buy nothing everything
I would like to thank everyone for particpating in Got It, Spend It Day. It was a rousing success. We sent quite a message, didn't we?
Let's hear it for consumerism!
« October 2002 | Main | December 2002 »
November 30, 2002
buy
body count
Gotta love Reuters:
I wonder what the numbers would be if they used only civilian casualties? And that does not include the Palestinian suicide bombers.
make him sorry he asked
Joe's register is open in aisle 5. No waiting. Barter only.
Hey, if you don't want to go over there and take over Joe's comments, you should at least go read the exchange between us.
He thinks he can swap a useless Stretch Armstrong for an ELO 8-track. Hah! I'm now teasing him with my Castle Greyskull and Return of the Jedi lunchbox.
Fo shizzle.
Bloggerville's Favorite Holiday Movies
I've got some Nick Cave on the winamp, a tequila Bloody Mary, and a brand new keyboard. I'm ready to roll. Let's get this Christmas thing rolling, shall we? I mean, all my neighbors have their lights set to Yankee Stadium brightness already and the guy down the block has a ten foot Homer Simpson as Santa inflatable thing on his front lawn. Mmmm....beer. Anyhow, for the first of many holiday related posts, I bring you:
THE BLOGGERVILLE DEFINITIVE HOLIDAY MOVIE LIST
This is the way it goes. Use the comments and give me your three favorite holiday movies. I'll tally them up in a few days and we will end up with the blogosphere's faves. Yea, it doesn't mean all that much in the end, but it's fun and it sure beats trolling Indymedia for stupid quotes.
The key here is my broad definition of holiday movie. To wit: A holiday movie can be any movie that is either about a winter holiday or takes place over the course of a winter holiday. A winter holiday would be Christmas, Hanakkuh, Kwanzaa and New Year, though I don't know if there are any Kwanzaa related movies. I'm just trying not to leave anyone out. Now please not the movie does not have to be about the holiday. For instance, two of my favorites are Die Hard and The Ref, both which take place at Christmastime but don't center around the holiday, per se.
Ok, that's a lot of wording for something that's supposed to be fun.
Three favorites, no particular order. Tomorrow or Monday I'll whittle it down to the top five finalists if there are enough entries. What are you waiting for, go!
meat is murder. but not cop meat. that's activism.
The more I read the posts at Indymedia regarding the cop killer who posted his confession there, the more my stomach turns.
First up, Emily:
(I put it in the MORE link because it was just waaaay too long)
Sigh..once again a man tries to make a statement about how shitty this country is and everyone hates him. WAKE UP. Sure, killing isn't cool...but how the hell else is anyone going to pay attention to what he has to say?
How else? Maybe he should have gotten involved in those things he hates in order to affect change. Run for city council, work his way up. Did this guy really think that the world was going to stop in its tracks and head off in another direction because some cretin killed a cop to send a message?
Why can't u people look past the fact that he shot someone (which our wonderful government officials and police men do EVERYDAY and then get glorification for it) and realize that although his tactic was bad, his intentions were good. All he wanted was to spread the awareness about how shitty our state-of life is, and he sure as hell did didn't he?? He certainly got us to listen, even though it was at the sake of someone else's life. But isn't that how America always gets its way, by destroying lives until that particular country or whatever it may be gives in?
First of all you dimwit, when a cop kills someone that is say...robbing a bank or pointing a gun at them or robbing little old ladies for crack money, it's called justified. Shooting an innocent husband and father who is doing nothing more than filling up his gas tank is ludicrous. And please, let's not compare one freak with a gun to a country protecting democracy. The killer of that cop wasn't protecting anyone or serving anyone excpet his own dillusions.
If anything, I'd say he was one hell of a citizen! He was doing exactly what all the bigs guys in the white house do, but I guess they got a little jealous because someone figured their plan out. I mean, think about it...haven't you all just wanted to kill that asshole boss or snotty teacher, but didn't have the balls because you'd get in trouble? YOU are the cowards. YOU are the ones who are afraid to stand up for what YOU believe in, and not what your bibles and officials and kings tell you to. OPEN UP YOUR FUCKING EYES AND REALIZE THAT WE ARE NOT FREE, THAT WE ARE CONSTANTLY CONTROLLED BY AN OVER-POWERFUL, UNFAIR GOVERNMENT.
Emily, you are a fucknozzle. The difference between wanting to kill someone and actually doing it is the difference between a lowlife bastard and a person with a conscience. Coward? Me? Hardly. Only a coward would think that the only way to get someone to hear him is to take another life. If he was truly brave, Andy would have killed himself instead, leaving a note that the suicide was due to the horrid state of his world. What better way to send a message than to give your own life for the cause?
From Doc Beard:
Well, all thisa shows to me is there are alot of angry people out, there.
The question is why are you angry?
Is it because an innocent cop has been killed?
Or because our lives are so controled that you can no longer buy a piece of clothing without it being made in a third-world sweat shop?
Hmm..let me think here, Oscar. Where my sweater was made or an innocent person killed to make an assinine statement.
Yep, it's the murder I'm pissed about.
From a tin foil hat wearer who calls himself Reefer Madness:
The King County Jail said an Andrew Hampton Mickel of Olympia was booked April 20 for obstructing a public official. Mickel was released by the court April 21. "
April 20, 4/20, 420, get it?
Hmm, I wonder if our perpetrator is some kind of genius at manufacturing conspiracies. Ut oh spaghettio, could it be that this is all a manufacture of the Illuminati, like 9/11 was?
Ah yes. The dreaded Illuminati. They sure are a busy bunch, what with planning 9/11 and all. Hard to believe they have the time to murder a cop, pin it on a dumb fuck of a kid, all to discredit the loony left. Yea, that's the ticket. Asswipe.
From Siobhan:
Some ask where we would be without police... I believe innocent people would not be killed for no reason and then have the cops blame THEM for it...
I believe in anarchy No rules No Government No Masters of anykind... Contrary to popular belief Anarchy is not chaos and is not the worst form of government ...
Anarchy can work if we don't have stupid fascists bossing us around... We could just do what we want... and to keep some sense of order...There might need to be one rule:You may not fatally injure or kill another life form
Ok, bright light. If you have just one rule but no government or masters or policemen, who is going to enforce the no murder rule? Let me tell you miss anarchist - if we had the nation you so desire it would end up looking much like the world every bad post-apocalyptic movie and in all of ten minutes you would find yourself chained to a big badass named Bruno who will make you his bitch for the rest of your unfortunate years.
From a Mr. Straight Zipper:
Next time, kill us a fucking Senator, or Pentagon Chief of Staff, or even the President, for fuck sakes!
Useless fucking bastard.
Let me guess, SZ. You're a straight edge vegan, right? You wouldn't kill an animal for food because the poor little animal has feelings and rights, but a human? Sure, kill a human as long as he doesn't think like you! Don't look now, but your priorities are showing. And man, are they ugly.
From Nessie:
I, for one, am beginning to wonder if this entire incident is not a total fabrication. We have only the government’s word on this thing. That’s not good enough. They’ve lied to us too many times. It is entirely possible that an innocent cop was murdered in cold blood and an equally innocent patsy was set up to take the fall. Thing like that happen often. Usually it’s about money or love, but sometimes it is about politics. This is more than just a crime, it’s politics. In politics, almost nothing is what it appears to be on the surface.
It is entirely conceivable that it was set up to discredit the global justice moment, and IMC in particular. IMC has many enemies who also use three letter names. Then there’s the Mossad. There are more, a lot more, but you get the picture. Every one of them has a long history of sacrificing pawns to achieve tactical advantage. Every one of them is ruthless, amoral and armed to the teeth. Every one of them is suspect, or should be.
Wow. Is everything in the world a fabrication or conspiracy to these people? IT seems like they came up with a good way to deflect any responsibility for the actions of activists who do things in their name. Just call it a government cover up.
I could do this all day, but I won't. I'm getting too aggravated and I think I'm going to follow in Nikita's footsteps and start drinking.
Oh, and I've just added Indymedia to my Christmas list. I'm going to every single one of their posters a spelling and grammar workbook. I think the 4th grade level ought to do.
did i just hear a door slam?
I think she just called me - and plenty of other people - a stupid idiot. Actually, I'm sort of speechless on this one.
update: as always, Arthur handles it more eloquently than I.
and in the end
This is a long one, folks - several different tangents converging here. Funerals do that to you.
When we arrived at the church for the funeral mass, there was still another funeral in progress. We waited outside, talking amongst ourselves and reminiscing about Aunt Jo and her sisters.
After a while, the other funeral started to let out. It had been for a man who was hit by a car while crossing a busy street. He was a New York City police officer, though it wasn't clear whether he was active or retired at the time of his death. What was clear, however, were these facts: He was recently divorced and homeless.
What struck me about that was the amount of people who came to mourn him. A mother, a brother, what appeared to be young grandchildren - all crying, all obviously very upset. I looked around at the mourners and thought how was this man homeless when all these people seemed to have loved him so? It occurred to me that he was probably homeless by choice, as most of these stories go. That made the mourning that was taking place, especially by the children, even sadder.
And there I was, ready to enter the church for a mass for Aunt Jo, who was 85 years old when she died and never let a day pass her by when she didn't live to the fullest. I was sad, but not mournful. I was glad for the life she had, for the children she brought into the world, for the love that she showered her family with. There are so many different kinds of mourning; so many ways to accept or deny a death.
As an atheist, I am almost always uncomfortable in a church. The ritualistic nature of Catholicism, the imagery scattered throughout the church - it leaves me uneasy. Many years ago, I had joined up with my church again in the hopes of filling a void in my life. By the time I turned heel and left, the void had become larger and my unease with the church led to me to face the fact I always believe but, due to my Catholic guilt and fear, never verbalized: I was an atheist. I did not believe in God, in Jesus, in any doctrine the church holds to be true.
So now, here I was, sitting in the church pew once again, facing another hour long mass. I looked aroud me at all the friends and family there. Few know about my atheism. My family is a religious group for the most part and quite judgmental. My parents know, my sisters know, but none of the cousins or aunts know and I choose not to reveal it because frankly, it is none of their business.
So the mass begins and the priest comes out. Now, you have to understand one thing about my Aunt Jo. She was devoted to the church. She went to mass every day, sitting in the same spot, with the same people. She belonged to prayer groups and particpated in everything the church had to offer.
I don't know if you've ever been to a funeral mass, but you can always tell when the priest giving the mass did not know the deceased. They tend to read from a script provided by the family, but the warmth and depth of the loved one never comes through. With Aunt Jo, there was no need for a script. Not only did this priest know her, he thought very highly of her. He gave a warm, wonderful eulogy for Aunt Jo and choked up enough a couple of times that he had to stop and gather himself. As I listened to him, I found that I was no longer squirming as if I was sitting on a bed of nails being tortured. I listened to him with my heart.
As the mass went on, I watched my family members and I realized something. All those things I don't like about the church - the rituals, the imagery, the symbolic gestures - were the things that were giving comfort to Aunt Jo's family. The familiarty of the hymns, the bringing of the gifts, even the constant kneel down-stand up-sit down rythmn of the mass was like a comfortable blanket of compassion to them.
For some, religion brings peace and comfort. To believe that loved ones are in the hands of God or just the act of reaching out your hands and saying a prayer over their draped coffin can do so much for someone in emotional pain. I don't begrudge my relatives their religiousness at all, nor do I envy it. It is not for everyone, most certainly not for me, but the comfort it gives to others in turn comforts me.
It came time to receive communion and I panicked. What do I do? If I sat in the pew while every other person -save for my Jewish brother-in-law - went up, they would know. I know, this should not bother me so much, but I didn't feel this was the time to call attention to myself and my non-belief because, believe me you have no idea what my relatives are like. I would be the talk of the day. So I asked myself, what would Aunt Jo want me to do? Well of course, Aunt Jo wouldn't want me to be an atheist to begin with. I figured she would want me to go up and receive communion and just play nice. So I did.
When I got back to the pew, my sister was furious with me. I realized then what a mistake I made. I don't know what I was thinking. I should have stayed put and let everyone else go up, but I acted selfishly. I worry endlessly about what other people think about me; I didn't want the tongues to start wagging. I'm already a black sheep as it is, I didn't need to be pushed out further. I was wrong, I know this and I apologize to anyone who is offended by a former Catholic turned atheist accepting communion to save face.
Later on, at the cemetery, Aunt Jo's son talked about the four sisters. Aunt Jo, Aunt Louise, Aunt Anna and my grandmother Millie. They are all gone now, every one of them. Chip looked around at the people gathered by the gravesite and said (paraphrasing for lack of full memory):
Many years ago, two immigrants came to this country with nothing but one suitcase. They gave us four daughters who in turn gave us all this (looking around at all the relatives). The daughters gave us sons and daughters who in turn gave us more sons and daughters. My mother was part of that; she and her sister brought so much joy and love into this world. You are what they have left behind.
And it's so true; we are our parents' legacy, just as our children are ours. From life comes more life and in death, love and joy are left behind. At least that is what we all hope for.
No, no sappy ending here about how I learned today to live each day to the fullest. None of that. Just that we are more than our paychecks and our toys and our jobs. What we leave behind is so often measured in money and belongings, scattered among relatives. I believe if you instead measure it in love and joy and comfort, you will find people are richer than they know.
In my high school yearbook under my picture is this quote:
And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make
22 years later, that belief is still with me.
of underwear and christmas
When you have kids in the house, disease spreads like widlfire and bounces back and forth between family members the entire winter. Today is my turn with the Disease of the Week: the monster head cold.
I'm off to Aunt Jo's funeral now and I imagine after that I'll spend the whole day in front of this computer, complaining about the world at large, though I am preparing my annual Christmas list posts; holiday movies, mix cd's for the season and tasteless Christmas decorations awards. I always take suggestions, so start thinking about the above and what would be on your list, and if you have any links to horrible holiday decorations, please let me know.
I'll be back after paying my respects to Aunt Jo and silently thanking her for all those gifts of underwear on my birthday when I was little, and the '73 gold Plymouth Duster she gave me when I was 20 and proceeded to crack up in an accident.
November 29, 2002
notifications
I'm thinking of starting a notification list for when this blog is updated. My pings to weblogs.com don't always go through, and not everyone uses blogroll and gets that neat updated feature on their links list. Is anyone interested in being on such a list? Should I bother?
Happy Hanukkah!
Of note: We have decided, at the request of several people, to wait until Monday to send the money to the Pizza for IDF fund (see sidebar). We are above the $1,000 mark and I do believe some soldiers are going to be very grateful come Monday. If you were waiting to donate, now is the time to do it.
Also, Anthony from Washington D.C., thank you very much for the copy of An Autumn of War by Victor Davis Hanson. That was very kind of you.
from the peta files
click for extra tall grande size
The fine folks at PETA are now playing the terrorism card, which shouldn't suprise anyone being that they are an organization that uses mental terrorism to coerce young people into going vegan. No, that is not an overstatement. Anyone remember the Burger King protests? Well I do, because they were at my local Burger King, handing out paper crowns to kids; crowns covered in fake blood with what looked like entrails dripping from the points. Nice, eh?
Now they are hanging posters and airing commercials that equate people who eat meat with terrorists. The poster reads:
"Do exactly as we say and nobody gets hurt. Resist and innocent creatures will be beaten, scalded alive, and dismembered and their throats slit, while countless people are poisoned at random by food laced with deadly bacteria.”
It has nothing to do with terrorists, although it may appear that way, and everything to do with turkey.
The TV spot says basically the same thing while it shows a group of store employees and shoppers cowering while a voice on the store's speaker system reads the above lines.
I have a problem with people who put the lives of animals above the lives of human beings, and that's basically what PETA does on a consistent basis, so much so that they don't care about frightening children or making a mockery of the heightened state of nervousness in this country in regards to terrorism.
I eat meat. I like meat. I do not blow up office buildings to get my hamburgers. I do not kill thousands of people at a time to get my steak. Yes, animals are killed so I can eat. But they are animals. Not humans. Does anyone from PETA realize what this earth would look like if we never killed animals for human consumption?
Eating meat is not terrorism, not even close. My pork chops do not bring down civilaztions. My bacon does not cause mothers to bury their children. I do not strap on a grenade belt every time I eat a bologna sandwich.
It is the mindset of extremists that everyone should follow their law of the land, everyone needs to think like them or at least be coerced into doing so. This is a free country and as such, what I want to eat for dinner is my choice, nobody else's. I'm not shoving a slab of meat in your face, don't shove your tofu turkeys in mine or my children's.
for me to poop on
I'm sitting here at work and there are about three people in the entire building. It's quiet as a morgue except for the clacking of keyboards, and those keyboards belong to Bonnie and I, and what we are typing has nothing to do with work, but with an email exchange about fecal matter and something called National Poop Day.
At home is a nice cozy living room, a sick husband who needs love and a quiet Friday night waiting to happen.
Guess where I'm going?
Spoke too soon. More work. No home. Oh well.
Carnival of the Vanities on tour!
Carnival of the Vanities is going on tour, and I'll be the first stop. This coming Wednesday, December 4, A Small Victory will be hosting COV#11.
For info on how to join the COV, see here.
If you haven't already sent a submission to Bigwig for #11 and you want to participate, please send to me at michele@asmallvictory.net. The sooner the better, as I have to read through all of the entries first. I know Bigwig ususally makes the deadline Tuesday evening, but we have basketaball that night, so I would appreciate it if you would get your submission to me by Tuesday morning, if possible.
ding dong
Ol' Dirty Laden is dead and Scott Koenig has the proof.
He's not only merely dead, he's really most sincerely dead.
If You Got It, Spend It Day: It's For The Childrentm
Today is the official AdBusters Buy Nothing Day. It's a day when all the culture jammers keep their hard earned money in their pockets to send a message to corporate America that overconsumption will kill us all in the end.
Not in my backyard, kiddies. Today is If You Got It, Spend It Day. Hell, even if you don't got it, buy it.
Send a message to the world that we are gathered as one to keep our economy going. Send a message to the buy-nothing supporters that it is about the economy, stupid.
While the culture jammers will be having "swap meets, teach-ins, concerts, street theatre, credit-card cut-ups, postering, potlucks," instead of shopping, particpants of Got It, Spend It Day will be tearing up the aisles in toy stores looking for that Princess Barbie, swapping discount coupons, eating at chain restaurants and creating origami with their mile long store receipts.
While the Ad Busters believe that "Over consumption is mother of all our environmental problems," we believe that under consumption is the mother of all economical problems. While they say "the more you consume, the less you live," we say...umm, right.
Now, we are not suggesting that your run out to your nearsest mall or K-Mart on 
this Black Friday. Anyone who ventures out to a store on this special day has to be insane. No, just sit in front of your computer and click away. Shop through catalogs. Order over the phone. You don't have to leave your house to
participate!
Anyone who is a parent knows what will happen if you hand out gift exemption vouchers to relatives in lieu of exchaning presents. There will be mutinity. Let's face it, our kids aren't Ned Flanders' kids. They won't get excited over an imaginary Christmas.
So buy something today. Buy anything. Just don't buy nothing. Do it For The Childrentm
we don't serve your kind in here
I am disgusted with my neighbors.
When I speak about Muslims and facetiously refer to the Religion of Peace on this site, it's obvious that I am talking about extremist Muslims; the militants who kill in the name of their god, the terrorists who have taken a religion and turned it into a rallying cry for death.
I've defended American Muslims here. I know quite a few; my daughter is friends with several American Muslims. I do not believe those that live in my community are terrorists or extremists. True, I sometimes take them to task for remaining silent in the face of people co-opting their religion for the sake of violence, but I do not for one minute resent the fact that any of them live here.
There was a meeting Tuesday night at the local library regarding a small mosque and school that local Muslims want to build where two rather large houses now exist. The members of the community who asked for the meeting claimed that their opposition to the construction of the mosque and school revolves around parking and traffic, and the quaility of life in the neighborhood.
The voices raised at the meeting proved otherwise.
A few East Meadow residents at the Tuesday meeting protested in moderate tones about the society's planned expansion and its tax-exempt religious status, which they said forces them to pay more than their fair share of property taxes.But most of the meeting consisted of a barrage of angry shouts and anti-Muslim jeers directed at Rahman, his architect Hossein Alemzadeh, and his lawyer, Peter Morra. Meeting moderator Joseph Parisi, who heads the civic group, banged a gavel again and again, and shouted the audience down, to maintain order.
"Go park in Bangladesh!" one man shouted.
Some said they oppose the mosque because it would attract more Muslims to East Meadow, and they don't like Muslims, especially after last year's Sept. 11 attacks.
"A lot of people died in the name of your god. We don't kill in the name of our god," said Michelle Caio of East Meadow. About half those present cheered Caio's comments, while the rest shouted disagreement, to which she answered: "You don't want to admit it, but that's the issue. Parking's not the issue," Caio said to her neighbors. "I'm against building a mosque in the town I live in. I do not think this is the time after what happened last year."
Gina Caio, Michelle's cousin, also spoke. "We obviously don't want you here," she told Rahman. "Why would you want to be in a community that doesn't want you?"
The term "Ugly Americans" comes to mind. This is how gaps widen and this is why wars wage. Not all Muslims follow the same path as their terrorist counterparts; my angry neighbors would be wise to find other ways to voice their opinions so as not to make themselves appear to be ignorant, though it's too late for that.
When blind hatred permeates a person, there is no reasoning with them. I won't even try to speak to my neighbors about this because they are at that place where there is no turning back; they've committed themselves to blanket judgment and you cannot debate or argue successfully with people like that.
It's not so much their feelings but the way they express them that sickens me. There were so many other ways to say what they did, but they chose the path of bigoted name calling.
Just another answer to the why do they hate us question.
November 28, 2002
flipping you the bird
mmmm.....turkey carcassAnd how was your Thanksgiving?
thanksgiving - when the skeletons come flying out of the closet
The great thing about family get-togethers is that you always find out some deep, dark secret in the course of the dinner converstation.
My Aunt Anne let one slip this year, and I have found the root cause of my fear of burning to death: When I was little, my younger sister Jo-Anne tried to set me on fire by lighting matches and throwing them in my hair.
So today, when I found this out, I punched her in the arm and gave her a black and blue. There's no statute of limitations on sibling abuse is there?
Don't listen to anything she says in the comments, she's just in a state of denial.
Back across the street for the second round of dessert now.
one for the road
Furthering the constant state of nervousness:
NORAD INVESTIGATES REPORTS OF CONTRAIL (link via Daily Pundit)
Yesterday at approximately 4 p.m. (EST) North American Aerospace Defense Command received unverified reports of what appeared to be a contrail of unknown origin in the vicinity of the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean. Initially, it was reported to be heading northwestward toward the United States. Commercial airline pilots later reported the contrail over Florida and later over Indiana. Thereafter, no other sightings were reported.NORAD scrambled fighter aircraft from several bases in an attempt to intercept and identify the source of the contrail. No visual or confirmed radar contact was made with the source of the contrail. NORAD continues to investigate these reports. NORAD is coordinating with the FAA to determine any further information on the nature of these reports.
I don't know what this means, but I don't like the thoughts that are surfacing in my brain.
Right now on FoxNews they are talking about surface to air missiles and reports of them being brought into the U.S., or that they may already be here.
I'm headed across the street to my parents' house now. Family, friends, football, lots of food and lots of alcohol. Just what the doctor ordered.
Of course, it's only across the street, so don't be surprised to find me back here at some point throwing out more paranoid thoughts. Feel free to slap me at any time.
If you get a chance, go over and say happy birthday to Robyn, a person who is very high up on my list of friends I am thankful for. She's turning the big 30 today. Life begins at 30, folks. Don't ever doubt that.
a thanksgiving tale
I forgot to tell you my favorite Thanksgiving memory.
It was 1992. I was still married. We had Thanksgiving at my house - my family and my ex's family.
During dessert, my father punched my husband. There was a straw and a broken camel's back involved.
It wasn't a good event at the time, but hey - let's all look back and laugh at it now.
Well, I am.
so long, and thanks for all the underwear
Oh yea, and I have to go to a wake tonight.
My Aunt Jo died. Everyone has/had an aunt like her. The one who rearranged your cabinets every time she came over; the one who gave you undewear on every birthday; the one who parked her car fifteen feet from the curb every time.
Aunt Jo lived to her late 80's and worked up until the day she found out she had cancer. She lived a full, happy life for the most part.
I'll miss her.
I really should be attempting to bake right now. Or at least headed to the bakery. Why am I still sitting here?
And more importantly, does this font suck?
faster, please
And the grinch's heart grew five times smaller this year.
Between him and Ol' Dirty Laden's troops and Saddam, I'm ready to get this war on. Bring me the head of all of them on a platter. Happy fucking Thanksgiving, everyone.
giving thanks
Let's try this again.
Today is Thanksgiving. Let us be thankful.
My family, the heart and soul of my life force. My husband, my children, my parents, my sister Jo-Anne, her husband Lew and their son David; my sister Lisa and her fiance Rob. I am grateful to have all of them in my life for many, many reasons.
My best friends, Barbara and Bonnie, who make life more bearable in those tough times and who make the good times full of laughter.
The friends I have made through this space on the web; I wish I could name all of you but I would be here all day. You have each touched me in different ways (no, not like that, you perv).
The enemies I have made as well, for they have taught me a bit about humility, patience and tolerance.
The Vast Right Wing Conpsiracy of blogging, for taking me in so willingly.
This country and the freedoms that come with living here.
The men and women of the armed forces who defend those freedoms for the rest of us.
There are so many other little things I am thankful for; the things that make me smile, the things that make me laugh, the things you take for granted sometimes.
I'm thankful for sunsets that turn the sky into a surreal painting. The colors of autumn that so often take my breath away with their beauty. A job that I love and bosses who make my job enjoyable. People who bring me pleasure and laughter in different ways - the authors of all the books I read and the artists and writers of all the comic books I obsess over, the musicians and singers whose music I listen to.
I'm thankful for tequila and coffee flavored ice cream and baja chalupas and grande frappaccinos; pinot grigio wine and waffles smothered in butter and syrup and filet mignon wrapped in bacon; digital cable and cable modems and networked computers and movies on demand.
And you. Every person who reads this site and comments here or sends me emails. This blog has kept me going through some rough times; not just the writing but the encouragement from all of you. I have learned a lot from my readers and the people whose blogs I read. I have laughed a lot, too. You guys are good company. Thank you.
Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends in the U.S.A. and peace and love to everyone else.
First round is on me!
paranoia, paranoia
As if I didn't have the creeps already, I get this comment about ten minutes ago on my post about feeding the IDF:
hello ,
Let`s 4 hours later, all every one (every human) pray to GOD to
disapear the Israel and A. Sharon (it takes just 30 seconds).
because they are very cruel, they aren`t human.
OUR PROMISE 4 HOURS LATER FROM NOW.
The IP resovles to:
SINA ATI NET CORPORATION
Mohsen Naderi
No 93,5th St, Saadabad Ave, Tajrish
Tehran, IR
Even if this is just some nutcase trying to scare people, it doesn't help my sense of paranoia.
i've got a bad feeling about this...
I got up today expecting to make a nice little post wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. First, I looked at the CNN site to see what I missed overnight and my heart sunk.
At first I thought it was another attack in Israel. Then I read it carefully.
Two attacks. One in Mombassa, on an Israeli owned hotel.
A missile fired at an Israeli airliner.
And then the words that made my hair stand on end: Al Qaeda.
He said about 8:30 a.m. local time a vehicle pulled up to the entrance of the hotel and the men inside fought with security officers. The men were able to get past security and drove the car into the hotel reception area.He said one of them men blew himself up in the lobby while two others set off explosives packed into the car.
About the same time, he said, a light plane flying overhead dropped at least three bombs in the direction of the hotel and beach nearby.
A London Muslim cleric who supports Osama bin Laden said that Islamic militant groups sympathetic to al Qaeda warned of an attack on Kenya one week ago on Internet chat rooms and in e-mails.
A radical London-based cleric suspected of links to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida said on Thursday he also strongly believed the militant network was behind the car bomb and missile attacks. “It is definitely al-Qaida or a militant group that supports it. They have mostly attacked Westerners because the Israelis are difficult to reach but Israelis are their priority,” Abu Hamza al-Masri, who the United States suspects of links to al-Qaida, told Reuters.
"This is their way of showing their commitment to Palestine.”
That bad feeling I had about this holiday weekend has suddenly tripled.
November 27, 2002
one more time, with feeling
If you're looking for something funny, go read death by wax. Don't stay here.
Are you tired of this delinking thing yet? If you are, don't read ahead. Oh, this is not about me this time.
This time it's Wilde, a person whose site I have linked to for a while. You need to go there and read the whole story.
The person who delinked him is also a person on my blogroll. To say that I am stunned by her response to him is putting it mildly.
Let's get some things straight here. Just because you are registered in the name of one particular political party does not mean you hold all ideals of that party to be yours. Also, Republican is not another word for Conservative. The two are not always mutually exclusive.
Take my boss, for instance. He is a Democrat who also happened to run in the last election on the Conservative line also. Yes, he is a conservative Democrat. He is pro-Israel, pro-war and a host of other things not normally considered Democrat.
I am a registered Republican. I am pro-choice, pro gay-rights. Not things you usuallly think of when you hear the word Republican.
So, to dimiss someone because they are a democrat and you are not is to be blinded by labels. The delinker wrote in an email to Wilde:
Given you latest outburst as an attempt to censor me on my own blog ("don't call Dimocrats that") and your avowed personal goal of trying to restore the Democrat Party--something that is anathema to me and and the aims of my blog--I'm IP banning you and delinking you. Sorry, but that's just the way it is.
Given your avowed loyalties and purpose--which I have no interest in aiding or abetting--I have no choice.
I don't see how linking to someone from a different political party aids or abets their agenda. To me, that smacks of an oversized sense of self-importance. I, for one, hold no dreams that my blog is somehow going to have an impact on any election or any political movement. If I thought that by linking to others whose goals are anathema to mine would somehow be helping them achieve their goals and I delinked them, my blogroll list would be very short and my daily reading would be pretty boring.
Also, banning the IP of the offending blogger serves what purpose? All I see in that action is someone saying "Not only will I not link you because you think differently than me, but I won't even allow you to view my site. We don't serve your kind here." My stomach did a small turn when I read that she blocked his IP. Doing something like that only perpetuates the notion that bloggers are moving towards building cocoons. I have a feeling that if the delinker keeps it up, she will be all alone in her little place, with no links out on her sidebar and no one allowed in.
It was this line in another email to Wilde that really threw me for a loop:
We are at War--as much with Liberals as we are with Islamist terrorists. Your side is, unfortunately, the Enemy.
While I often take liberals to task on this site, I in no way feel I am at war with them. I do not view them as the enemy, but rather as human beings who just happen to not share anything in common with me - politically. That was a harsh statement on her part and one I want to separate myself from, as a newly annointed member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.
See, this isn't just about blogs. It's about life and connecting on different levels to other humans. It's about understanding, debate and healthy arugments. It's about seeing all sides of issues and even if you never change your mind on an issue, at least you can say you listened, you read, you learned. You made an informed, educated decision when you took the stance you did. Sure, opinion - especially of the politcal variet - are all about guts and heart and soul when it comes down to it. But the brain controls them all. If you don't use your brain, your opinion means fuckall in the end.
Wilde is about as liberal as I am religious. Which is to say, not. The blogger in question obviously did not do her homework before she kicked Wilde out and locked the door on him. She said in one email:
Wilde, I'm sorry you took so long to make an answer--which I regret to say I'm really not interested in reading.
How can you pass judgment on someone and not even take the time to know the person you are passing judgment on?
You can say "it's only blogs," but it's not. Behind each blog is a person who feels every cut and sting another blogger or reader throws at them.
As much as I may make fun of liberals on this site when dealing with political issues, I still remain friends with many of them. We share tastes in music and movies and books - there are so many more things that make up a person's personality besides their ideology.
I sound like a broken record, I know. But it doesn't seem like anyone is getting the point. We may fight each other's beliefs, but we shouldn't be fighting each other. I am not at war with the anti-war left. I am engaged in sparring and debate and yes, maybe I do show contempt for their actions, just as they show their contempt towards me for driving an SUV or not wanting more gun control. But at the end of the day, I can still sit there and talk about music to the person who was just calling me a gas guzzler. As I often say to my son, "Just because I feel that your microwaving that ant was bad, that does not mean I think you are a bad person."
Separate the politics from the person once in a while. Get behind what you see at face value and look around. You may find you even have things in common. But for the love of humanity, people, at least try. At least know who you are condemning before you condemn them. To do anything less than that is not only unfair, it's completely and utterly wrong.
send good vibes
Everyone go wish Amanda a Happy Thanksgiving. She's alone and recovering from surgery and could use a boost.
Action Figures Caught on Cam Part 4: Thanksgiving
Spiderman: I still don't see why we all have to have Thanksgiving
together. Superheroes, villians, goth people - it's a recipe for disaster!
Batman: Ha! Remember last year? Mark McGwire's head popped off in that free-for-all.
Boba Fett: Yea, the free-for-all that you started!
Skeletor: Shut up, Fett. You were the one that made us play drinking games. It's your fault.
Madman: Now, now, lets not rehash last year. I say we start this year off with something nice. How about we all go around the table and say what we are thankful for?
Evil Ash: Oh, geez. We all gonna hold hands and bow our heads in prayer, too?
Buddy Christ: You got a problem with that, bad ass?
Evil Ash: Sorry, Jesus.
Madman: Ok, Spawn, why don't you start?
Spawn stands up, glass of whiskey in his hand.
Spawn: I'm thankful for that outfit Asuka is wearing today.
Hubba Hubba!
He-Man: Hey! You can't talk about my girlfriend like that!
Spawn (laughing maniacally): Yourgirlfriend? I've been sleeping with her for three weeks!
He-Man: Liar!
Asuka: Umm....
He-Man: NOOOOOO! Say it isn't true!!
Asuka: Ummm....
Spawn: Told ya!
He-Man runs from the room crying
Spiderman: Oh, for Christ's sake!
Buddy Christ: Hey, I had nothing to do with this, man.
Madman: Well, let's wait on dinner a bit until we all calm down. Let's watch some football.
They all gather in the living room to watch the game. Fifteen minutes later, there's a crashing sound. He-Man comes swinging through the window on a rope, his feet aimed for Spawn's head. He swings down on top of Spawn. They tumble to the ground and when Spawn stands up, his cape is ripped in half.
Spawn: You son of a bitch! You mother fucking asshole! You are dead! Do you hear me? DEAD!
He-Man: Yea, I'm shaking in my boots, you girlfriend stealer!
Spawn: My fucking cape. I can't believe it. You'll pay for this you asswipe!
Spawn runs from the room, still yelling obscenities.
Skeletor: Well, another fine Thanksgiving this is turning into.
Death: I think it's rather amusing.
Sandman: You would.
Boba Fett: Is that food ready yet? I'm starving.
Madman: The turkey should be just about cooked. Let's go back into the dining room.
Everyone moves towards the dining area while He-Man lingers, looking around.
Evil Ash: What's the matter He-Man, looking for your balls?
He-Man: Shut up, you freak. Hey, has anyone seen Battlecat?
Green Goblin: I think I saw him fucking your girlfriend. HAHAHAH!
They meet the others in the dining area.
Madman: Tada! I present to you the most amazing Thanksgiving meal ever!
Several Street Fighter guys bring in plates heaped with food and set them on the table.
Madman: Edward Scissorhands, would you do the honors, please?
Edward (mumbling): Every year, it's Edward cut the turkey, Edward cut the pies.
Spiderman: That is the hugest turkey I have ever seen. I can't wait to dig in.
He-Man: Where the hell is Battlecat?
Spawn: Really. He was just dying to dig into his plate.
Edward finishes slicing the meat and everyone clamors for the different plates. They dig in right away, eating hungrily and noisily.
Spawn: Hold up! I would like to make a toast before we all stuff ourselves full of this food.
He stands and raises his glass of whiskey, Asuka at his side.
Hans Solo: I have a bad feeling about this...
Spawn: I thought I would not be able to eat this meal, I was so depsondent over He-Man ripping my cape. But there are ways to get over things. A little action from Asuka here didn't hurt....
He-Man (his mouth full of food): You bastards! Do you have to announce it?
Spawn: You know, He-Man, they say revenge is a dish best served cold, but I would much rather serve it hot.
He-Man: What the hell does that mean?
Spawn (mimicing He-Man): Has anyone seen Battlecat?
He-Man and everyone else stop chewing, stop talking and look up at Spawn, forks in midair. Spawn cackles.
Spawn: Enjoying the meat, He-Man?
He-Man (staring down at his plate in horror) NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Chaos ensues. Everyone is either puking or running out of the room. He-Man faints. And Boba Fett calmly sits and passes himself some more meat.
Buddy Christ: Another Thanksgiving shot to hell.
thought of the day
I'm really swamped at work today; posting will be a bit slow.
However, I did come across this while typing a decision, and while it's apropos of nothing, I did find it very interesting.
In Cabell v. Markham, 148 F2d 737, 739 (Second Circuit 1945), Judge Learned Hand stated:
As Holmes, J., said in a much-quoted passage from Johnson v. United States, 163 F. 30, 32, 18 L.R.A., N.S. 1194: “It is not an adequate discharge of duty for courts to say: We see what you are driving at, but you have not said it, and therefore we shall go on as before.”
Of course it is true that the words used, even in their literal sense, are the primary, and ordinarily, most reliable source of interpreting the meaning of any writing; be it a statute, a contract or anything else. But it is one of the surest indexes of a mature and developed jurisprudence not to make a fortress out of the dictionary; but to remember that the statutes always have some purpose or object to accomplish, whose sympathetic and imaginative discovery is the surest guide to their meaning.
Just something to think about in regards to words and implied meanings.
pizza news
PizzaIDF.org has set us up with our own page to make donations (see sidebar of this site for more info). We are transferring all the Paypal donations over there, and if you haven't donated yet but would like to, head over here to do it.
Thanks to everyone who has donated so far!
COV
This week's Carnival of the Vanities is up. It just gets better every week. Coincidentally, this week's is probably the best so far, and it happens to be a week when I forgot to send a post in. You do the math.
Meanwhile:
Dude! You have an American Attitude! Sweet!
You're a gun-toting, bar-dancing, ya'll-saying, t.v. show-copying,
war-waging, ass-patting, hamburger over-eater.
Take the What the Hell Kinda Attitude is That? Quiz at aka cooties
blame america
I do understand these basic concepts about Indymedia: They do not edit or censor what people post on their site. It's basically set up for unchecked self-publishing; and not everyone who posts on Indymedia represents the view of that organization as a whole. They consider themselves the bastion of free speech and as such, they open the door to anyone and everyone who has something to say, even if that something is "I killed a cop."
However, when the front page of Indymedia (not just one of the many subsites, grouped according to location) posts something like this:
There is a long tradition of criminals using mass media to get a message out. But the fact that this was such a brutal murder, and that the confession depicts the crime as anti-corporate, mixed with the anti-corporate stance of Indymedia and its emphasis on empowering people to become the media raises concerns that the line will be blurred in this case. This only serves to distract from corporate media's complicity in murders and violence committed for the benefit of corporations,
I have to take issue with it. In the end it's always about them, and nothing else. It always comes down to their causes, their actions and how every action in the world is a representation of the brutality of America, corporations, the media and the government.
Apparently the murderer wrote to several news outlets, not just Indymedia and its subsites. He also contacted other news sites, including FreeRepublic (original story here)
In the post on Indymedia, he talked about corporations.
Hello Everyone, my name’s Andy. I killed a Police Officer in Red Bluff, California in a motion to bring attention to, and halt, the police-state tactics that have come to be used throughout our country.
Now I’m coming forward, to explain that this killing was also an action against corporate irresponsibility.
In his letter to Free Republic, he took a stance against police officers:
We further demand that our Police Force cease both brutalizing us and in any way abusing their authority over us.
The writer of these letters, if he is indeed the killer, has a very warped sense of personal responsibility, and he alone is responsible for this murder, and I don't mean to imply that Indymedia had anything to do with it.
But their complicity - or lack of - begins and ends there. Most of the people that post on the IMC threads do represent the ideals of IMC collectively. And it didn't take long for them to come out of the woodwork and start looking for root causes as to the killer's actions.
The first post brings out the phrase Manchurian Candidate. That didn't take long.
This incident seems to do a perfect job of associating anti-corporate activism with terrorism. Hmmmm. . . Now who would have an interest in propagating this kind of idea. But no spook would ever try to set up activists in a bad light would they?..
Nor did it take long to drag out the "trained by the USA" line:
Meanwhile, the guy claims to be "a graduate of the U.S. Army Ranger School, Airborne School, and Jungle Operations Training School." Now if this is true, THAT'S THREE CONNECTIONS. Someone should get busy trying to figure out if this guy really is a US-military-trained killer, what his history is, etc.
USA seems to have a big problem with people it trains to kill non-Americans on behalf of corporate interests coming home and killing Americans for their own interests and purposes. They may be Manchurian Candidates, or they may just be bad apples - unintended side effects of the program, whatever.
How about: this man had a skewed sense of moral indignation and took it upon himself to make his protestations known to the government by taking the life of an innocent person?
That would have been clear cut and easy. Unfortunately, to the folks who run and support IMC, police officers are never innocent and there is always an underlying reason for someone's hostility towards corporations, authority and the government.
In other words, don't blame the shooter, blame the the man. The man was holding him down and caused him to shoot. The man was repressing him and stealing his air and killing his babies and diminishing his rights.
And if it isn't enough to just place the blame on corporations and laws that were obviously driving this person insane, you can always turn to the old conspiracy theory train of thought and blame the government.
Of course, that was it. The murdere was sent out their by none other than Ashcroft himself. They brainswashed the poor young man, turned him into a killing machine and then sent him out to kill a young police officer, all to make the anti-war protesters look bad. Of course.
It is the hallmark of the far left to look for underlying causes of blame rather than look destructive acts in their face and see them for what they are.
It's America's fault we are attacked by terrorists.
It's America's fault that people kill police officer.
It's America's fault that Iraqi people live in fear.
The tune has changed. Blame America is the new catch phrase.
Kids doing bad in school? It must be the way America has trained its teachers.
Feeling fat? It's America's fault for forcing you to eat fast food.
Homeless? Jobless? It's America's fault for not offering you better opportunities, even though you haven't been looking for those opportunities yourself.
Stock market down in Europe? Blame America. An activist fell out of a tree? Blame America.
Tripped over your shoelace and fell? Of course, blame America for for allowing such shoddy materials to be made in the first place. After all, the minimum wage is still the same as it was years ago and the people who work in the shoelace factory are tired and hungry and, because they arent' unionized, are constantly being whipped and beaten by their employers and some of those workers, most likely the one who did the quality control on your particular pair of laces was having flashbacks to the days he was beaten by cops for protesting the Vietnam war and he was too distraught, not to mention bruised and bloody, to check that the length on your laces was correct and now that the lace was hanging over the side of your shoe and you tripped, you're going to take on the big companies and sue them to make a moral point for the freedom of shoelaces factory workers everywhere.
I killed a policeman because America made me do it.
Let's see how that stands up in court.
November 26, 2002
eye of the storm
Is anyone else feeling a slight unease about this holiday weekend? I've got a bad vibe thing going on.
as i was saying
In my thanks to Indymedia yesterday I forgot to include the part about "where else can you find a post from a guy who just killed a cop and thinks it was an moral act of virtue?"
come out, come out wherever you are
United We Stand: How to be friends with an antiwar nut.
...I still think he's a nut for listening to Noam Chomsky, and I'll tell him so. But I love him anyway. That's how I can be his friend....
Robert J. Toth articulates what I have been trying to say for a while.
It's interesting that this piece appears in my inbox today; I've been conferring with Choire and Nancy, two liberal friends, about just this thing. Unlike some other people, neither of them have chosen to drop me as a friend because of my political views. In fact, they both have made an effort to listen to my thoughts and try to understand them, whereas other people have stuck their fingers in their ears when I try to talk.
I don't know why people have a hard time looking past politics, religion or even sports when maintaining a friendship. Well, that's not true. I do have an idea. The idea is that those people who would give up a friendship - or in the case of blogging a permalink - are people who refuse to see beyond their own nose. They are people who cannot accept that their are other points of view, other opinions beside their own. They are the people who stand up and say my opinion is the right one and you are an ass for thinking otherwise.
Yesterday I referred to the term blog cocooning, something brought up by Mickey Kaus at the Yale Blog Conference.
In essence, the many people who have been talking about blog cocooning the past couple of days are referring to the practice of some bloggers of painting themselves into a corner. Linking only to people who think like them, and then taking it farther and not linking to anyone who links to someone who doesn't think like them, it's like making a virtual version of a gated community. No one in, no one out.
One such person is the author of Rittenhouse Review, who went off on a self-important little rant on how he can no longer in good conscience link to anyone who has Little Green Footballs on their linklist. Guilt by association, I presume. And honestly, when he says he is "taking a stand" how much of stand is it by just taking someone off of your blogroll? And how far is he going to take it? Will he just delink the people who link to LGF or will he take it one step further and delink the people who link to the people who link to LGF?
It's always been my contention that people develop the need for segragation out of fear of the uknown. If you don't take time to get to know about a certain culture, relgion, etc., you will only end up separating yourself from those that practice within those bounds because you fear what their beliefs might be. This is how children develop into racists. They grow up in families that say don't hang out with this one, he's black. Don't date this one, he's Jewish. They inherently think something is wrong with people who aren't just like them. They aren't taught to look beyond the race, the religion, the politics to see what lies beneath the skin. They don't see people, they see ideologies. And that's where the danger lies.
I wish the people who delinked me had said "You're a good friend, a nice person, but man, do I hate your politics," and left it at that. Is their world so small that the idea of having me on their links list makes it look like they promote my views?
On the other side of the coin is people asking you to remove them from their links list because they don't agree with you. That opens up a whole new can of worms. It's like the kid in grade school who said to you "Gee, can you not tell anyone that I know you? I don't want to be associated with a geek." Which basically would give me the urge to run through the halls and shout out that he's my best friend.
I know I've done this before. I've talked about it before. I almost ran it to the ground. But the fact is, I still get stabbed in the back for my views. I still look around and see my name dropping from blogrolls. A lot of the old crowd doesn't come around anymore. And that's all fine. But it's the almost daily emails and the snide comments in other people's blogs that still keeps it fresh for me. I have no idea why people are so hung up on what I write and how I feel. But they are. And it's starting to sicken me.
The point is, if you are a mature, reasonable person, you don't have to give up your friends because they aren't a carbon copy of you. Hell, who would even want to hang out people only like them? That would get boring real quick. The same applies to blogging. To link only to people who share your views is incredibly narrow minded. See what the rest of th