Monthly Archives: November 2006

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation

Nope.  The mass of men no longer lead lives of quiet desperation.

Their desperation is now cacaphonously announced by means of a variety of ringtones and instantly followed by conversations about their desperate search for meaning in the grocery lists they make during the cinema and the yeast infections analyzed in grocery aisles and the familial backstabbing they do sitting next to your table at a restaurant.

It’s enough to make me hope that it’s true that excessive cell phone use causes lower sperm counts and head tumors just so those who are perpetually on the phone will have less chance of polluting the gene pool.

I’m glad to know that driving while talking on the cell phone is as dangerous as drunk driving for the same reason.  I only wish there were a Mothers Against Talk Driving, although it seems that every mother I see is on the cell phone while driving her SUV.  I’m still pissed at the b***h who backed out of her Nichols Hills Plaza space, barely missing me without even seeing me there, and sat crossways in the lot so no one could pass whilst she driveled on about whatever. 

I recall well the era of the “bag phone.”  I thought it spectacularly excessive at the time.  “Hey, look at me!  I’m so important I have to have a mobile phone!”  At least I could understand how some physicians and even some lawyers and stockbrokers might actually justify such a thing on capitalist grounds, even if I was contemptuous of their greediness.   Now, however, capitalism and technology have democratized the mobile phone to the point that grade schoolers carry the infernal items.

It is a lesson in the fact that just because you CAN do something, doesn’t mean you SHOULD do something.

Have we as a society really thought about what we’re doing and whether it’s something we want in our everyday lives?  Is this constant contact between teenagers really a good thing?  Do I really WANT my office/boss to be able to contact me on vacation? Did you know that we have a new malady caused by cell phones:  text thumb?  (“Text thumb” is a repetitive motion injury caused by incessant text messaging between cell phones and is spreading like wildfire across the country.  How should we regard an elective injury?)

I am neither a Luddite nor a curmudgeon.  I simply believe that the unintended consequences of widespread cell phone use is one of the signs of the coming apocalypse.  That’s all I’m saying. 

in which I get tucked …

I’ve been tuckered out for about two weeks now with the flu, or something mightly like the flu, and you don’t want to hear me whine about my symptoms, but I haven’t much been on the job just lately

(I know I’m profane, but jeeezzzz, readers, did you really think it was just a typo?  Get. Your. Minds. Out. Of. The. Gutter.)

So, I figured as long as I was s-tuck all by myself at home, I’d try to make things as comfortable as I could.

Stoked up the fireplace, although I’m still too cheap to burn the real wood I bought a month ago and waste it on just little ole me.  The gas burner under the fake logs was plenty pretty enough  … {for the likes of me, he said in his best self deprecating tones, shuffling his feet like he might burst into an “aww shucks” and sticking a strand of straw into his teeth. 

 (That was pretty convincing, right?)

  shut up } .

 I hauled out a couple three books I’ve been meaning to read and just never got around to and launched into a Michael Chrichton, “State of Fear”. 

Tucked myself right in with that green plaid wool throw that Debster always gets in the TV room on Wednesday Paseo dinner and movie night.  Sat under good light on the couch and listened to jazz instrumentals all the way through the book.  Nice.  Good times.

Unfortunately, the book is a failure on almost every level.  It’s about climate change and how the science isn’t there to show a link between “greenhouse gases”, principally CO2, and a distinct global warming phenomenon.  It paints ecologists as terrorists, greedy, money hungry, manipulative of media and politicians.  Doesn’t play.  The characters and action are clearly afterthoughts and just plain not thrilling,  as thrillers are expected to be.  The science was also pretty boring.  In Crichton’s view, the climatology science of ecological crisis simply isn’t up to snuff, not academically rigorous enough for proofs of the theory.  He goes so far as to compare “global warming” to eugenics, the pseudoscience of the early 20th Century that morphed into Hitler’s “Final Solution”.

I ate some comfort food tucker over the weekend as well.  Hot soups and such.  Lots of hot herbal teas with local honey.  Uhnhhhh, do I have to mention chocolate?  Yes?  OK. Yeah, some chocolate, too.  Bad kitty.

The biggest tuck of all, though, was in the bedroom.

(“Ah Ha!”, you are thinking to yourselves.  You knew it would come to this.  WRONG!  Get. Your. Minds. Out. Of. The. Gutter.)

I exchanged my white high thread count summer sheets this weekend for the honest to goodness cold weather is here flannel sheets.  Rich burgandy for the Christmas season.

These are sheets with substance and not the gossamer of the past several months.  If you don’t have flannel sheets, baby, try some.  It’s cozy when you come to bed and not cool or cold.  I like the way these sheets feel over you, like an extra half blanket, with some heft.  Yeah.  Tucked ‘em in all tight all around.  Bounce a damn quarter off ‘em, you could.  Yeah.

So, this was the weekend I got tucked.

 

Bipartisan knife fight

There are a couple of memorable fight scenes in movies that have been on my mind.  One is in The Quiet Man and another is in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

They are very similar scenes.  In The Quiet Man, John Wayne and Victor MacLaughlin agree to “Marquis of Queensbury rules” and in Butch Cassidy, Paul Newman tries to make rules for a knife fight.  In both, the rules quickly go out the window.  “Rules in a knife fight,” Newman says dismissively after kicking his opponent in the groin.

That’s how I feel about President Bush’s plea for bipartisanship.

Yeah, Dubya, we’re gonna be just as “bipartisan” as Denny Hastert and Frist were when you guys controlled Congress.

We’re gonna look for every way we can to co-opt Republicans to get them to vote for what we want and, failing that, we’re gonna cram stuff down your throat you hate but can’t veto.

Say bye-bye to Tom DeLay’s “K-Street Project”.

What earmarks?

Rummy gets extradicted to Germany to stand trial for war crimes or you swallow a ban on torture, how about that for bipartisan?

Sure hope the drug companies put back a few dimes in savings because that Medicare Part D bonanza just disappeared. 

You can throw that veto pen away when the tax cut for the middle class by way of Alternative Minimum Tax reform comes across your desk.

Think you’d like to veto a raise in the minimum wage?  We’d love for you to try that.

Have we mentioned what’s going to happen to Dick Cheney’s Halliburton holdings when we’re finished investigating war profiteering?

Maybe it’s just me, but do you think you’d like a special prosecutor to look into why 454 White House contacts with Jack Abramoff weren’t enough and Karl Rove had to meet the uber-lobbyist on streetcorners in order to avoid the White House logs of meetings?

Just remember my born-again son, we’re just trying to do unto you as you did unto us.

Gloating happy dance continues.

in which we gloat

It’s a little difficult to be blue when you’re swimming in a sea of Shadenfreude and dancing the happy dance on the beaches of gloating.

I’ll try to soldier on, though.

First, let me say that nothing in the election returns was as satisfying as reading the immediate post-election ‘net columns of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.  Their heads exploded in the vice of reality and election losses of Congress.

Insert gloating happy dance of shadenfreude here.

It’s hard to say whether the end for Rumsfeld as SecDef, the smashing of Sen. George Allen’s presidential hopes on the rocks of Democratic takeover of the Senate or Sen. Rick Santorum’s ignominious defeat was the highlight of Wednesday and Thursday. 

I can’t parse that question because I’m too busy laughing at Bush’s notion that he can still push through Bolton as U.N. ambassador before January.  Good for Lincoln Chaffee, defeated in Rhode Island, for looking Georgie boy in the face and saying “shut the fuck up”.

Lest we forget, there’s no need to go far afield — wingnuts Sweeney in N.Y. and Pombo in Calif. both losing — for me to find deep, deep satisfaction: the Brad Henry trouncing of Ernie Istook right here in Oklahoma is plenty.  I’ve been a hopeful blue dog Dem on less in the past three elections.

I’m with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid about impeachment; no need to have that as a legislative agenda item at this time.  First we have some subpoenas, then we name a special prosecutor to look into some of those nobid contracts, then we impeach Cheney, all before we make Bush’s last year in office the springboard for a “permanent Democratic majority” and THEN his impeachment.  We need to have a fair trial before we hang the fucker.

Oh, and by the way, Bush is going to be out of town for the rest of the year on trips to Asia and Europe.  I think they’re setting up a good alibi for him when some shit comes down.  But, that’s paranoia for another day.

 

damn damn damn

I wrote this blog entry that included:

1.  election strange results

2.  reaction, overall, at Dems’ takeover of Congress

3.  my wish list for things Dems should do first.

Unfortunately, it got erased.  I have no idea where it went or how to get it back.

I’ll try again another time, it’s just too discouraging right now.

I can't stay up any later …

It’s about 1 a.m. Wed and McCaskill declared victory in Missouri and Webb just did the same in Virginia.  However, incumbent Sens. Talent and Allen have not conceded. 

It’ll be much later before all the House races are in, but it’s sure the Democrats will take the majority in a shattering reversal of GOP fortunes that exceeded my ability to hope.

Good day to be blue, even in Oklahoma with Gov. Henry’s drubbing of Ernie Istook.

g’nite

A sigh of relief

My son in law, Jesse, is home safe from his tour of duty in Iraq and being put to good use running errands as of last Friday.

My prayers were answered and I’m very grateful.

I’m proud of you, Jesse, and I’m glad you’re home with my grandkids. 

 

I'm begging for your help here …

I’m really having a hard time making up my mind for whom to vote.

Today, I got a “drop piece” placed on my front door by a Republican named Dave Mehlhaff who is running for County Commissioner in District 1 against Democrat Jim Roth.

Here’s a quote from the campaign literature:

Although they are “out” and exercise their right to participate in the Gay Pride Parade each year, the Sodomites prefer to tip-toe through the Oklahoma County neighborhoods not exploiting their “pride” but preferring to focus on the issues.  The truth is, they portray a victim mentality until they mete (sic) up success (as they define it) and then they pound their Sodomite drums with “pride”.  You cant’ (sic) have it both ways.  Either you’re “out” and proud of it or you’re “in” and focus on the issues.

So, what do you think, kids?  Vote for the Sodomite or the idiot?

can't get no SATISFACTION …

I’m restless, discontent and irritable and that’s no place for a recovering alcoholic.

I’m also lethargic, isolating and just about autistic with hypervigilant anxiety and that’s no place for someone who’s chronically depressed.

In other words, it’s a full moon, folks, and John’s werewolf side is coming out.  I can’t stay awake during the day and I can’t go to sleep at night.

(Hum it along with me now, folks … “I saw a werewolf having a pina colada at Trader Vic’s…his hair was Purr-fect.”)

I guess I won’t know until the sun goes down whether I’m homicidal, suicidal or just nuckin’ futs.

Aaaaahhhhhhh-ooooooooohhhhhh!!!!!!!!!