My Culturally Rooted Tangent

I sang at choir in the church basement tonight. Please, laugh away.

Yes, I'm a good Irish Catholic lady who practiced with fellow choir members for two and a half hours -- less a twenty minute break in which we drank wine or beer and ate hors d'ourves. (You can refill your glass at the end of break so you have sustenance for the second half of practice!)

Since I am grooving on my catholicism tonight, I shall make confession. I love singing! It's challenging fighting all of the complications of harmony (so appropros on so many levels), it is so challenging fighting all of the bullshit of organized religion -- but somehow set it to music and I feel it. So many conflicts, but goddammit -- I'm still a fucking catholic!

Excuse me, Irish Catholic.

See, that differential is significant. I don't buy into that political pope crap. I also grew up with several guys who killed themselves because they were destroyed by the tragedy of being raped by priests. I imagine one of them as a significant image in the Jungian Archetypical Heaven now. He was golden and beautiful and Michelangelo would have painted him as the Archangel Michael. And I was taught to practice catholicism by 13 years of catholic school and my Irish catholic grandma and Jesuits and a book of the saints. So really and obviously, I'm an overanalyzing, superstitious woman. But aren't those the qualities that keep religion solid, stable and historical?

The point I was trying to make a minute ago is I don't pray to Jesus or God. I think pure, unsinful beings are unapproachable (and a load of misogynistic, hallucinogenic bullshit). I am the product of faith passed on from the oppressed -- pray to your mother and your friends and family, the Blessed Mother and the saints.

And the name is also significant. I was not taught to pray to the Virgin Mary; I was taught to pray to the Blessed Mother. Recite both of those names to yourself and see who you want to call on to assist you in your petitions. Tonight I stood on a bridge that rocked over the Chicago River while singing "Gentle Woman" to a a gift of urban nature which always blesses me. Blessed Mother, thank you for your children.

And tonight I also sang with the church choir -- even "Danny Boy" (yuck) which according to the music notes was published in "Londonderry" rather than Derry. I hate "Danny Boy". Over-played and praising saccharine martyrdom to The Man.

We should sing "The Wind That Shakes the Barley". It's a more valuable theme and it relates better to the times.

"Twas hard the woeful words to frame

To break the ties that bound us.

But harder still to bare the shame

Of foreign chains around us."

Today, the foreign chains are made of different steels. In this millennium, foreign does not refer to other nations and cultures, but rather, multinational corporate persecutors. We are cuffed by different oppressors but we are all still trapped.

And now to quote a catholic from a different culture: "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees."

So let us pray.

"Look at the people. Watch them pass but don't follow them..."

I hate myself right now. I feel like Bukowski only I can't drink, so I'm unable to write poetry or get seduced by multiple women in their twenties even though I am bulging and aging, too.

Why can't I write poetry because I'm not drinking? My friend (and ex-lover or whatever) is a performance poet. He told me he quit drinking for six months once and he couldn't write even one poem. Then he said, Screw sobriety. This is pointless! And I think I agree with him.

What is the point of following all of the ragged rules of boredom and convention? I quit bartending and now I file endless reams of paperwork. Also, I have all of these stupid health problems, I weigh oodles more, I'm constantly fighting with my natural sleep cycle and I'm not getting lotsa loving. Everyone wants to fool around with the bartender/poet but nobody wants to bother with the fucking Program Coordinator. Another friend (and ex-lover or whatever) is a farmer and says this is Mother Nature messing with me so either I learn precise organization (whether or not I value it) or else I'll drown in the next flood or get strangled by red tape.

When I used to be a young hippie punk mama only using herbal remedies, I was raising my son on bar tips and spending our free time mountain climbing or soaking in the springs. Now I'm a paper file organizer, an excel budget designer, a weight gainer, decreasing in health and memory but caring for people with severe anal missle retentions and more importantly, those suffering from hearing the voices and oddly linked thoughts which doctors try to treat with pharmaceuticals. And our studies are being funded by the pharma companies, of course.

Way back in the day (1000 years ago) people like our patients might have been respected as the shaman of the tribe and although they might live in solitude a mile away from the rest of their people and although their predictions may or may not have been true, at least they valued and trusted themselves and were respected by the tribe.

The prediction of a very cold winter or the tribe needing to do battle with another living down the river may have been heard from the schizophrenic shaman's internal voices or sensed by her paranoia or perhaps even connected with her delusion. Maybe it wasn't a truly divine enlightened prediction as much as a statement of the perpetually obvious in a tone that was cryptic. Or maybe this type of future descriptive insight and understanding is brought on by a perfectly proportional brain?

Maybe enlightenment and psychosis are relational. The words psychotic and psychic are separated with nothing more than an O and T. Separated by nothing more than respecting the differences as opposed to prosecuting them or infiltrating them with chemicals (like when I drink after a bad day at work or an old man swallows viagra or those few people who are still employed take Ritalin or Concerta each morning to make it through the day).

Or maybe I just don't know what to do with myself.

(P.S., I found the picture in this post at a site called My Health Guardian.)

(P.P.S. The title is part of a line from a poem written by a lady I used to work with & for.)

Teabagging... really?

The teabaggers are protesting. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
Just goes to show that your uber social conservatives are usually the closet kinkmeisters.

I'm not even going to look for pictures for you. Insert your own mental picture.

Conservative tools!

Use Your Words

The definition of socialism from the Oxford English Dictionary:

1. A theory or policy of social organization which aims at or advocates the ownership and control of the means of production, capital, land, property, etc., by the community as a whole, and their administration or distribution in the interests of all.

2. A state of society in which things are held or used in common.

When greedy Wall Street motherfuckers and soulless bankers expect the tax payers to pay their multimillion dollar bonuses (not salaries, bonuses) that is not socialism. One could correctly state that AIG received the biggest welfare check ever written in the history of the world. One could correctly call AIG and every other corporate pirates of public trusts THIEVES and TERRORISTS holding America hostage in hard times. But that does not make Obama a socialist. Get it straight. Use your words.

This endless, unaccountable handout to AIG and the continued refusal to bring Bush and Cheney up on charges (for obstructing justice, treason, war crimes, torture, etc.) DOES make Obama and his party a bunch of wimps (especially when Obama tries to "reach across the aisle" to Republicans with their never-ending mantra of tax breaks for the wealthy... FUCK BIPARTISANSHIP AND THE REPUBLICAN FORKED TONGUE IT SLID IN ON. They lost 2 elections in a row by a wide margin. Stop kissing their asses because they have no cachet. You'd be better off reaching out to the Greens and Libertarians and let's all of us together shoot that elephant dead once and for all.)



PS .... The OED is the greatest book ever written and if one insists on reading ONLY one book in their life (which I think is stupid, demented and pathological) then please, do the world a giant favor and make it the Oxford English Dictionary instead of that gory collection of ancient Hebrew myths and the re-working or the Osiris legend as told by the Holy Roman Emperor Constantine to keep an unwieldy empire in check. The OED is much more relevant and much less incendiary. Thank you for doing your part to make a better humanity.

Dear Mr. Limbaugh,

Failure is impossible.

-- Susan B. Anthony, noted American Suffragist and Abolitionist

(Two words that Rush Limbaugh can not define.)

Goodbye and Good Luck

In 5 short days it'll be like waking up in a jail cell with a bad hangover, an overwhelming sense of shame and the need to bankroll quickly and cleanly to cover court costs and attorney fees...

It'll feel almost exactly like that, except a hundred thousand times worse.

I still feel dirty... so should you.

VOTE!!!

VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!!

If anyone tries to challenge and/ or prevent you from voting, demand a provisional ballot and use your phone to get video of them.

Do not let anyone -- especially and including anyone working in a polling place -- prevent you from voting.

If you don't vote, the terrorists win.

Brutual Truths on Election Eve

If you've been reading this blog, you know that I get pretty irate and vocal about the frequency of election theft in the U.S. -- specifically Federal races stolen by Republicans under Bush's voter "reform" laws designed after the Supreme Court appointed him President in 2000. It's a big problem. As Greg Palast says,

Here's an ugly little secret about American democracy: We don't count all the
votes. In 2004, based on the data from the US Elections Assistance Commission,
3,006,080 votes were not counted: "spoiled," unreadable and blank ballots;
"provisional" ballots rejected; mail-in ballots disqualified.

This Tuesday, it will be worse. Much worse.

That's what I found while traveling the nation over the last year for BBC Television and Rolling Stone Magazine, working with voting rights attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. This we guarantee: there will be far more votes disappeared by Tuesday night than the three million lost in 2004. A six-million vote swipe, quite likely, shifts 4 percent of the ballots, within
the margin of error of the tightest polls.

Go out and vote!!! Go out and vote!!! Go out and vote!!!
(...and let's be vigiliant and vocal about the returns...)

I did not drink the kool-aid...

I am very, very tired of being told that I have been brain-washed, or that I drank the kool-aid, or that I think Obama is a savior or that I can't decide for myself sinceI support Senator Obama for President because I think he is the best man for the job today.

First of all, the opposite of the kool-aid rumor is true. Every person who mindlessly forwards these anti-Obama, panicky, who is Barack Obama really??? emails is not thinking for themselves. All you have to do is the littlest bit of research and you can find out everything you want to know about the man.

But some people are too lazy to do research. Some people would rather forward sensational and ridiculous emails than read the facts and make a mature decision based on those facts and not on their personal fears.

Some people would rather stand silently by while election after election after election is stolen from the voters. They would rather be manipulated with and by fear than look the beast in the eye once and for all.

Some people have been drinking an awful lot of the Rove kool-aid for many, many years. And boy oh boy, that Sarah Palin just keeps ladling it out to you in non-biodegradable styrofoam cups and you just swallow, swallow, swallow as you press the forward button on your email again and and again. Forwarding sugary nonsense and plotless ghost stories like:

Is Barack Obama really a man? I've never seen his penis. Hmm... if he's really a man with nothing to hide, why doesn't he drop trow in front of the whole country on Fox news???

OR:

Did you know Barack Obama is married to a black woman??? And she has a funny name the starts with "Mi" and ends in "chelle"? Like that Beatles song??? Was she Paul's lover??? I want to see her marriage license to Barack Obama right now!!! I don't believe that they are really married because Paul McCartney wrote a song about her when she was just a little girl, so clearly she must have been married to Paul McCartney first.

And did you know that Michelle Obama graduated from college??? Two times???? Her thesis is on the google and I have a friend of a friend of an imaginary friend who saw it on the google and it said "white people are sometimes racist" and is that the kind of first lady we want representing our country at fashion shows around the world???? A wife and mother who went to college??? Can you imagine??? What for??? Where is her diploma??? What kind of uppity elite does she think she is with her college and her children and her husband and her house??? Obviously, she hates America or she would have nothing at all and like it!!! Unpatriotic elite college-educated mother!!! Let's see her birth certificate!!! I'll just be she's a robot!!!

I just don't trust that Barack Obama. I don't know what it is... I just don't trust him. I just don't trust him, I don't know what it is... Who does he think he is with his funny name??? How dare he go to college??? His mother got divorced twice!!! If he were for real and not an elite he would have wallowed in misery. How dare the child of a single mother take advantage of the educational opportunities in this country and run for President??? Who does he think he is??? He sure is uppity!!! He just doesn't know his place! Only the rich and inbred are allowed to run for president in my America! You can't trust anybody who doesn't understand that simple fact. Clearly he's a terrorist!!!

And yesterday in Tennessee, the FBI broke up a ring of skinheads who were planning on assassinating Senator Barack Obama and beheading dozens and dozens of African-American high school students. (I will not post photos of ose deluded, attention-seeking sociopaths. Here is a "rendition" of them to the left.)

Somehow, those violent skinheads just didn't trust the good American people and their lying, stupid emails to keep Obama out of the Oval Office, so they stockpiled their firearms and decided to take out the next generation of possibly uppity dark-skinned elites for good measure.

And somewhere in Dubai, Karl Rove types another email while veiled belly dancers serve him tea...

Rep. Michelle Bachmann is NOT "Minnesota Nice"!

Meet Rep. Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota. She and her BFF are pictured here joyfully stuffing their faces with ice cream. Why are they so joyful? Maybe they're watching video of water board sessions at Guantanamo Bay???

You may remember Ms. Bachmann's Minnesota Nice speech from the GOP convention, delivered while the nice St. Paul police force was arresting journalists from left wing news sources.

Today, Michelle Bachmann told Chris Matthews on Hardball that she wants every "anti-american" member of Congress -- especially Barack and Michelle Obama -- investigated for their "anti-american activities".

Like what?

Is she concerned about treasonous acts like outing an undercover CIA agent in a war zone for purposes of petty personal revenge? Is she referring to suspending habeas corpus? Or maybe the anti-american activities she's talking about involve torturing prisoners of war at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay?

Rep. Bachmann, there is no room for McCarthyism in this day and age. Pack up your bags,lady. There is an election in November and I sure do hope the very nice people of Minnesota's 6th District are about to hand a Representative's seat to your opponent, Elwyn Tinklenberg. He reports that donations have suddenly started pouring into his campaign office.

Do you need some money?

Well, then get to work! Democracy is a participatory process so you'd better start participating while we still (kinda) have a Democracy. Let's call our Senators and stop this bailout.
*****

You know you are cheap and you don't want to give $430 of your blood, sweat and tears to save the bankers and the Wall Street CEOs. I'm sure you could really use that $430 to heat your house this December or to fill up your gas tank or to buy groceries this month, because maybe you already lost your job.

*****

And don't believe that scary story about how we're all going to starve to death and suffer another Great Depression if we don't give $700 billion dollars to the bankers, CEOs and stockbrokers RIGHT NOW. Repeat this next part out loud, right now: No one is going to die if the bankers and stock brokers and CEOs do not get $700 billion dollars. At worst, the CEOs won't get their Holiday bonus.

*****

When was the last time you got a Holiday Bonus? I know when I got MY last Holiday Bonus. It was December of 2000.

*****

And who came up with this whole bailout scheme in the first place? Oh, yeah! The same guy who moved into the Oval Office two months after I got my last Holiday Bonus. Coincidence?

*****

Why can't Bush just get Halliburton to pay some taxes on all of their brazillion death dollars in government contracts in Iraq? Plus, they should pay back the millions in taxpayer dollars they "lost". I know it's only about 10% of what Bush says his filthy rich cronies need, but I bet we can come up with 10 more similar plans.

*****

For example, eliminating the $64 million going to every CEO of every bankrupt company -- I bet that comes to another 5 or 10%. Bush could throw in 10%, and so can every Senator who votes in favor of the bailout.

*****

And I've read a couple of things that are beginning to convince me that this bailout -- which will cost us more money than the Occupation of Iraq -- is not really going to save the economy. It could hurt the economy, as any $700 billion dollar expenditure will. (Here is a very informative article by Dean Baker and here is another one and here is one from the Washington Post and here is a whole list of them from a google search.)

*****

So if you haven't called your Senators to oppose this bullshit bailout, you'd better get on it -- they are voting on the bill at 9 pm ET tonight (10/01). Click on this to find both of your Senators' phone numbers. Then call and say, "I am a Constituent of Senator Blasé Blah and I vote and I volunteer time to campaigns I believe in. Tell Senator Blasé Blah to vote NO on the Bail Out Bill."

*****

If the Bill passes the Senate (which it will if you don't stop reading this and call both of your Senators RIGHT NOW) then call your Representative in Congress. Most likely, this version of the Bailout plan will be back for a vote in the House on Friday. You can see how your Representative voted on Monday here. (Make sure you note the total crap title of the Bill, as well.) Then you can encourage them to keep up the good work this Friday, or tell them to either change their position on Friday or pick up the want ads next month.

And go hear what Rep. Marcy Kaptur had to say about the bailout on JoeC's blog.

Voter Fraud Watch Redux

Remember November 2000? In Florida, where W's brother just happened to be governor, all of those ballots marked Gore had to be thrown out and in violation of the US Constitution, the Supreme Court dubbed W. "the Decider".

What about 2004? When the Department of Justice engaged in vote caging, and used dubious tactics to bar deployed military personnel and minorities and lower income people from voting. That, coupled with the votes lost due to "technical problems" in Ohio, points to yet another presidential election stolen by BushCo.

Now it's 2008 and BushCo's fat cat friends don't want to give up their lucrative, thieving ways -- and dammit, McCain is old and it is his turn to be President. So in Michigan, the Republicans are once again attempting to use vote caging -- by using foreclosure lists to prevent hard hit Michigan citizens from voting.

Can you imagine the scene at the polls???

Hard-Working, Laid-Off, Tax-Paying Citizen Ruined By BushCo ("Citizen"): I'm John Q. Public. May I please have my ballot?

Heartless, Greedy, Unpatriotic Asshole GOP Election Judge ("Unpatriotic GOP Asshole"): Let me see... hmmmm.... I'm very sorry, Mr. Public. You won't be voting today.

Citizen: What do you mean? I've been coming to this polling place for 20 years!

Unpatriotic GOP Asshole: Yes. But you are no longer a homeowner in this area. You lost your home. You can't pay your bills. You don't get to vote.

Citizen: I lost my home because the factory where I've been working for the last 25 years moved to China. My heating bill tripled and my daughter developed leukemia from drinking polluted water. Now we rent an apartment in this precinct with another family. It's crowded, but at least our kids didn't have to change schools. Now, please hand me my ballot. Besides, property ownership is not a voting requirement. Does the GOP even know how to spell constitution anymore? (authors note: please see Constitutional Amendments 14, 15, 19, 24 and 26.)

Unpatriotic GOP Asshole: I am so sorry you've had such a hard time, but that hard time is precisely why you CAN'T vote. We simply don't trust that you will continue to be a loyal Republican and if we think you won't vote for McCain, you lose your right to vote.

And the Democrats, in a surprising and long overdue display of chutzpah, ARE ACTUALLY CHALLENGING THIS BEFORE THEY LOSE ANOTHER ELECTION. The Democratic National Committee is taking the GOP to court in Michigan and in Ohio, their Secretary of State has stricken the dubious vote caging policies put in place before the election in 2004 by her Republican predecessor.

Ohio Republicans are crying foul -- because today's Republican policy makers see a level playing field as a threat to their continued looting and tyranny. It is the only thing they see clearly these days. However, 2 Ohio "voters" are now suing Ohio for not weighting their votes more heavily, by throwing out the votes of others. Ohio Republicans are also attempting to challenge voters via foreclosure listings. Boy, those Republicans really put country first! Not! Actually, Republicans are trying to prevent homeless citizens (whose numbers have greatly increased during BushCo's tenure) from voting at all anywhere in the country. Now THAT'S compassionate conservatism and good, old fashioned patriotism. Sure, sure, sure!!!

Go, Obama, go! We're from Chicago and you can't trick us, you GOPpy, crappy, pansy, crybaby neocons. We INVENTED voter fraud back when your great-granddaddies were still getting pantsed at Andover and we reformed ourselves long before John McCain took bribes from Charles Keating during the Savings and Loan Scandal.

We are on to you crooks and you aren't getting away with it this time.

Reading Is FUNdamental

Like so many fundaMENTALists, Governor Palin of Alaska has trouble separating fact from metaphor. For example, last night she stridently asserted that ...

Taxes are too high ... he (Obama) wants to raise them. His
tax increases are the fine print in his economic plan, and let me be specific.
The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes
... raise payroll taxes ... raise investment income taxes ... raise the death
tax ... raise business taxes ... and increase the tax burden on the American
people by hundreds of billions of dollars. My sister Heather and her husband
have just built a service station that's now opened for business — like millions
of others who run small businesses.

How are they going to be any better off if taxes go up? Or maybe you're trying to keep your job at a plant in Michigan
or Ohio ... or create jobs with clean coal from Pennsylvania or West Virginia
... or keep a small farm in the family right here in Minnesota.
How are you going to be better off if our opponent adds a massive tax burden to the American economy?

However, please see the chart below and note that excepting those people earning more than a quarter of a million dollars a year, Senator Obama's tax plan actually decreases income tax more than Senator McCain's plan. Senator Obama would create budget surplus, rather than Senator McCain's defecit. Maybe Governor Palin should clean her glasses.

The tax plans:

Incomes of: --Obama-- --McCain
$227,000 - a year - plus -- --$23,000 more-- --$15,000 less
$112,000 - $227,000-- --$2,300 less-- --$3,200 less
$66,000 - $112,000-- --$1,290 less-- --$1,009 less
$38,000 - $66,000-- --$1,042 less-- --$319 less
$19,000 - $38,000-- --$892 less-- --$113 less
$0 - $19,000-- --$567 less-- --$19 less

For everyone:

$4,000/yr /college student

Double the dependent credit to $7,000

Impact of tax changes on federal budget:

Obama's plan will return $700 billion

McCain's plan will cost us $600 billion
Source: Chicago Sun-Times

(Oh and FYI, John McCain has never voted in favor of a bill which would help small businesses or relieve their taxes or make those taxes equitable to big business. I don't know what Heather is going to do if McCain and Palin win the election in Novemeber.)

Governor Sarah Palin speaks in tongues.

Oh, and a shout out to Michael who sent me the candidate's tax plan chart.

Just in case you thought this would be a free election

In St. Paul, Minnesota -- where everybody is nice! -- they are arresting journalists and bloggers who are trying to cover the Republican National Convention, including Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! Maybe you would like to sign the petition, requesting that Nice St. Paul, Minn., nicely respect the constitution and a free press. Go here.

Also, please note that while you had to tune in to PBS last week to watch the Democratic Convention, all of the big 3 networks are broadcasting hour-long edited versions of the Republican Convention, including most of the bigger speeches.

(Like the one where W. remembers to say 9/11 for the eighty gazillion bajillionth time, and tangentially compares "the angry left" to the Vietcong who tortured McCain at the Hanoi Hilton. Yeah, you bet your flat ass I'm angry, W.)

And some of the things you might have missed watching the convention on ABC, CBS or NBC, included Big, Bad Barbara Bush of the Beautiful Brain laughing when hearing about the deaths of 13 people during a bridge collapse in Minnesota last year and Papa H.W. checking his watch while Laura rambled through her Halcyion high, smile plastered firmly to her stepford face.

Hurricanes - R - Us!!! -Greedy Oil Party

Vomit Out the Apple.

"Okay," Teddy said. He was sitting back in his chair, but his head was turned toward Nicholson. "You know that apple Adam ate in the Garden of Eden, referred to in the Bible?" he asked. "You know what was in that apple? Logic. Logic and intellectual stuff. That was all that was in it. So--this is my point--what you have to do is vomit it up if you want to see things as they really are. I mean if you vomit it up, then you won't have any more trouble with blocks of wood and stuff. You won't see everything stopping off all the time. And you'll know what your arm really is, if you're interested. Do you know what I mean? Do you follow me?"

"I follow you," Nicholson said, rather shortly.

"The trouble is," Teddy said, "most people don't want to see things the way they are. They don't even want to stop getting born and dying all the time. They just want new bodies all the time, instead of stopping and staying with God, where it's really nice." He reflected. "I never saw such a bunch of apple-eaters," he said. He shook his head.

-- "Teddy" by J.D. Salinger

So there I was with a 5 GB chip on my shoulder. I was having headaches. My shoulder hurt as if someone were shoving the point of a dagger in my rotator cuff. I was snapping at everyone and generally being an ass and I couldn't even stand myself anymore, I was so internally whiny. So I decided to get over it. Only I didn't know what the hell I was trying to get over.

Then I got angry -- illogically, unreasonably, indiscriminately angry. Only I still couldn't figure out why -- I mean aside from the usual racist, imperialist, misogynist, idiotic, commercialized, consumerist, egoist, tasteless, bunch of bad drivers freak nation which we try to pass off as a culture. But so what? I mean that gets to me everyday but I'm used to it, so whatever.

But it was getting to me, my anger shooting off my fingertips and zapping everyone around me and making my hands telegraph-tingle.

And I got mad and madder and maddest and this lasted for a few weeks. So I vented, spit and spewed all over my blog yesterday and I felt like I was released from an enforced vow of silence, and exhaled in relief.

And last night I went and saw a stupid, sappy musical with a bunch of ladies and I wasn't cynical about it, nor did I feel the need to bore the shit out of everyone with some long-winded didactic about our heterocentric society and the cult of marriage. I drank vodka and laughed with my family and listened to the jukebox.

I woke up this morning and I feel 100 lbs. lighter and I don't have any shoulder pain. I'm feeling so over myself -- but only in the very best way.

And I'm not angry at the apple eaters anymore for imposing some sort of soulless shopping mall reality on me. I create my own reality. I vomit out my apple and try to see anew.

Mad, mad, mad, mad, mad!!!

...You'll notice that what they have in common

is between the legs.

Is this why wars are fought?
Enemy territory, no man's

land, to be entered furtively,

fenced, owned but never surely,

scene of these desperate forays

at midnight, captures

and sticky murders, doctors' rubber gloves

greasy with blood, flesh made inert, the surge

of your own uneasy power.

This is no museum.

Who invented the word love?

-- Margaret Atwood, A Women's Issue

*****

Among the many things I do at work are diagnositc interviews. One of these is the SCID, a two to four hour structured clinical interview of the DSM IV. Yes, I work in psychiatry and whatever your feelings are about that, know that I do not just expect people to spill all of the crevices of their brain onto my pieces of paper. I give them a neutral, compassionate, reasonably consequence-free place to dump the crevices of their brain. (We do research, so no identifying personal information gets attached to these interviews.)

However, the diagnostic part of the interview is not the point I'm trying to make at the moment.

In the course of dumping the crevices of their brains, people will naturally tell you all about the dramatic peaks and (mostly) valleys that comprise their lives. I figure I have administered about one hundred SCIDs with women so far. And of those one hundred women, at least seventy of them report sexual abuse. As in assault or molestation, and rape.  Most of those seventy have serious mental health problems stemming from that rape or sexual assault or what-the-fuck-ever-it-gets-called. The law is very fond of specific gradations of how hard and deep a woman was fucked against her will, but is unable to make those subtle distinctions when it comes to other things like socio-economics or Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Al-Queda. That pisses me off a whole lot; so much so that I can only seem to use expletives to begin to describe to you the breadth and depth of my anger.

Aaahhh, my anger... I just finished reading the Tomato Rodriguez Trilogy by Erika Lopez. In book two, Tomato talks about getting really down with her anger, but not in the touchy-feely-talk-about-your-problems way. Rather, Tomato recommends painting it in red and decorating it with sequins and THAT is HOW MOTHERFUCKING SPARKLY RED RUBY SLIPPERS ANGRY I AM right now.

Because, you see one of the things we girls talked about over cigarettes during all of those group visits to the ladies room and also the endless high school pajama parties was all of the times everyone was raped. Or assaulted. Or pushed against a wall and felt up. Or pinned down in a tent by your boyfriend's best friend with halitosis. Or creeped out by a totally pervy teacher/ uncle/ cousin/ priest whom you made a point of never being alone with again because of his hairy, scary hugs. And then he added insult to injury by making you watch Beverly Hills Cop or an Arnold Schwarzenegger film festival or Die Hard or somesuch stupid shit.*

The other interesting-but-always-found-to-be-true-as-well thing La Lopez pointed out via Tomato R. was how acting slutty kind of prevents sexual assaults. Well, not exactly. Acting kind of slutty maybe prevents actual rapes, because by subtracting the innocent factor, Joe Blow will sometimes leave you alone. It might not turn him on. Of course, by acting slutty to save yourself, most of the time you're just pretending that the inevitable is consensual and thereby saving your psyche a bruise or two. But so what? Who cares if the line between raped and slut is only in your own mind? All's fair in love and war and it's a thin line between love and hate and whatever gets you through the night, babydoll.

You know, like pretending you didn't give a shit when smelly old men would help themselves to a handful of your ass while your arms were full of the beers they just ordered for all of their buddies. So you stomped on the toe of their boot really hard but that toe was steeled, so they laughed at you and even though your ass and the arch of your foot were throbbing with pain, you smiled big and pretty because THEN the joke was on them sorta kinda and anyway they told you that you had a pretty smile and you swallowed the bile in your throat and kept smiling while you pocketed your tip and prayed for closing time and ate more carbs in the quest to gain some fatty armor.

Oh gentle (male) readers, did you laugh, too? Did you believe your buddy (the one you would never leave alone with your sister) when he told you how that girl asked for it? Did you shun him? Or do you still have uncomfortable conversations with him in which you pretend everything is okay? Did you validate a rape with strict adherence to guy code?

Only you can civilize each other.

Only you can shame rapists.

Only you...

The Greatest American Hero...

... is Dennis Kucinich. He has been ridiculed in the media for being short, but Dennis Kucinich deserves applause and more importantly, support for standing up in Congress and reading the heinous crimes of George W Bush out loud. It's a long list, but this barely scratches the surface of his misdeeds.

For those of you in the US -- it was broadcast live on C-Span, but I am sure that no other major US news outlet will even mention it -- that's the kind of censorship we've been living with. So please take the time to read them and call your Congressman urging them to support Kucinich's articles of impeachment.

If we don't impeach Bush, our country will never recover from this consistent abuse of power by the Executive Branch, no matter who the next President is.

Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment as read on the House Floor (obtained from the Belfast Telegraph. So much for a free press -- and shame on you, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, NBC, Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Washington Post, etc., etc., etc.)

Article I
Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War Against Iraq

Article II
Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression

Article III
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War

Article IV
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States

Article V
Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression

Article VI
Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of HJRes114

Article VII
Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War.

Article VIII
Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the UN Charter

Article IX
Failing to Provide Troops With Body Armor and Vehicle Armor

Article X
Falsifying Accounts of US Troop Deaths and Injuries for Political Purposes

Article XI
Establishment of Permanent U.S. Military Bases in Iraq

Article XII
Initiating a War Against Iraq for Control of That Nation's Natural Resources

Article XIIII
Creating a Secret Task Force to Develop Energy and Military Policies With Respect to Iraq and Other Countries

Article XIV
Misprision of a Felony, Misuse and Exposure of Classified Information And Obstruction of Justice in the Matter of Valerie Plame Wilson, Clandestine Agent of the Central Intelligence Agency

Article XV
Providing Immunity from Prosecution for Criminal Contractors in Iraq

Article XVI
Reckless Misspending and Waste of U.S. Tax Dollars in Connection With Iraq and US Contractors

Article XVII
Illegal Detention: Detaining Indefinitely And Without Charge Persons Both U.S. Citizens and Foreign Captives

Article XVIII
Torture: Secretly Authorizing, and Encouraging the Use of Torture Against Captives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Other Places, as a Matter of Official Policy

Article XIX
Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to " Black Sites" Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known to Practice Torture

Article XX
Imprisoning Children

Article XXI
Misleading Congress and the American People About Threats from Iran, and Supporting Terrorist Organizations Within Iran, With the Goal of Overthrowing the Iranian Government

Article XXII
Creating Secret Laws

Article XXIII
Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act

Article XXIV
Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment

Article XXV
Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens

Article XXVI
Announcing the Intent to Violate Laws with Signing Statements

Article XXVII
Failing to Comply with Congressional Subpoenas and Instructing Former Employees Not to Comply

Article XXVIII
Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of Justice

Article XXIX
Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965

Article XXX
Misleading Congress and the American People in an Attempt to Destroy Medicare

Article XXXI
Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Failure to Respond to a Civil Emergency

Article XXXII
Misleading Congress and the American People, Systematically Undermining Efforts to Address Global Climate Change

Article XXXIII
Repeatedly Ignored and Failed to Respond to High Level Intelligence Warnings of Planned Terrorist Attacks in the US, Prior to 911.

Article XXXIV
Obstruction of the Investigation into the Attacks of September 11, 2001

Article XXXV
Endangering the Health of 911 First Responders

Circular Thinking

It is estimated that the occupation of Iraq has cost US taxpayers about $536 billion by the end of today, Wednesday, May 21st.

But today the Executive Idiot vetoed a farm bill because farmers "are making too much money" because the cost of food has gone up so much.

Of course, the cost of food has gone up because the cost of oil has gone up -- and the only people making money off that are Bush's friends, like the bigwigs at Halliburton and the Al Saud family.

I'm not friends with the Halliburton board of directors, or the Al Saud family (rumored to be supporting the insurgency in Iraq). I do have friends who are farmers and they are having a tough year because the price of oil is so high and frankly a disproportionate amount of people from rural areas are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan -- their kids are fighting the insurgents who are subject to and financially supported by the Al Saud family.

And meanwhile, our surplus food reserves are drying up. The food pantries and soup kitchens are receiving less food, just as more people are forced by the economy to use them.

So the Executive Idiot thinks the answer is to deny funding to farmers -- most of whom work another full time job to "support their farming habit" as my friend Jaybird says.

So more family farmers are forced out of business trying to pay for diesel fuel...

further depleting food reserves...

which more Americans need because everything is so expensive because of the high cost of oil and the weak dollar....

which was weakened by Bush's policies favoring his big business alliances...

which is why we are spending $750 million dollars a day to occupy Iraq...

which is why the Al Saud family sends so-called insurgents into Iraq to fight US military...

which is why Cheney and Bush threaten to attack Iran...

which is why hundreds of thousands of human beings die for oil...

which is reaping record profits for big business, Bush and his cronies...

....which worried the cat that chased the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Bush built.

A Little Advice....

If you are an employed, housed American white man over the age of 30 and below the age of retirement and you have your health and your freedom and at least 3 people who love you and you aren't clinically depressed:

Quit yer bellyaching!!!

Nobody wants to hear about how sad or unhappy you are all of the time -- or about your miniscule little problems (which really aren't problems) like paying off your credit cards or the price of tea in China.

Cultivating your garden of angst is no longer fashionable. If you don't have a lover or a partner or a child, it is probably because you are an egocentric fool.

Quit complaining. At your age this pessimistic ennui is very unattractive. You sound like a wimp. You probably are a wimp. You are probably damaged goods, as well, so you should try to be a little more cheerful -- or at the very least, try to grow a sense of humor about yourself.

Poof!!! Be gone!!!

Jim Piculas was a substitute teacher in Land'OLakes, Florida. One day he stood in front of a classroom in which he was subbing and performed a magic trick. He made a toothpick disappear and reappear.

One of the students went home and told his parents about the magic trick. The parents called the school to complain. It seems that they didn't like Piculas practicing "wizardry" in class. So the school administration called Piculas and told him to come in for a chat.

Piculas was let go from the Land O' Lakes School District. The official reason for his dissmissal was not following curriculum. Of course, this was probably just a good example of administrative CYA.

My question is: for how long must we continue pandering to the lowest common denominator? A man lost his job because of parents who thump their bibles but can't be bothered to read a dictionary. If they had opened up their dictionaries, they might have read the following definitions listed under "trick":

• A ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement.


• An illusory feat; considered magical by naive observers.

I think "naive" is too kind an adjective to describe the parents screaming "wizardry" in Central Florida. The word that comes to my mind starts with a "d" and ends with an umbass. But then again, I can't actually recall hearing the term "wizardry" in this context. Is it something from the Harry Potter series, or perhaps from the Malleus Maleficarum, the handbook of the Inquisition? So since I do believe in consulting a dictionary, I went back to Webster's. Here is the lone entry under wizardry:

• Exceptional creative ability.

Well, now I understand. Piculas wasn't fired for doing a magic trick -- he was fired for being creative. And no one wants to see teachers (especially substitute teachers) encouraging creativity.

That's just not part of the curriculum.