From an article about style:
Sally Singer, Vogue’s director of fashion news and features, who has the most sociologically and historically sophisticated antennae in fashion (honed by her fanatical childhood home sewing, her Berkeley-dropout stint as a beautician in Oakland, her graduate work in American studies at Yale, and her quasi-Marxian rigor as an editor at the London Review of Books)...
I just spent a somewhat harrowing hour plus driving home from New Jersey with the sun in my eyes. I could see some, part of the time, but at one memorable moment I got off a ramp onto a highway totally blinded. I guess my number was not up.
Living in Delaware has seriously impaired my ability to hold my own in New Jersey traffic. The trucks intimidate me, especially when they are on all sides of my puny little car. They could crush me like a bug. If all the 800,000 people who live in Delaware got on the road at the same time, Delaware traffic still wouldn't be as bad as New Jersey.
When I drive in Delaware, I listen to WRTI, which gives traffic reports from Philadelphia and New Jersey during rush hour. As I listen, I feel sympathy for those people who are stuck behind an overturned tractor-trailer that is holding up traffic for ten miles. But I also feel a little smug.
I was kept company by the woman who resides in my GPS. Really, it's almost like having another person in the car, and it's helpful. If the voice had not directed me I would have gotten lost, especially because of the fancy lane changes required. Sometimes I resent the voice, when she tells me to take a u-turn and I know a better way. Then I disregard her advice. Sometimes I wonder if she will get mad at me and give me false advice to get even. You may say that there is not a person residing in this device, but how come she led me to the Home Depot parking lot when I instructed her to guide me home? Doesn't this show some malice on her part?
I told my stepmother about my GPS voice, and it seems she has a woman living in her GPS also. She uses it when she drives, but when my father drives he totally disregards the voice. Being a much nicer person than I am, she hopes her GPS doesn't get its feelings hurt.
In related news, I managed to get someone to pump gas for me! Yes, it's illegal to pump your own gas in New Jersey. Now there's a law I can get behind. Much, much more useful than banning trans-fats. And the gas was cheaper.
Never thought you'd hear me say that, did you?
In a 2004 book describing his deployment to Iraq the year before, Mr Cash calls Islam violent, a faith that “from its very birth has used the edge of the sword as a means to convert or conquer those with different religious convictions”.
Will Acorn make a comeback?
Probably.
What interested me most about the whole child-prostitution-brothel-tax-evasion thing was how quickly and decisively Acorn acted. They fired the malfeasors. Bang, bang! and don't let the door hit you on the way out!
Clearly Acorn is not a union shop. There are teachers on "paid administrative leave" sitting around the board of ed's headquarters doing Sudoku because they have done something so heinous that the authorities dare not let them enter a classroom. The paycheck, however, comes regularly twice a month. These teachers are members of the teachers' union.
Nor are they civil servants. I know for a fact that it takes a year to fire for cause someone who has a civil service job in New Jersey. A case must be built, brick by brick, like a huge Lego tower. New York is the same, according to Mr Charm. The other 48, I don't know, but I suspect it is the same.
Not a union shop! Quel dommage! Why doesn't the SEIU organize these exploited workers? Because they are the people who are exploiting them? The poor masses, ground down by the evil rich--my heart bleeds for them.
When Glenn Beck aired a video of White House Communications Director Anita Dunn praising Chairman Mao — one of her “two favorite political philosophers” — in front of an audience of high school students, the conservative blogosphere lit up like a non-denominational sustainably harvested Kwanza tree.
I like to read. In fact, I prefer reading books to other, newfangled methods of killing time. But I am cranky and hard to please. I like very little of the popular fiction that is currently cranked out. Here are some stars of my hit parade of rottenness:
Mysteries with cats in them, particularly if the protagonist has chats with the kitty. For some reason, books with dogs in them are not quite as bad as those that include cats. Mysteries about people with unusual occupations-- window cleaners, home handymen, opera singers, or particularly cooks. Books about cooks that include recipes are absolutely beyond the pale and should be forbidden by statute.
I also loathe books which include picturesque dialects, and that goes for Thomas Hardy and Robbie Burns too.
I dislike books that, by the time you get to page 52, are still strongly hinting at something to be revealed later which the dumb heroine is clueless about. Or some secret out of her past that will explain everything, if the author could just get the descriptions of scenery out of the way.
Too many words. Too much psychological analysis. Long descriptions of mountains, fjords, valleys, rivers, or of the music our hero is listening to or the car he is driving. Or the food. Did I mention recipes?
In self-defense, I have taken to reading biography and history, usually American history.
For a limited time, everyone who comments on my blog will receive a chance to win a box of 48 AA batteries dated 2005--some of them might work!
Enter today! The first 100 smart, savvy people to enter the contest will win a reproduction of an original painting by an up-and-coming artist! Namely me!
Don't delay! Remember, this contest ends November 1, 2009!
No witness remains.
"We knew perfectly well that we had no chance of winning," he recalled. "We fought simply not to allow the Germans alone to pick the time and place of our deaths. We knew we were going to die. Just like all the others who were sent to Treblinka."
Regarding first date panties:
I asked, "What are first date panties"?
Click on the link and be the first in your group to know.
Also available from the same source: knicker tickets:
Knicker Tickets™; are fun, easy to use additions for your favorite "date" panties. Stop giving out your number on matchbooks and cocktail napkins. This pack has 10 Assorted Knicker Tickets™.
Where are the advocates for young girls?
It’s weird that child advocacy groups (secular and religious) haven’t raised more hell regarding ACORN who, on tape, in multiple locations, and on our dime, were perfectly peachy with the potential sex trafficking of little 13-year-old El Salvadoran girls. That’s what’s weird.
I laughed when my daughter told me that you couldn't put a leaf of lettuce down the disposal. But when the plumber came to fix the thing, he showed me how the thing had met its match dealing with a piece of lemon. The plumber told me more stuff you can't put in the disposal, among them rice.
The plumber told me that the disposal is a delicate, exquisitely calibrated mechanism and gave me a list of things you can't put in it. Everything I mentioned was forbidden. I was starting to think that the only food congenial to the disposal was homemade chicken soup, maybe. If you strain it.
In related news, the ants are still having fun with their ant trap. They have invited their sisters and their cousins and their aunts to visit my house, along with their brothers and uncles. Quite a lively crowd.
Can you put ants in the disposal?
Also, the car has caught whatever virus is affecting the house, and now refuses to regulate the temperature in the car. I believe it will have to be dis-assembled piece by piece to fix the broken item, which costs 69 cents. Labor costs are estimated at an undisclosed figure.
Meanwhile, my camera and GPS have gone missing. I think they were stolen out of the car.
No matter how great an artist--which I do not for a moment concede--the guy is a first class criminal.
And . . . how would Whoopi Goldberg feel if Polanski had been a priest? Would she still see it more as a seduction than as a “rape-rape”
I know everyone is waiting with bated breath for news of the latest thing in my house to break down. Actually, it's the garbage disposal. The plumber has been duly informed.
In other new developments (aside from dropping the printer on my toe and breaking it--the printer, not the toe-- while crawling around the back of the computer attempting to connect to the internet, which does not count as it wasn't broken before I dropped it), we have ants and other critters. There are creepy little black things on the floor of the new bathroom. I clean them, and they come back. The exterminator said they were not caused by insects and offered to rid me of ants for $175. I refused, because he did not offer a solution to the creepy little black things, and because I thought I could handle the ants myself for less than $175.
So I bought ant traps at the Acme and put them here and there. The ants appear to consider them a special treat and are swarming around them without apparent harm. This made me angry. So I took a container of house and garden spray and sprayed the little buggers with it. I don't think it bothered the ants, but Mr Charm and I had to open a window and go sit in another room because it smelled so noxious.
Does my house have some degenerative disease which causes the appliances to break down? Or is there a curse on the place?
Soldiers have to spend their own money on protective gear, while politicians are having their moats cleaned.
Gary was among a number of troops who were moonlighting during their annual leave to earn money for military equipment.
It was his fury at discovering how much taxpayers’ money MPs were lavishing on themselves – while he and other soldiers were saving up to buy their own body armour and other equipment – that prompted the leak by one of his civilian colleagues.
A Saxon gold hoard has been discovered in the West of England.
From delawareonline.com
Summer swine flu levels in state [that would be Delaware] go unreported.
What do you expect from a President who smokes cigarettes?
If only for the sake of his daughters, he should have the guts to quit.
It's from the website of Susan Daniel, soprano and rose expert:
He was a 24 year old [British soldier] returned from Iraq and preparing to train for Afghanistan.
I asked about armour. "Why" he said, "do they spend the money training us from scratch for 6 months, and then send us out on patrol without sufficient protection, particularly on foot patrol and tank duty?"
Food:- "We get two meals, sausage and beans like you get in a tin, and the other is potato and meatballs, though there aren't many of those, and we pour hot water on it."
"Veg? Dairy? Fruit? I asked. "You need protein 3 times a day." "That's it" he said, "sometimes they top us up with Lucozade stuff." ...
No one has told them why they are there.
"Many get very shaky"......"Do you have any help with that?.....The Padre?" "Yes, but there's a two week wait to see him....
He had spent his first two weeks in Iraq in the same clothes, and his first six weeks in split boots. "The Americans are REALLY well provided, fed and armoured. They have visors to protect their eyes against the sand."
He had had to buy his own, smart blue tracksuit for himself....the one that I had noticed with his regimental crest.
It's been a week of annoyances, which resemble tiny insects buzzing around your head. Actually, that was one of the annoyances: very small creatures were suddenly coming from everywhere. The place was like a zoo of the insect world. It took a visit from an exterminator to pinpoint the cause: an open garbage bag left festering on the back porch since Labor Day by my loving family. Garbage having been taken out, peace ensued between us and the insect world. Cost: $175.
My computer dropped dead a couple of weeks ago so I went to Best Buy and ordered a house call. I felt stupid doing so, because a new laptop costs about $600, and the house call costs $200. But this computer was only purchased 15 months ago, and it was too new to fail. My thrifty nature made me incapable of trashing it without a struggle. So I waited all day for the Geek Squad guy. At 4:30 I called the local Best Buy--it only took 15 minutes of talking to robots to find someone to complain to--and the customer service person told me that the repairman had gone home sick. Cost: nothing. Result: also nothing.
Borrowed laptop to pay my bills. Discovered laptop could not connect to the Internet. Called Verizon, who told me the internet connection was working but eventually relented and sent Chuck out to fix whatever it was. Cost: nothing but aggravation and time spent waiting for Chuck and wishing the entire staff of Verizon collectively had only one neck so I could wring it.
Went to Staples and ordered a house call. Repairman showed up, fixed the computer. His diagnosis: I hadn't shut it down correctly. However, his fix only lasted 48 hours. Back to Staples. They sent their own guy, Mohammed, who had a bit of an attitude; his analysis of the problem: loose cables. He more or less insinuated that some mysterious someone had opened the computer and loosened the cables simply to ruin his day. Cost: $175.
Washer refuses to draw water. Turn water off, then back on again. Nothing. That exhausts the limits of my expertise. GE sent a repairman, eventually, who fiddled with the valve and told me a new valve would cost over $200 with parts and labor, and the washer wasn't worth it. Cost of his sage advice: $89.
Downstairs phone, the one that's hard-wired to the wall, develops problem: it works perfectly, but no-one can hear us when we talk into it. Purchased new telephone at Target, went home to hook it up, discovered that it needed three batteries and we only had two in the house. Purchased 16 batteries for $9. Phone works. Cost: $15 for new phone, $9 for batteries, which will come in handy anyway.
Everything is humming along nicely now, but I question how long this will last.
Yes, yes, yes! A resounding amen to this observation from Greg:
So, at the opening of the U.N. climate change summit on Tuesday, a hundred or so world leaders (including our own President) were greeted by a thirteen year old girl from India, named Yugratna. Her name might seem complicated to western ears, but her message was simple: we`re just not doing enough to fight global warming....
[H]ere's a key rule one must know about left-wing propaganda: that once they trot out the kids, you know you`re being fed a pile of crap the size of Al Gore`s houseboat. Using pubescent pawns is based on the successful belief that no one dare question children – because they`re smaller and weaker than adults – and for the most part, sincere....
So you know if anyone at that meeting were to stand up to Yugratna, and say, "Hey kid, shouldn`t you be in school instead of trying to ruining our economy based on phony science," you`d be stoned to death. With knives. Made of stone. Shaped like knives.
So, dammit: God bless Czech President Vaclav Klaus. The world`s gutsiest leader went after the U.N. for this shameless BS, saying "It was sad and ...frustrating. It's a propagandistic exercise where 13-year-old girls from some far-away country perform a pre-rehearsed poem. It's simply not dignified."
Could this be the Second Coming? (Or the first, if you're Jewish.)
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the
government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
ISAIAH 9:6A
While not claiming--yet--to be the mighty God and the Everlasting Father, Obama seems to feel that he fills the rest of the job description.
Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton tells NRO that President Obama’s address to the U.N. was “a post-American speech by our first post-American president. It was a speech high on the personality of Barack Obama and high on multilateralism, but very short in advocating American interests.”
“It was a very naïve, Wilsonian speech, and very revealing of Obama’s foreign policy,” says Bolton. “Overall, it was so apologetic for the actions of prior administrations, in an effort to distance Obama from them, that it became yet another symbol of American weakness in the wake of the president’s decision to abandon missile sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, and his recent manifest hesitation over what to do in Afghanistan.”
No, I'm not dead. Or even on vacation. My absence is due to the failure of the Dell from Hell. My next computer will be a laptop and not a Dell.
What if, when you bought a car, they sold you four wheels, two axles, a motor, and transmission etc., and made you put it together yourself? Cars are about the only things you can buy that are already assembled.
It's a good guess that Acorn is not unionized. How do I know? Because if they were unionized, the employees who were fired would be placed on "administrative leave" with full pay while the matter was "investigated." As are school teachers who are caught messing with underage students.
Learning to paint has taught me to really look at things. It's harder than it sounds. In orer to paint something, you have to observe it very closely. That's hard. The reward of learning to really look and really see what is in front of your eyes results in your seeing everything you look at every day as if for the first time.
I was listening to WRTI, the Temple University radio station, who are just fine when they are playing classical music or for that matter, jazz. Anything not using words, as a matter of fact.
The word reader mentioned that someone or other would some time or other interview someone who was "an exhibited artist, a musician, and an animal activist." This so neatly summed up what is wrong with the western world that it caused me to gnash my teeth and led to a strong desire to burn a stack of tires and roast an endangered animal over the resulting flames.
I would be willing to bet that the animal activist in question demonstrated against the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq.
In contemplating the Charlie Rangel scandals, one has to ask, is there one law for them and one for us?
The short answer is yes.
You see, they, the Enlightened Ones, get to live in mansions, cheat on their taxes, and fly around to deliver their sermonettes in private jets, because of all the good they do for us, the little people.
I mean, look at Mary Jo Kopechne. If she had not been left to drown, what would have become of the No Child Left Behind Act? Whether it was worth it to her we'll never know, but it was definitely worth it for the late sainted Ted Kennedy.
Does the President ever miss a chance to state, or restate, the obvious?
After the obligatory statement that prosperity is just around the corner, thanks to him, he dispensed this gem:
Stay home if you're sick. Wash your hands frequently. Cover your sneezes with your sleeve, not your hands. And take all the necessary precautions to stay healthy. I know it sounds simple, but it's important and it works.
It all depends on the death tax:
In a 2001 paper entitled "Dying to Save Taxes," economists from the University of Michigan and the University of British Columbia examined 13 changes in U.S. tax law since 1917 and concluded that benefactors die in greater numbers just before tax hikes and just after tax cuts. A 2006 study done in Australia, which abolished its inheritance tax in July 1979, reached the same conclusion. Statistics showed that more than half the people who would ordinarily have died in the last week of June 1979—and whose heirs would have been subject to the tax—managed to avoid it by surviving into July.
At Tanglewood, listening to beautiful music in the crystal clear air.
Next year, I hope.
The one is mean is third from the right. The rest are just tall and skinny.
The online post does not do justice to the photograph in the newspaper edition of the Post.
Mourners ... sported short-shorts, undershirts, dirty tees, and many pairs of infamous Crocs. It was a Casual Friday gone horribly wrong, as if everyone's destination was Fenway Park, not a public casket viewing.
This had never occurred to me:
[T]he American and Canadian liberals and greens could already choose to live their own lives the exact same way as the denizens of their ideal countries, e.g. Sweden, Cuba, or Venezuela. For example, if they believe that big houses with one bathroom for each family member are bad, nothing stops them from moving their families into a small one-bedroom apartment.
President Obama doesn't wear a helmet while biking with his daughters.
A reporter writes:
[A]s commander-in-chief and national role model, ex-Sen. Obama declined to wear a helmet.The reporter, Andrew Malcolm, thinks he looks great.
Apparently the hot news in Delaware is that people are not shouting at each other:
Unlike other meetings in Delaware and across the country, the audience members didn't scream at Castle or people with opposing viewpoints. There were no pictures of President Barack Obama with a Hitler mustache, no one questioning Obama's birth certificate, no assault rifles.
1. About that saying, "thinking outside the box"; at this point, isn't using that expression thinking inside the box, big time?
2. Also, how do you "push the envelope"? Is the envelope business size or greeting card size?
3. This morning all the cable news shows were featuring live coverage of a bunch of limousines lining up for Ted Kennedy's memorial service. They weren't going anywhere, just getting ready to go somewhere, some time. I found this neither visually interesting nor informative.
4. Why, pray tell, does Obama hunch up his shoulders and jog up the steps of Air Force I? I noticed Caroline Kennedy ascending a platform the same way during her (mercifully short) bid for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat. Is this something only Democrats do, to show they are young and lively and energetic? Bush, a superb athlete, didn't do it.
5. Speaking of Bush, I am starting to miss his gravitas. There was no doubt that he should be seated at the grown-up table, not the kids' table.
Another learned person gives reasons for reforming health care:
Financial barriers should not stand between Americans and preventive or acute health care that they sincerely believe will address concerns over a troubling medical condition, in a timely manner, before that condition grows into a critically serious illness.
If you're going to sell me something for Bigger, Rock-Hard Erecetions, please spell it right. Otherwise I might think you don't know what you are doing.
Whatever you're selling, you're barking up the wrong tree anyway.
Sounds good to me.
The $2.4 trillion Americans spend each year for health care doesn't go up in smoke. It's paid to other Americans.
Yes!
Often pronounced, by those who have too many syllables in their database, as "preventative" care, preventive care is the focus of the Obama Health Plan, called by some the Obama Health Insurance Plan.
In this scenario, doctors will urge their patients to get a grip, stop eating themselves into the grave, get out there and exercise, stop doing drugs and get their teeth cleaned regularly. This should work wonders. We were all just waiting around to be told these things by someone in a white coat, as we have all been locked up in a lead mine or on a polar expedition for the last twenty years and didn't get the latest recommendations for healthy living.
By the way, how's that smoking cessation program working for you, Mr President?
Whenever I see a story about some evil insurance executive or banker being paid "obscene" bonuses, I notice a deliberate effort by the lefty media to whip up "outrage." These people, we are told, make too much money.
Let's set aside the question of how much is too much money for another day. I have not heard any of my well-heeled relatives complain about having trouble spending their own money, for all they complain about the "greed" of others.
But the bias against the well-off goes into reverse when the subject becomes really filthy rich, like George Soros or Warren Buffett. Their wealth is somehow okay, especially if they back Obama or give a lot of money to left-wing causes. They are benefactors of mankind.
Being really, really rich places one in a different category from the greedy bankers and insurance executives who are destroying the country. Funny how that works.
Why does everyone who battles cancer have to be labeled "courageous"?
[Specter] has had his very public and admittedly courageous battles with cancer, battles for which he undoubtedly had the best, spare-no-expense, medical treatment.
The library sent me a postcard--they are having a book sale. Of course, I'll be there--how could I miss a chance to add more useless, unwanted books to those that already fill my groaning shelves, gather in piles on, under and around the nightstand, languish in the spare bedroom and have recently conquered the garage.
I read so many books that I go to two libraries almost every week. The trouble is,"Of the making of many books there is no end," as the preacher says. Most of them don't suit me. When you get older, some of the gimmicks don't impress you any more: the mysterious chap with the secret sorrow, the housewife trying to find Meaning in Life, the young people meeting cute; the clever plot to assassinate some bigwig that is foiled in the end by our clever hero. Similarly, courtroom cleverness, serial killers, heroes who are so smart bullets bounce off their brains. Been there, read that.
But I still like to read, and I don't feel like re-reading Pride and Prejudice for the 11th time, so I live in hope of finding a fresh idea, a new protagonist, or an exotic setting. And I sometimes find real treasures at these book sales: a book of stunning photographs of New Mexico, or the planets, a guide to the statuary in Fairmont Park in Philadelphia--honest! or treasures of the Luevre.
Lately I have enjoyed reading about out-of-the-way places, like Laos, Saudi Arabia, or Iran. Or ancient Rome. Also American history through the Civil War, and biographies of interesting people, like Benjamin Franklin.
So: off to the book sale!
In the accompanying video, Steny Hoyer mentioned the utility of the Erie Canal, which was apparently objected to by short-sighted citizens, including then-President Thomas Jefferson, who refused to fund it.
By the way, whatever happened to the Erie Canal? Well, it was superseded in short order by the completion of the railroad, specifically the New York Central. Jefferson was right.
It seems a canal cannot span a nation as large as this one, and a railroad can. So the canal was a boondoggle and made little difference in the long run.
Who said: "Socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the poor"? Whoever, that person was a genius. He, or someone like him, is now in charge of our government. It's a good description of what Cash for Clunkers is all about. If you have $20,000 or $30,000 for a new car, we will give you $4,500 extra. Then we take the trade-ins, destroy them, and deny poor people who might need a car to go to work or school the right to buy these used cars.
Instead, do they get cut up for usable parts, or buried in a landfill somewhere, leaching motor oil into the ground? Or do we crush them and sell them at a loss to the Chinese?
Where are the grown-ups?
Protesters are called a "mob!"
Rep. Lloyd Doggett's office is calling the protesters who swarmed him in Austin over the weekend a "mob," and blaming the chaos on the local libertarian and Republican activists.
The Doggett protests also appear to be part of a larger organizing effort by Tea Party activists who are sending out guidance on how to disrupt a public event by a member of Congress.
The idea that our health care system is "broken" is a crock, an urban legend. It is important for someone to tell the truth before the government gets its dirty hands on our health care.
[W]e should consider some unheralded facts about America’s health care system.
1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.
2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher.
3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit from statin drugs, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease, are taking them. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons, and 17 percent of Italians receive them.
4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians.
So what else is new?
She had arrived at the Kawkab Elsharq Hall on a Friday night to book a cousin's wedding party, and while she waited she watched an Egyptian singer and sipped a coke.
...She left less than an hour later under arrest as a "trouser girl" - humiliated in front of hundreds of people, then beaten around the head in a police van before being hauled before a court to face a likely sentence of 40 lashes for the "sin" of not wearing traditional Islamic dress.
The officials who tried to humiliate her expected her to beg for mercy, as most of their victims do.
Instead she turned the tables on them – and in court on Tuesday Mrs Hussein will dare judges to have her flogged, as she makes a brave stand for women's rights in one of Africa's most conservative nations.
Permission to deepen the Delaware River denied:
I have no opinion of the desirability or otherwise of deepening the Delaware. Apparently the Army Corps of Engineers wanted to deepen it. I merely observe that it took the authorities eight years to decide what to do--for now.
I'd hate to have to stand on one foot while the government considered whether or not to permit me to have life-saving surgery.
Bill Maher thinks Americans are stupid. That's because they like Sarah Palin. Anyone who likes Sarah Palin is stupid, ipso facto.
Liberals like to consider some Republicans as stupid, and they remain stupid until they die, after which they are lauded as Great American Leaders. The list of stupid Republicans is a long and honorable one. Top honors should go to Ronald Reagan, who fell asleep during cabinet meetings--who wouldn't? Dwight D Eisenhower makes the list too, despite having won the war in Europe during World War II. I mean, the man couldn't even talk straight.
But leading the stupid parade is Dan Quayle, whose offense is that he misspelled the word "potato." Our current president believes there are 57 states and that Austrian is a language, but he isn't stupid. He believes that pediatricians take out children's tonsils for money, and that you can borrow your way out of debt, but don't forget, he went to Harvard, along with other egregious a**holes like Jamie Gorelick and Al Gore. No-one can be stupid and go to Harvard. It simply isn't done, my dear. You can go to Yale and still be stupid (George H W Bush, Phi Beta Kappa and and George W Bush, C student). That's still okay, for now.
All the markers of stupidity are there in Sarah for all the world to see: the University of Idaho, the hick accent, having five children, eating mooseburgers. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. The libs have pasted a sign on her, and it is sticking. She is now exhibit A of the Stupid yet Strangely Effective Republican Fiend Party, replacing the sinister Dick Cheney and the evil Karl Rove in their affections.
Do you know how much guff you take if you work for local government?
If Louis Henry Gates, fabled Harvard Professor, had just spoken politely to the policeman, possibly nothing would have happened. Profound apologies might have issued from both sides.
Contrary to what you might think, speaking arrogantly to a (probably underpaid) civil servant maybe isn't the best way to handle a problem.
As a library director, I had to deal frequently with an irate member of the public. In some cases their ire was quite justified, because the library staff had dropped him on his head several times before he got to me. Often, nothing of the sort had occurred. I always heard the person out, politely, apologized for the inconvenience, and said I would look into the situation, after getting the staffer's side of the story. Usually, the complainant would simmer down and be quite reasonable. He just wanted his complaint to be heard and understood.
But I've got to tell you, some statements did not make me want to rush into action. Here are some: "Who is your supervisor?" "I'm a taxpayer!" "I'm a personal friend of the mayor!" "I'll see that you lose your job!" and the ever popular "Do you know who I am?"
Yeah, I know who you are--you're a puffed up, self-important pain in the neck.
We once had a bunch of rowdy teenagers who frequented the Nice Little Library. When they got too rowdy we asked them to leave and not come back for the rest of the day. My colleague Michael was escorting one of these kids to the door when the young man turned to him and protested, "I'm a taxpayer!"
"This is July," Michael answered. "We ran out of your taxes in April."
I always said the public library was a nice place to work. All the books you wanted, the latest periodicals, and generally nice staffers. The biggest problem? The public. For some people, the air in the library made them crazy. Maybe it was the book dust.
I have to add that most of our customers were pussycats who loved the library and appreciated everything we did for them, including being there.
Young man seated near window, Martinique, 1972
Photograph: André Kertész/Stephen Bulger gallery
Tucked into the healthcare bill no-one could read:
[W]e should be very troubled by Section 1233 of H.R. 3200. The section, titled “Advanced Care Planning Consultation” requires senior citizens to meet at least every 5 years with a doctor or nurse practitioner to discuss dying with dignity.
Here's how the program will work. We will gather the elderly (sick, and probably useless) patient and his loved ones together in a large and pleasant room. If you don't have any loved ones, one of each gender will be provided by the government. If a larger group of loved ones is desired, the patient must arrange their attendance and pay them at prevailing union rates.
Soft music will be played in the style of your choice: soft rock, pop, classical, violin sonatas, or country and Western. A clergyperson, professional editorial writer, or professor is optional and may make a short statement.
After painlessly dispatching you, we will wrap your body in a biodegradable shroud made of recycled bottles and bury you beneath a field on which corn for ethanol is grown. In this manner, you will be making a contribution to Mother Gaia instead of just uselessly continuing to exhale carbon dioxide.
And may God have mercy on your soul, if you're foolish enough to believe She exists.
Is blogging so--2008? So vieux jeu? I notice that a number of my blogging friends have closed up shop. Gone out of business. Folded up their tents and stolen away.
In general they were people who hadn't run out things to say. I know some writers keep on writing long after they have ceased to be funny or even interesting; Russell Baker comes to mind. A genuinely witty writer, he just kept on and on, getting less interesting by the minute. Art Buchwald was another. A contemporary example is Maureen Dowd, whose cleverness ceased to be amusing before the beginning of the second Bush administration.
That may be what has happened to me. My family, on the whole a far from entertaining bunch, provided some entertainment nevertheless. I think I may have run out of amusing anecdotes about them. I've been racking my brain, trying to come up with something amusing. If I do, I'll let you know.
I also looked at my statistics. While I started out with about 8 readers, undoubtedly people who had encountered my blog by mistake, I gradually worked my way up to 100. Now they are down to 35. I notice also that I am spending a lot of time grumbling about politics, a sour enough subject. Obama has stopped being funny and started being alarming. His daily sermonettes are beginning to wear on me. And the United States Congress are just plain scary. If this is what the people in power are like, what on earth can we expect from ordinary citizens?
Our educational system, from pre-K to Phd, has stopped educating people and started to bolster their self-esteem. But so what? Everybody knows that already. Pretty soon only monks in cloisters will preserve the remnants of knowledge for future generations. If there are any monks left, after we have apologized our way into becoming an islamic republic.
So, what do you think? Should I keep it up, or close up shop?
Somebody said: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."
I more or less agree with them, only I would say American health care is the worst in the world, except for all the others. Yes, it's expensive, but it's not necessarily the doctors and other health professionals who are making the money.
There are lots of reasons health care is so expensive, some of them reasonable, others not. There is the cost to the pharmaceutical industry of developing new drugs, a cost which is not incurred in other countries because they subsidize the cost of drugs to their citizens. There are expensive tests, some of them unnecessary. Trial lawyers. Cowardly insurance agencies who are hand in hand with the trial lawyers.
A young friend of mine is an obstetrician. She delivers babies. She works long hours and must be on call regularly in the evening, on weekends, and on holidays. After she pays for her share of support staff, taxes on her office, and $160,000 in malpractice insurance, she earns about as much as she would in a part-time job at Target.
It's the guys like John Edwards (he of the two Americas, who owns the biggest house in South Carolina) who get a large portion of the money. Lawsuits by lawyers like him suck up everything. If there were no malpractice insurance these piranhas would have to go to work at honest jobs. But the trial lawyers are good buddies with the Democrats, so nothing is going to be done about them by the current administration.
No-one will discuss this topic without prefacing it with a shamefaced admission that health care needs reform. The most uncaring capitalist who grinds the faces of the poor and keeps his cash in overseas accounts has to take the oath that health care must be reformed.
I say bosh. I say piffle. I am constituting myself as a party of one person who does not believe that health care needs to be reformed. And yes, I don't believe in climate change. I hate endangered species and don't believe carbon dioxide is poisonous. Or that animals have rights.
Furthermore, I believe our country is the greatest one that ever existed. Second is Great Britain, from which we derived our system. The rest of the pack are far behind.
My favorite shopping venue is a certain Good Will shop in Pennsylvania. The prices are amazingly reasonable. A perfectly good, brand new pair of men's shorts, with the tags from a department store still attached, is $3.50. A man's T-shirt is $3.00 if it is plain, $3.50 if something--like FCUK, Go Phillies, or War Is Not the Answer--is printed on it. I prefer the plain anyway.
All the customers are cheerful and friendly. They are elated to find a pair of ladies' shoes which will go perfectly with their sister's new cocktail dress even though they are not quite her size. Anyway, for the price, the customer is sure she can find someone among her acquaintance who can use them.
Need a coffeepot? Or a perfectly good, playable television, just one of the old, bulky kind? They have dozens. Whole sets of dishes. Every gadget you can name. Lots of Christmas decorations. Candles and candlesticks, particularly the fancy ones in special shapes, such as Halloween Jack-o-Lanterns and the scented ones that make me cough.
They have tons of afghans, some nice, some in putrid colors, but all lovingly and beautifully crocheted. Silver-plated serving pieces that someone no longer wanted to polish. Framed photographs of ancestors nobody remembers. Pictures, some in nice frames, some unframed, and empty frames. Books, mostly recent bestsellers, DVDs, and CDs.
The atmosphere last Monday was positively festive. One lady had some nice children's clothes. Someone else had found a crystal vase for $2.00. A third had a brand new tuxedo priced at $25, which might or might not fit her husband.
I conclude that Americans, me included, like to buy things. At the Good Will there is plenty to buy, and almost anyone who eats regularly can afford it. This is a land so overflowing with goods and money that people can give away brand new appliances, clothing, and pots and pans without blinking an eye. In the words of Bill Ayers: What a country!
Every politician, of no matter what stripe, regularly attends the Church of Health Care is a Problem which Must Be Solved in our Society, as regularly as they all used to attend the local Presbyterian church. One must pay lip service to The Need for Americans to Have Health Care, or be declared unfeeling--one who does not care about the least among us--a man, or woman, who regularly gouges out the eyes of newborn puppies for fun.
I know nothing about the ins and outs of health care, but Mr Charm and I have recently consumed more health care than we would have chosen to. Why does it cost so much money?
Let me give some anecdotal evidence. Mr Charm, while in a rehab getting in-patient therapy, had to have an MRI. I thought I would drive him down the street, approximately one mile away, to a perfectly good MRI facility. The rehab would not agree to this. He had to go by ambulance to a hospital 20 miles away. And I had to pay $175 for the privilege.
On another occasion, we wanted him to be seen by a specialist. This time, since he had a referral, Medicare would pay. He got dressed and got into a wheelchair. Since it was a nice day, we went to the entrance of the building to wait. When the ambulance came, however, the attendants refused to transport him because he was sitting up in a wheelchair. They would not be reimbursed, according to the paramedic, unless he were transferred directly from his bed to a stretcher. So they went away, and another ambulance service was called, and Mr C got back in bed. In due course, Ambulance B arrived and transported him.
All this, according to the nursing staff in the rehab, was dictated by Medicare. They might have been right or wrong. The rules are so many and so contradictory that no-one knows. All I know for certain is that I could have helped into and out of my car and he would have been no worse off.
Another point: whenever I went to have a procedure done at Valley Hospital in New Jersey, I was made to sign a statement that I had been informed that I could have the procedure even if I could not afford to pay for it. I took this to mean that the State of New Jersey, or the federal government, or at least somebody other than I would pay for it if I couldn't. Otherwise, why have me sign the thing? Oh yes, I forgot: If you go to the emergency room, at least in New Jersey, they have to treat you.
To me, it looks like all bases are covered. Am I missing something here?
Oh and by the way, dental care is not covered. So if you get a toothache, you're on your own. Unless your jaw gets infected, and then you can go to the emergency room, but only if you are transported in an ambulance, in a stretcher, lying down.
But when the government takes this over....
My old printer would not scan any more, although it would print or copy, and that works by scanning, does it not? Since I like scanning old photographs into my computer, I wanted to fix it. But several live chats with the manufacturer, HP, did not result in its restoration to health. It would print. It would copy. No scanning.
So I bought a new one. I was mad at HP, so I bought a Canon. I'm cheap, so I bought an older model, which was not wireless. But our wireless network does not work anyway. (Remind me to tell you all about it. No, forget it.)
The new printer/scanner/copier does not recognize the software on the CD which came with it. I can't even get hold of Canon to complain.
In further technology news, my Dell computer--one year old--stops producing sound every once in a while. It's not the speakers, they work. So I searched Google until I found a fix, which was to restore the computer to an earlier date. This worked. Every now and then, the sound goes away, and I restore it, and the sound comes back. What kind of mishugas is that?
I'm so glad they don't make cars this way. The only thing I understand about my car is that it takes gasoline. Yet it was fully operational when I drove it off the lot.
Mr Charm had to go to a new doctor today. We waited six months to get an appointment with him. He's an eminent physician, with both a PhD and an MD framed on his wall, and the ultimate fashion accessory: a medical student (or intern?)at his heels like a puppy, nodding her head respectfully when the Great Man spoke.
He was actually quite impressive and thorough. I won't get into what he said, or what the problem was, that's someone else's personal business. We wanted another opinion, and we were satisfied that we had gotten one, and that our concerns were taken seriously.
I am referring to Billy Mays. Of all the notables who kicked the bucket last week, he is my favorite.
I didn't know who he was---I figured he was some washed-up sports figure. But I bought many of the gadgets he was hawking: the superglue, the kitchen gadgets, the Oxyclean, all of them $19.95--make that Only $19.95.
It won't be the same without him.
Let's not let them get their hands on health care.
Look what they have done to Medicaid.
The seamy side of the New Haven firefighter controversy.
It shows how a combination of vote-hungry politicians and local political agitators -- you might call them community organizers -- worked with the approval of elite legal professionals like Judge Sotomayor to employ racial quotas and preferences in defiance of the words of the Civil Rights Act.
One of the chief actors was the Rev. Boise Kimber, a supporter of Mayor John DeStefano....
After the results of the promotion test were announced, showing that 19 white and one Hispanic firefighter qualified for promotion, Kimber called the mayor's chief administrative officer opposing certification of the test results.
The record shows that DeStefano and his appointees went to work, holding secret meetings and concealing their motives, to get the Civil Service Board to decertify the test results. Kimber appeared at a board meeting and made "a loud, minutes-long outburst" and had to be ruled out of order three times.
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