works better for her than her awesome treadmill, which she promptly gave to me.
10. I am being stalked by an old, old boyfriend whose wife recently died and to whom I sent a sympathy card. It's really getting sorta creepy. He keeps sending me cards and wanting to meet with me (as he says) "not as a threesome, if you know what I mean." Ew. I really don't think so, dude.

The Last Honest Conservative

I don't agree with all his diagnoses or conclusions. But I'd like to say that if the majority of the opposition to progressives like me were more in the mold of this model, I'd be proud to have a loyal opposition with whom to debate. Sadly, that is not the case and I expect Richard Posner to be drummed out of the GOP (if he belongs) and conservative organizations any minute.

Read it. It's worth it.

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2009/05/is_the_conserva.html

Erasing Bookmarks

I don't go to a lot of places online anymore that I used to go to dozens of times a day. I'm not sure why I ever went to them now. I look at them and find them vapid and full of trivial matters. When we, as a country, are debating war crimes trials for former presidents and vice presidents and whether we can survive as a constitutional democracy because we have betrayed every principle of morality and virtue bequeathed us by our Founders, I simply cannot understand the attraction of things like reality television or sports or even--gasp--books. I haven't completely given up on those things as leisure activities. But I see no reason to endlessly obssess over them or even discuss them with anyone other than my sisters or John.

I honestly believe that many people don't care about what happens to our country at this point. They are much too selfish and self-involved to understand what a pivotal historical moment we are in and, if they do understand it, they don't really seem to care as long they have theirs, whatever that "theirs" may be. I know that not everyone is this way. But it sure seems the vast majority of people who hang out in those places are, if their conversations online are any indication. I know one place that I'm sure is happy I am gone because there is no way they would have avoided discussing torture and how we are now a nation no better than North Vietnam, North Korea, China, Cuba, Peronista Argentina, and Nazi Germany. I popped over to that site today for the first time in ages just to see what people there were saying about this sad turn of events. Turns out, there is not one single thread about it. Not one. No discussion of it at all. I find that more appalling than I can say. I know there are some good people there. But they don't care about this. They'd rather put their heads in the sand and, as they like to say, talk about "puppies and pudding skins." And that is not the only one of the above mentioned places that is uncomfortable with this discussion. But it is the only one that is completely ignoring it. I find that stunning. And a turn of events that makes me wonder how good, really, all those good people I thought I knew there actually are. The whole exercise of visiting these old haunts was so dispiriting that I have now erased all the old bookmarks. I won't be going back for any reason, not even simple curiosity. I find I am repelled and disgusted by those who willfully ignore the existential crises of our country almost as much as I am by those who brought this crisis about. Good Germans, indeed.

On a more cheerful note, it all made me appreciate how lucky I am to have John now. He is the exact opposite of that. More on him later.

Andrew At His Best

I'm so dispirited by what was done by my government in my name allegedly to protect me. But Sully nails it:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/mark-thiessen-it-was-torture.html#more

If this is what is required to keep me safe, I'd rather be dead.

Lorne Michaels Needs to Sign This Guy, STAT

I can't believe Shuster got away with this. He said it on the 8pm Countdown and it ran again on the rerun at 10pm. This might be the funniest thing I've seen on tv all year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i-OWDjOQfI&feature=player_embedded

Watch and enjoy.

And So It Begins

The Pittsburgh metropolitan region is in mourning. And shock. The mourning is totally called for. Those cops were heroes, especially Officer Kelly who was off-duty and responding as backup only because it was on his way home. The coward who took them out ambushed them. And they died because no one could get to them to even try to save them. Everyone here- regular citizens, law enforcement, media, and politicians-are finding any sort of understandable rationalization almost impossible to articulate.

But I'm not shocked. Not even a little bit. And I expect many more incidents like this to happen, most likely even worse.

How could anyone who pays attention to the world not have expected this? And the silence regarding this incident from certain mainstream and alternative media tells me more than I need to know about how complicit they have been in creating the atmosphere where this happens. I have been to websites filled with wingnut posters that don't even mention this incident. If they don't comment on it, they don't have to take responsibility, I guess.

I hold them responsible. Every fucking one of them. From the insane racist ranters at Stormfront to the Glenn Becks and Michelle Bachmans to the Left Behinders and the religious right to the NRA to the casual Internet posters who ignorantly rant about LIEberals and Defeatocrats and union plots to take over the country and turn us all into commies. They spread lies and ignorance and encourage hate and violence in those too weak to see how desperate and stupid their heroes and compatriots truly are.

I am more than disgusted by these people, every one of them. I hope they all live miserable lives filled with defeat in every endeavor and a lack of any human respect from anyone. I don't believe in heaven or hell, but I do believe in hell on earth. And I hope that all of these people spend their lives in that earthly hell. They aren't good people. They aren't Christian or any recognizable religion. They aren't productive or useful. They are destroyers and bigots and must be called as such as often and loudly as possible. They are no different from the bin Ladens or Hamases or Tamil Tigers. They are terrorists, by word or deed or both. And we must begin by saying as much. I'm saying it right here. I have, however, no faith that anyone in the media or our government will be half as honest. And I know that the everyman who subscribes to the wingnut memes will certainly never see that not only are they, too, part of the problem but will pound his or her chest, vehemently denying any sort of collusion with an ideology that creates monsters like Mr. Poplowski.

But they are.

The Rude One Does It Again

Man, I love this guy with all my heart.

In response to this: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html?_r=3&ref=opinion&pagewanted=all

He writes this: http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/

The denouement is especially lovely:

"Fuck you, finally, at last, you pedantic, deluded, groveling worm. You think you're making some point that you and your ilk are people, too, when what you're revealing is that the world you occupy has no relation to the real one. Tell you what: give it all up, all the money, get the others in your division to do it, too, and go work for the people served by those organizations into whose pot you're gonna toss your change. Look into their eyes until you can say you're one of them. That's called redemption. Your letter? It's just pathetic for what it says about AIG, for what it says about us, but, mostly, for what it says about you."

Oooooh, snap.