Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Aight, G. Wuss in the hizzzzie.


50 Cent praises 'gangsta' Bush

50 Cent has made a surprise move by stepping forward to heap praise on
beleaguered US President George W Bush.

While Bush is facing growing criticism from American citizens and
celebrities, including rapper Kanye West, former crack dealer 50 Cent
has expressed great admiration for the Republican leader.

He says: "(The president) is incredible… A gangsta. I wanna meet
George Bush, just shake his hand and tell him how much of me I see in
him."

The In Da Club rapper, who was shot nine times on the streets of New
York City before finding fame, adds that if it wasn't for his felony
conviction preventing him from voting, he'd have exercised his right in
favour of Bush.

***

And there you have it. Bush: FIERCE.




He's a gangsta!



He's a cowboy!



He's a floor wax and a dessert topping!



No, wait.



He's um, well, he's real,



and VERY MANLY, is the point, here.



Yes, I think that's it.










Keep keepin' it real, Geeb.









(credit to Democratic Underground for collecting these fine photos, among others)

Monday, November 28, 2005

Light the corners of my miiind, cont'd

Somewhere around my thirteenth or fourteenth year, yes, I began to
have Those Feelings. I can't exactly pin down when I connected the
name to the feelings, but it was fairly early on, I know. Anyway, by
the time my well-meaning liberal parents had taken me to go see "Desert
Hearts
" with some friends of theirs (an only child, I often was
included in their adult social life), I was dismally aware of just what
the transaction there was and what it all meant, even before the
infamous scene toward the end.

These days, I sometimes think about the frisson that scene had for me
at a hormonal fourteen with a strange sort of wistfulness,
understandably disturbing as the whole thing was at the time; I don't
think any erotic scene on film since has ever come close to having the
same charge (including a subsequent viewing of "Desert Hearts" in the
privacy of my own living room at age twentysomething, as well as far
more explicit material). For that matter, I never would have guessed
that someday I would wish to have back the intensity of that whole
period: the blushing fits at school, the pounding heart, the uneasy
fascination I'd suddenly developed for leggy blonde girls with mauve
lipstick, girls I'd never even spoken to and had no justifiable reason
for doing so, girls I didn't even *like.* At the time, of course, all
I wanted was for it all to GO AWAY.

To that end, as it turned out, I had some help. That same year, my
grades started to plummet, I was crying all the time, and my favorite
thing to do was sit in the recliner (a leftover from the 70’s, it was
the color and texture of American cheese left too long out of the
wrapper), and mope. Sometimes I would read, or pretend to read,
usually the same thing over and over and over. (Robert Silverberg's
"Lord Valentine's Castle" lasted me a good while. Then it was on to
Stephen King's "It," as I recall). But more often I would just sit
and stare into space. Thinking my thoughts, all 8,000,000,000 billion
per second of them. Bottom line, in retrospect: I was, no doubt,
depressed, and why not? I'd just started yet another new school,
always difficult for me, all the more so because a) this was high
school, a big jump under any circumstances and b) I entered in the
middle of the school year after having accompanied my mother on what
was supposed to have been a six month sabbatical in Barcelona. And I
did not do well with new situations, or school, in the best of
circumstances.

(We came home a month and a half into it, around late October, I
think. There were a lot of factors contributing to my mother’s
decision to bail; I only mention it here because I now remember that
among those factors was an “illness” I had that in fact hadn’t started
as an illness at all. Rather, I had had one of my patented
girl-inspired blushing fits in class, one that drew me enough attention
that I ended up chalking it up to a mysterious sickness I felt coming
on, throwing in some plausible-sounding if exotic symptoms that bought
me an early dismissal from school as well as a trip to a dubious
doctor. I still suspect that the antibiotics the guy prescribed me
were what brought on the *real* symptoms that eventually led my mother
to throw in the towel).

And then to top it all off, of course, I had raging hormones, new
thoughts and feelings that left me feeling more like an alien than ever
before, and no one to talk to about it, not really.

I don’t remember whose idea it first was for me to see a counselor,
ultimately. I know that the subject had been floated before, once,
when I was ten and approaching anorexia. This time, whoever first
brought it up, I *wanted* to go, I do know that. I don’t know what I
expected a counselor to do for me, exactly; or whether my parents knew,
either; or whether we had, in fact, the same ideas at all about what
exactly about me needed to be fixed. All my folks probably knew was
that I was desperately unhappy, and seemed to be getting worse. The
sexuality thing, well...perhaps that was something that should be
talked about, too, sure, with someone who knew about these things. An
authority.

So we found someone, I don’t remember how, or what her actual
credentials were. A garrulous, grandmotherly-looking woman. She had a
cozy little office in a converted house on a tree-lined street, like
many professionals in my quiet hometown. And she had her opinions.
Quite firm ones. Some of them were helpful and some of them were
probably less so. The one that had the most lasting effect, though,
was the one I’d really come in about, whether or not my parents knew
this was the main thing on my mind (I thought they did, but there has
been a certain amount of forgetting and revisionist history on several
sides)--anyway, and to wit: no, she didn’t think I was gay, not really.
In fact, she seemed sure of it. Certainly she was surer than I was.
But then, she was older, and wiser, and--more important--louder. Most
important, she told me what I thought I wanted to hear.

In other words, I wasn't really feeling what I thought I was feeling.
(which seemed sort of okay, since nothing I was feeling was resulting
in anything good). I was "confused,” as adolescents are wont to be, I
was "obsessing," and, perchance, spending too much time on my own.
Which, in hindsight, well, DUH; but, also DUH, these things are not
mutually exclusive with sapphic inclinations. According to her,
though, said inclinations were something apart, something one really
wanted to consider every other plausible explanation for before
accepting the possibility that they might just mean what they seemed to
mean. Oh, she didn't say this, of course. Not *exactly.* But, for
instance, she just really didn't see me living "that lifestyle." (I
wish now I’d asked her what that lifestyle consisted of; it might have
given me some ideas...) What did I know? I believed her. ...And, of
course, I didn't believe her. Not really. But even conditional
reassurance that I was okay was better than nothing, I guess. At least
till the last round of soothing noises wore off. So I kept getting
more and more tearful and despondent. And obsessive, yes. Cognitive
dissonance
will do that to you.

The interesting thing, for me, in retrospect, was the relative
subtlety of the process, and how, in a way, it might've been worse than
if she’d flat out said something along the lines of "Gay people do
not have blood in their veins like yours and mine, but a sticky black
ichor..." My family was never religious and always socially liberal;
my mother had a couple of gay (male, much older, and probably not
really approachable even if I'd been so inclined) acquaintances even
back then. Insecure as I was, I probably would've recognized
out-and-out homophobia, especially with an overtly religious message
attached, as the pernicious bullshit that it was. Maybe, *maybe*, I
would've gone from there to figuring, "hey, if she's wrong about
*that*, then maybe she's wrong about me, too. Maybe I should put my
trust in myself instead of this person." Maybe.

Instead, what I got was a barrage of outdated "tests"--draw a tree,
for instance--and being told that most genuinely "sexually confused"
people draw a split trunk, whereas my trunk was straight! And being
subjected to lots of stories from this more-or-less kindly,
grandmotherly-looking person about her own youth (she wasn't real big
on actual listening, this particular counselor, I suspect). And having
special sessions with a *male* counselor, on account of (I think this
was probably the theory) I didn't trust/like men sufficiently, or get
enough strokes from them or something, and needed a proper model. This
wanna-be SNAG doofus told me about his childhood weight issues, and
how he still struggled with them sometimes, and how I really must go
out and see "The Princess Bride," because "you *are* a princess, you
know."

That was the year--first and only--that I and my family ended up
attending synagogue--first a local Reform one, then a Conservative one
whose rabbi was a bit friendlier. My nice humanist heathenish parents
were probably convinced by the therapist that I needed more
after-school activities and more socialization, which was probably
true, in and of itself. I can't recall the temple stuff having any
long-lasting impact on me one way or the other; both synagogues were
fairly laid-back, they *did* get me out of the house, with other people
my age, and away from my endless ruminations, which, again, in and of
itself, was undoubtedly a good thing. Interesting, though; it didn't
hit me until much, much later that the counselor had specifically
recommended that there be a *religious* aspect to my structured
activity. I remember--just--asking her "why?" and her answering
something evasive, yet firm.

Another suggestion of hers led to my attending one of John Robert
Powers’ eight-week modelling workshops, along with my supposed best
friend at the time, who knew nothing about the subtext of all this (and
who had said a number of actively homophobic things in my presence. i
don't think we ever really liked each other). Workshops of this ilk
were not new to me, of course. I'd taken dance and acting and suchlike
all through my youth, at my own request. Once again, in hindsight, it's
pretty clear that this was meant to be some sort of getting me in
touch with my feminine self-esteem, or some such, which is hilarious,
because I was ridiculously femmey as a child--hated sports, loved
makeup, had two-inch nails in various art-deco colors, room as pink as
I wanted it to be. So I enjoyed the modelling lessons without much
thought as to their purpose. I *was* distracted by the female
modelling teacher, not in any straightforward way by this time; I
remember staring at her nose in some anxiety and thinking "wow, her
nose is really straight. I wish my nose were like that." (This was
another of counselor's tenets, one I'm sure is familiar to others:
essentially, "you're looking at women because you want to BE them, not
DO them.")

Oh, yes, there was the session where the modelling teacher asked all
us girls how many of us wanted to get married. Everyone raised their
hands but me. Oddly enough, I felt totally comfortable in not
necessarily wanting to be married, as my mother had gone out of her way
to emphasize that career and my own happiness (ha) was at least as
important as getting The Ring. Meanwhile, I was turning beet red in
English class whenever the teacher mentioned the word "gay," even out
of context, sure that EVERYONE knew and was looking at me. ("John Gay
was an author...") Part of this is standard adolescence angst, of course;
and yet, today I think: was this trip really necessary?

Really, in many ways I think these counselors' beliefs and techniques
were not all that different from the so-called ex-gay groups, except
that they didn't push an overtly Christian agenda. (My parents
would've pulled me out the door in a hot minute if they'd tried).
Years later, in grad school, I was fascinated by the ex-gay stuff
coming over the news and worked it into a play. Despite the fact that
the character in question was a hyper-anxious adolescent who saw a very
familiar sort of secular counselor before putting herself at the
mercies of the fundie Christian Beverly LaHaye type character, I never quite made the degree of the connection until--well, now, more or less.

and of course, I still find these people morbidly fascinating:

On growing up with incipient queerness in the 'burbs, post New-Wave, pre-'Net

Every once in a while little jolts will come back to me, like some
kind of cheezy, noxious Proustian trip--poisonous green Lick 'Em Aid
powder and warm Coke instead of the madeleines in lime-flower tea.

I remember selling bags of candy, including aforementioned green
powder, for the "thespian" group (har har HAR har, snerk), and now I'm
thinking: how fucked up was that, that even the damn drama club had no
identifiable drama fags, much less dykes? Oh, our teacher was a
classic, all right: Mr. F--, and he meant every sibilant syllable of
it. He was also an utter tool. The annual school play was invariably
something like "Winne the Pooh" or "Alice in Wonderland." I was a
card, one year, for the latter. Big, unwieldy cardboard
costume in which I had to maneuver out onto a second-story catwalk,
with no lights. My fellow "card" was a freckly girl who admired my
onyx necklace, which she insisted was called "oinks." it's "onyx," I
said. no, she said, it's OINKS.

I was never publicly identified as queer, at least to my knowledge,
but I was already well-trained to act like a hunted rabbit by years of
outcast "nerd" status: newfound sapphic feelings were just icing on the
cake, really. Funnily enough, I don't think girls ever *were* called
"dykes," or rarely, even if they were noticably butch. Oh, there were
the odd locker room harassment moments, of course. ("Hey, me and my
friend were wondering why you never say hello." "Yeah, it really hurts
my feelings. Why are you so unfriendly?" "She likes you. You're
hurting her feelings by not saying hello. She loves you; she's a lez!
Har, HAR!")

Still, I don't remember any girl being *seriously* considered queer;
possibly, like Queen Victoria, my classmates didn't think they really
existed. "Two women?" said one guy in my "thespian" troupe, apropos of
I don't remember what. "Wow!" "Leslie," I believe his name was. Or:
"So who do you like?" I was asked by one perky female classmate. "A
guy? No [answering herself, with a "duh" implication]--a girl! No,
really, who do you like?"

On the other hand, the boys scrupulously policed each other for the
slightest signs of deviance. A lavender T-shirt could earn derision
for the rest of the week; one kid, already unpopular but never
particularly tarred "gay" before, dressed in drag one Halloween and
spent the rest of the year, at least, trying, unsuccessfully, to live
it down. The ribbing was not good-natured. Hell, even the girls
sometimes commented about (themselves) appearing too "faggy." Anyway,
you were a lot more popular if you played sports and could run with the
boys, no matter which gender you were.

I was friends, at least for a while, with the designated fag: a
slight, pale, giggly, tiptoeing, fluttery-wristed, even (yes) lisping
aficianado of scarves, gymnastics, and Bette Midler, with the very
unfortunate name of Richard (Dick) Stone. I met Richard in seventh
grade; he'd not yet hit puberty, and yet already had a years-long
history of being hounded mercilessly as a faggot. It's quite possible
that he first found out what "gay" meant from sneering classmates, long
before any actual homoerotic feelings. We never discussed this,
anyway; from day one until the day we graduated, his theme remained
stubbornly that they all just thought he was gay (said with a roll of
the eyes) because he'd done gymnastics. Which really didn't make one
gay at all, you know. Not, he would hasten to add, that there was
anything wrong with, you know, being that way. Followed by extremely
unconvincing description of his last date with his "girlfriend," and/or
poring over the illustrations in a male fashion magazine ("I really
like that hairdo...and that jacket...I think it'd look good on me,
don't you?") with a kind of taut, crackling, breathless tension that
was all too familiar to me from similar sessions with Cosmo. But I
never said anything. I doubt he would have wanted to hear it even if
I'd been capable.

Narnia lip, there, pal.

So what if it's from Disney. So what if some people want to claim the film as a vindication for "Christian moviemaking" and C.S. Lewis as an allegorical prophet--hey, at least presumably Aslan's death isn't a protracted snuff film. So what if, visually stunning as the previews look, the magnificent lion still seems, well, a teeny bit risible, when it opens its jaws and starts to talk in that genteel British voice. It's mythic! It's seminal! It's got Tilda Swinton as a nine-foot tall dominatrix! I am so there.

Friday, November 25, 2005

The next Thanksgiving, Bush was taking no chances.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Oh, fine. Christ's death, Michael Jackson's overdraft, EVERYTHING's our fault.

You know, I might even be willing to share some responsibility for that Jesus fellow, ("we did it, signed, Morty") but getting blamed for Jacko's problems is just GOING TOO FAR.

Jacko's sicko Jewish rant

Michael Jackson picked a familiar target to blame for his mounting money problems - the Jews.

In phone messages obtained by ABC News, the apparently prejudiced pop star likens them to "leeches" and claims they conspired to leave him "penniless."

"They suck...they're like leeches...I'm so tired of it," Jackson tells
former adviser Dieter Wiesner in one of them. "The Jews do it on purpose."

***

Oh, and by the way: where the fuck is my International Zionist Conspiracy (tm) membership card? I need a seven and a half million advance, too! As soon as possible!

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

The first Thanksgiving, as explained by Trillin.

In England, long ago, there were people called Pilgrims who were very
strict about making sure everyone observed the Sabbath and cooked food
without any flavor and that sort of thing, and they decided to go to
America, where they could enjoy Freedom to Nag. The other people in
England said, "Glad to see the back of them." In America, the Pilgrims
tried farming, but they couldn't get much done because they were
always putting their best farmers in the stocks for crimes like
"Suspicion of Cheerfulness." The Indians took pity on the Pilgrims and
helped them with their farming, even though the Indians thought the
Pilgrims were about as much fun as teenage circumcision. The Pilgrims
were so grateful that at the end of their first year they invited the
Indians over for a Thanksgiving meal. The Indians, having had some
experience with Pilgrim cuisine during the year, took the precaution of
taking along one dish of their own. They brought a dish that their
ancestors had learned many generations before from none other than
Christopher Columbus, who was known to the Indians as "that big Italian
fellow." The dish was spaghetti carbonara--made with pancetta bacon
and fontina and the best imported prosciutto. The Pilgrims hated it.
They said it was "heretically tasty" and "the work of the devil" and
"the sort of thing foreigners eat." The Indians were so disgusted that
on the way back to their village after dinner one of them made a
remark about the Pilgrims that was repeated down through the years and
unfortunately caused confusion among historians about the first
Thanksgiving meal. He said, "What a bunch of turkeys!"

--Calvin Trillin, "The Tummy Trilogy"

***

Happy T-day, all you tasty heretics.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Once again, cats add dignity to Bushes.

Catlebrity does it again:



As a side note: what is it with evil Republican men and cats, anyway? Frist. Ashcroft. DeLay.
Oh, wait, sorry, that last was actually more about some cats' opinion of DeLay rather than the other way around, wasn't it. Well, six of one.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Bush: Heart of Dorkness

"President Bush tugged at both handles on the double doors before admitting: 'I was trying to escape. Obviously, it didn't work.'"




"Mr Bush answered a range of questions before one reporter said: 'Respectfully, sir - you know we're always respectful - in your statement this morning with President Hu, you seemed a little off your game, you seemed to hurry through your statement. There was a lack of enthusiasm. Was something bothering you?'

The president answered: 'Have you ever heard of jet lag? Well, good. That answers your question.'

The reporter asked for a follow-up question but the president then thanked the attending journalists and said: 'No you may not.'"

***

I was sure at first that that had to be a photoshop; but no, it's from the BBC. . Then I was trying to remember where I'd seen that expression on his face before. Finally it hit me:



..actually, now I'm looking at them both, the turkey one looks less ludicrous. At least the pinstripe suit's sort of dapper. Pic doesn't show if he has the highwater cuffs or the mysterious bulge in the back, of course.

I am just so proud, SO FUCKING PROUD, to be an American right now.

Catty is good.

The fine Catlebrity has found a way to make the scary Laura pics more palatable. I think we can all agree that this is a vast improvement:



Actually, I think that's a good look for Camilla. Pointy ears and blonde sideburns/whiskers suit her. Maybe "cat face" could be the "dorky hat" for the 00's royalty.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Activism for the broke and/or lazy

Click at the Animal Rescue Site daily, along with the other worthy sites they link to (save the rainforest, fund free mammograms...) Hey, every little bit helps!

When men were men and women were up to their kishkes in sprogs and laundry, cont'd


If you, too, want to breed and homeschool like it's 1849, (or 1649, or 1349...), you can get your supplies here: The Vision Forum. It's actually kind of terrific, if you have a Ren Faire for Puritans jones.

F'r instance, there's the "Classic Knights Collection:"



"Now your little crusader can defend home and family with these magnificently hand-painted figurines."

Also: "Boys of Grit Who Changed The World!" "Backyard Ballistics!" "the Great Dinosaur Mystery Solved!" (by Creationists, natch) and Much Much More!



Sadly, there aren't nearly as many offerings for the girls. Although: they do have the complete Elsie Dinsmore library. (Then again, you could just read those here, assuming you wanted to). Later, anxious parents can find out how to keep their lovely daughter a spotless bride (it's a 19th century receipt for Clorox, applied with a charming 17th century pewter scrubbing brush and turkey baster).



The author of all this, one Doug Phillips,




interests me not just because he's making a living off of a kind of role-playing approach to "The Handmaid's Tale," but because he's apparently also the son of Howard Phillips, who's been doing a fair bit of political moving and shaking to make that vision a reality for the rest of us.

Howard, in turn, interests me not just because he's played a big part in the Christian Reconstructionists' political influence these past few decades or so, but because he was born a nice Jewish boy; then, inspired by RJ Rushdoony, converted to neo-Calvinism. I guess in some ways I can see it--it's a very Old-Testament sort of Biblical worldview these guys are pushing, after all--but, I dunno, it's just so embarassing, in sort of the same way that people like Mr. Anti-Sushi the Happy Het are embarrassing. Because, you know, you get that at some core level, they're embarrassed...by their own existence.

"Must...fit...into...dominant...paradigm..."

Or maybe it's just, you know, 'cause I'm a Jewish dyke and don't want any of that shit on me.

But, back to my last point, so while of course religious conversion happens for more legitimate and less self-hating reasons than "sexual orientation conversion," I still can't help thinking: whatever happened to baby Howie? Orthodox Judaism not patriarchal enough for you? Bad childhood experience with the rabbi and/or gefilte fish?

Or--just guessing here from son Doug's obsessions--is there something especially attractive about American Founding Fathers worship to this man, who, born in Boston and apparent enjoyer of many old-school privileges though he may have been, did not have his ancestors floated over on the Mayflower? And Rushdoony was an immigrant himself.

Pilgrim envy. Must sting. To believe so strongly in your place among the elect, to be so close to it in so many ways...and yet, there's this one little thing holding you back.

You birth sixteen kids, whaddya get...

...another day older, and deeper in debt (but they're working on it) Soon, the eighteen-member household will live in a place with more than three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

Thankfully, they don't owe their soul to anyone. Except the LORD.

I'm talking, of course, about the Duggar family. You may have seen or heard a reference in the news.



The woman is 39; she started having kids at 22; she and husband Jim Bob now have 16 kids, including two sets of twins; you do the math. ("If Michelle is 39, and she has 16 children, how many more years before she collapses from nervous exhaustion?")

Me, I dunno--I was never very good at math. But this bit by the aforementioned Michelle sort of had me worrying:

> It was 1:00 AM in the morning as I stood folding laundry with tears streaming down my cheeks. Feelings of being overwhelmed flooded my mind. I cried aloud, ”LORD I NEED YOUR HELP, I can’t do it all! I feel so inadequate! Diapers, dishes, laundry, meals, cleanup, school lessons, baths, hugs, kisses, correction…” My list seemed to go on and on.


***

But then, in her darkest hour, she sings a song of praise to the Lord--what would Job have done?--and the next day, He sends her a helpmate, in form of the (female--what'd you think?) piano teacher, who, it turns out, "loves" doing laundry and selflessly volunteers to come help her twice a week. God is good. (And Jim Bob is good, too, albeit apparently too manly to help with the washing and folding).

You can read about a typical day in their lives here. It all sounds very cozy and homely, in a Little House On The Prairie On Crank kind of way.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Well, my faith's at least somewhat restored today.

If by "faith" you mean not "blind ideology in a particular defined supernatural force" but an essential sense of trust. There are many things one can put one's faith in, despite increasingly shrill claims to the contrary. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party hasn't been one of them, for me at least, for a while; or, well, let's say we were having a dark night of the soul.

Anyway, I'm glad of the Corzine and Kaine victories last night, among others.

A line from this WP article about the Kaine win caught my eye:

"It presented an intriguing campaign model for Democrats, in which religious faith plays an important role."

I really do believe that's key. America is too deeply religious to just ignore the "faith" appeals. The only way to remove the theocratic-dominated Republican stranglehold on the country is to meet them on their own turf. We don't even need to talk God (although I think that liberals who're already "of faith" should feel more than free to use Scripture in their pull quotes and debates). Let's talk morality. Let's talk "good and evil." Because, while on the whole we're more equipped to look at shades of grey--and that is a good thing--there are, yes, some things that are just plain wrong. Lying to start an illegal war to benefit your plutocrat friends, for instance. Stealing from the poor, the sick, and the elderly to give to the super-rich. Is that What Jesus Would Do? Is that what a moral society would do? No.

Hypocrites, whited sepulchres, the lot of them; and good churchgoers damn well ought to understand that reference.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Nu, so I voted.

I ended up going ahead and voting for Ferrer. Yeah, I still have no real idea of how he would put his ideas into action, and he (along with the others) bored the crap out of me during the primary debates, AND he hadn't a chance in hell; but hey, I figured, symbolic vote for a symbolic Democrat. And, he has nice rosy cheeks.

I've mellowed somewhat on Bloomberg, who's I suppose not bad as affectless plutocrats go (311 is nice, yes); but I couldn't bring myself to vote for him. It's mainly that pesky Republican thing, most notably that he decided it would be a fine idea to let the alien lizards slither all over the damn place last year and not even clean up their mess. The fact that he bears a striking resemblance to Mr. Roper had nothing to do with it, I swear.






I did enjoy reading the voters' guide, I must say. I could've voted for Jimmy McMillan instead. "What is the most important issue in the city
you would address if elected?" "RENT is Too Damn High there is nothing
else to talk about." "What Other Important Issues Would You Address
If Elected? "RENT Is Too Damn High there is nothing else to talk
about."

Or, I could've voted for Audrey Silk, if I wanted to repeal the smoking ban and "create friendlier atmosphere for business." She wants us to know that not only did she graduate 6 months early from Lincoln High School, but she Skipped one grade at Mark Twain Junior High for the Gifted and Talented!

I really don't pay nearly as much attention to City Council (among other, less splashy jobs) as I should, I suppose. All I know is that Sklar, the Green running in my district, has been absolutely plastering the neighborhood with her flyers for over a month. She must really want to win, and/or have stock in a print shop. I was leaning toward *not* voting for her just because the paper avalanche annoyed me and I was getting her name stuck in my head (it's just an odd sound. sklar sklar sklar). but, I ended up voting for her based on her claimed commitment to fixing the pollution problem, especially in this part of Queens, which is, I learned recently, home to the nastiest, dirtiest power plant in NYC (Charles Poletti), among *many* others that are also nasty and dirty; so much so, in fact, that Western Queens is nicknamed an "Asthma Alley." Which makes so much sense. Never have I had so much shit with my allergies before I moved here; and I strongly suspect that it ain't pollen that's the main problem.

Also, she mentions closing Indian Point, which is definitely something that at least needs to be talked about, a *lot* more, and soon.

Blue jays outside my window this morning

A pair of them. They really are lovely little things.

I didn't expect to see jays in November here in NYC, any more than I expected this strangely springlike weather. I assumed both were probably due to global warming. But apparently while some blue jays migrate for the winter, others stay put. And yes, my guess upon seeing the two was right: they are monogamous. And the male feeds the female while she's incubating. It doesn't say on what. I imagine Haagen Daz.

Dull stuff to some, perhaps, but for me this is sort of exciting and new. I'd really like to learn more about nature. Partly in the spirit of awareness and respect for the greater universe, partly with the idea of "appreciate it while it's still here."

My family is definitely not of the earthy-crunchy persuasion. I still remember my grandmother (the one who grew up in Noo Yawk but no longer lives here) proclaiming one day, "I don't like nature. I'd rather have an ice cream soda." Which makes sense if you stop and think about it, really. Nature; ice cream soda. Nature; ice cream soda.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Horror has a face.



"But because of me, through my mediation with my master, the lord of flies....here all of you, unworthy though you may be, will be safe from the Red Death. We promise you....unless, of course, you incur our displeasure..."







"This is your aristocracy. This is your aristocracy on meth."

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Hot! Republican!! Porn!!!

Apparently there's quite a lot of it.


"...Libby has a lot to live up to as a conservative author of erotic fiction. As an article in SPY magazine pointed out in 1988, from Safire (“[She] finally came to him in the bed and shouted ‘Arragghrrorwr!’ in his ear, bit his neck, plunged her head between his legs and devoured him”) to Buckley (“I’d rather do this with you than play cards”) to Liddy (“T’sa Li froze, her lips still enclosing Rand’s glans . . .”) to Ehrlichman (“ ‘It felt like a little tongue’ ”) to O’Reilly (“Okay, Shannon Michaels, off with those pants”), extracurricular creative writing has long been an outlet for ideas that might not fly at, say, the National Prayer Breakfast. In one of Lynne Cheney’s books, a Republican vice-president dies of a heart attack while having sex with his mistress...

So, how does Libby stack up against the competition? This question was put to Nancy Sladek, the editor of Britain’s Literary Review, which, each year, holds a contest for bad sex writing in fiction. (In 1998, someone nominated the Starr Report.) Sladek agreed to review a few passages from Libby. “That’s a bit depraved, isn’t it, this kind of thing about bears and young girls? That’s particularly nasty, and the other ones are just boring,” she said. “God, they’re an odd bunch, these Republicans.” Unlike their American counterparts, she said, Tories haven’t taken much to sex writing. “They usually just get caught,” she said."


Personally, I'm hoping these words become inextricably linked with ol' Scoot's legacy:

"'He asked if they should fuck the deer.'

The answer, reader, is yes."