thenation.html

it's not how it looks...
things are not getting worse. we are becoming aware of the financial state of our nation. we are discovering corruption that ran wild and unchecked. as though it was part of the original design. its purveyors shocked that we should be outraged at their theft, graft, extortion, briberies, and all-around dishonesty.

political posts as personal honey-pots. there are many more than blago out there. it's our job (the people) to make it clear, that we've had about as much of this as we can stand. integrity will become the order of the day if we wish it to be so. 02/20/09

president. barack. hussein. obama.
end. of. message. 11/05/08

my country... is exposing itself. and i am so grateful. terrified people have been hiding out for years, and now they feel absolutely free to speak their minds and be themselves. i think that panic is flushing them out.

they don't like the middle name "hussein", they carry monkeys in effigy of our next president, barack hussein obama, they scream "kill him!" at rallys, they say he's an "arab"... even if he is, what of it? the drudge report ran a pic of barack kissing a white woman, which had me hooting, thinking of how many folk that would rile up.

the requirements for president of the united states of america never included "caucasian". just as they never included "african", "native american", "asian", "latino", "jewish", "christian", "muslim", or any other whatever you think you may not be.

people apparently are quite frightened because the face they see looking out at them from the white house may very well not be. there is nothing to fear. he'll either be a good president or a bad president.

he will also be "american". 10.13.08

just wondering... so you have a child born with special needs. you love and adore your child, but recognize that this bundle of joy will require much more medical support than the average child. the current administration wishes that everyone would just go and purchase health coverage... this is not affordable to many. and even when it is, it is not comprehensive enough to prevent financial disaster in case of a serious illness, and sometimes holds people hostage to accounting systems in their hours of most and dire need.

as a governor and potential vice president of the united states, sarah palin's trig, will likely not have to suffer from lack of affordable medical care. what about those who are not living in that economic stratum? should they get sicker or die because they do not have high-paying jobs? should our pursuit of happiness be all about getting more dollars so that we can be safe, or should it be about finding a profession that we enjoy and can best serve the community or the world?

when joe biden became a single parent and certainly had huge medical bills to contend with, he was stepping into guaranteed health care for his family.

john mccain... aw, heck, no discussion necessary.

they've all got great health care, as do barack and michelle obama. 'get a real job' means get one with great benefits, like health care. gone are the days when people could be groomed to find their natural levels, like water running in a brook to a stream, to a river, to the ocean. now we must jockey for the 'best' job, meaning the one that pays the best money and has the best health care. and who wouldn't? we all know what we are up against. our fear makes us take on positions that do not gratify us, and we make misery for ourselves and others in these situations

so, which ticket wants everyone to have affordable health care? i have a friend with a special needs child, with down syndrome, and she never got the advantages to hand to her child as sarah palin does. she is a hard worker, works too much, in fact, so why should she have to endure the mental torture of trying to provide for her family while fighting for her child's right to a pain-free, healthy life? many insurers will not take on a child with this 'pre-existing condition'... i ask myself. and now i am asking you...

check out this article on the health care blog... some comments and more info are here as the question is asked, 'where does sarah palin stand on children’s health coverage?' 09.19.08

obama/biden @ the dnc... barack obama chose joseph biden (who'd remarked on how clean and well-spoken he was way back when) as his running mate. i can only assume that by now, biden has 'spained himself and that obama was content with the 'splanation... hillary and bill gave rousing calls to their supporters to throw their shoulders to the "obiden" wheel and run those crazy baldheads out of town. for the record i support obama, so you won't see any equal time for the gop here. who cares, right?... 08.27.08

black moses... that's what they called him. that's what they will always call him. isaac hayes has taken a bow, the word just broke on cnn and is probably blazing across the airwaves and ether alike. heath ledger, bernie mac, and now this. i don't want to talk about losses any more, so we should each remember what he may have brought to our individual lives as an executive at soul powerhouse stax records and on his own ("i stand accused", "theme from shaft"). we're down on our knees here. have mercy... 09.10.08

i know he's not ours... but it's so sad to see heath ledger not here to revel in the 153+M take that dark knight has just enjoyed. to date, best opening in the u.s. ever. zowee. and his joker is what's taking the movie above and beyond the real. heath had done tons of work before i discovered him in brokeback mountain, and it is tragic that he has left this life in his prime... that's the way it went, i cannot change it, but i don't have to like it... 07.20.08

brownie's hellish job... a friend sent this to me; it's a .pdf file of a ton of emails that make it abundantly clear that d.c. turned a blind eye to an awful lot of suffering. this makes the blatant lies and finger-pointing by those in the bully pulpit damning.

my friend's quote: "Attached is a PDF of the former FEMA Director's emails before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. It's a sheer example of how cronyism and political appointments can serve to derail the effectiveness of government. What a shame!"

read it and seethe... brown_emails.pdf (790KB)... 11.04.05

how some people sleep at nite... is beyond me. i am shocked by the plaintive cries for help immediately following hurricane katrina from fema's regional director marty bahamonde that were callously ignored. people had to eat dinner. i can't say anymore. just read for yourself, from the houston chronicle @ chron.com. and be sure to scroll all the way down and read the actual emails courtesy of nytimes.com that went racing back and forth as darkness descended over the crescent city and the gulf coast. we should be so very, very ashamed. 10.21.05

George Bush doesn't care... at least he acted like he did not. when the louisiana governor called him before katrina's strike and told him to send "everything" he had, the president retired so that he could be fresh for a "war on terror" speech and did not interrupt his retreat.

later, when the situation became dire, the louisiana governor could not get him on the phone!!! the president of these united states did not believe there was a problem until someone spoon fed him a montage of press reports that asked where the *blat* he was while the gulf was drowning. he does not care about ANYTHING, let alone "Black People". at least we can take comfort in knowing that he's ignorant of EVERYBODY. equal opportunity neglect. no worries, kanye. you just misunderstood is all.... 09.12.05

newsweek.com put out this article.

I for one am appalled... at the info that’s coming out regarding Hurricane Katrina. While I should be proud of my country for all it has accomplished since the tragedy of 9/11, I am stewing over how we could have responded to Katrina any more pitifully. I truly believe that the people of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were not taken care of properly. They (the Feds/FEMA) did a study in 2004 that already told them that they did not have enough of ANYTHING, including shelters, so their hollering about how they could never have foreseen this is bunk.

See their release on "Hurricane Pam", the hypothetical storm that would hit as a cat 3 and result in toxic runoff.

I heard Barbara Bush actually say, to the world, that those people who were displaced and evacuated after having lost loved ones, possessions and their normal lives, might be better off, since they were in poverty before, and this might be a "step up" for them.

People are showing their true colors, so many years after the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. They are doing this without shame, and under the impression that everyone who is decent must share their opinion. Whites are "finding" food, Blacks are "looting".

The only people I see filmed looting are Blacks. For the small segment that insists on thuggery, all Blacks are maligned and ignored and they die, alongside Whites and other persons of color. Ridiculous. It’s a tragic time in America, when we let our own expire without dignity, under siege and alone. This administration and the PTB seem to have issues with the poor and people of color.

As for me, I am pissed.

Oh, and in case anyone is suitably embarrassed and links go down, I have cached the above pages, here.

missing...
i've become obsessed with watching nancy grace and greta van susteren. missing people get to me. and we seem to suddenly have no shortage of missing people. tragic stories, and tales that end with once in a lifetime miracles... we see ourselves in the anguish of the loved ones of those missing and fall into the joy of those who find their lost... 06.24.05

michael and terri schiavo, happy
finally at peace... terri schiavo
Michael Schiavo with his wife in 1990. This was never the picture presented to the public when it came time to inflame folks about Terri's controversial last years.

Michael Schiavo spent years and tons of cash from a malpractice award trying to bring his wife back, and when everything failed, he came to acceptance that she would never be who she had been. She was loved.

Michael Schiavo continued to dress his wife in finery and apply her makeup in the early years, because he knew that appearance was important to her. He became a respiratory therapist to learn more about how to care for her.

Terri died several deaths, but the first one came when she collapsed from a heart attack brought on by a chemical imbalance. The bulimia that she used to control her weight had finally had its way. I am sure that the formerly overweight teen received much praise, the more weight she lost.

She was dying to be beautiful, as we all are, but she took it to another level. She remained so until her last moments.

Terri was an ordinary woman who would shun the harsh spotlight that has been placed over her life and loved ones. Terri Schiavo has presented us with an important lesson about lookism (she was never noticed by the opposite sex until she lost over 50 pounds) and the pressure to be beautiful if you are a woman. I wonder if she would do it all again if she knew how it would have turned out. My fear is that she might have. We are all ordinary people, trying to mean something to someone, forgetting our very selves. Live and be happy. 04.07.05

give thanks...
11.25.04

florida ties a knot...
and prepares to hold on as hurricane "ivan the terrible" continues his reign of terror. grenada struggles up from under a direct hit by this now-category 5 storm while a punch-drunk jamaica was spared its evil eye. with the power of this hurricane a significant factor, jamaica still suffered much damage. and now, the exhausted state of florida, after experiencing charley and frances within fewer than 3 weeks, turns its weary face to the south and the possibility of another strike. the cayman islands and cuba likewise prep for the worst while praying for the best. no athiests in this foxhole. 09.12.04

kobe apologizes (sort of)...
kobe bryant stunned the nation and his legions of supporters by acknowledging that although the sexual act he committed on his accuser seemed consensual to HIM, it may not have been considered consensual to HER. that passed for an apology, anyway. in any case, the accuser has refused to testify in an effort to protect her sexual history. sad.

the prosecution has reluctantly dropped its case in the absence of its only witness (save a bit of dna). oh! and it turns out that the material... uh... matter... of another found upon her... personal effects... uh... was actually in a state that indicated that it was way older than had been thought, but that this piece of info somehow did not make it into the mill of public opinion. ah, it's all so murky now.

but guess what??? she's still suing mr. bryant in civil court, though. i'm interested in knowing how that one turns out. 09.02.04

say, what's tha big idea?!?...
i feel that gymnast paul hamm is not the real winner of the gold medal in men's gymnastics. but guess what? i don't know nothing about no sports. reality is: if an official makes a bad call, any protest remedies are to be pursued (and in the correct manner) by the wronged party or parties.

if the protest is lodged incorrectly, the boo-boo stands, yo. and that's what happened this time. the south koreans not only failed to start yang tae young at the correct starting point for calculating demerits, but they failed to make their protest in a timely manner. i'd always feel like i hadn't come by it honestly, but according to the rules, the medal belongs to hamm 08.28.04

one more silver dollar...
seems we've gotta run to keep from hiding. citigroup, the nyse, prudential financial, the imf and the world bank have just been given the evil eye, according to intelligence reports. homeland security secretary tom ridge issued the alert, and now we are all milling about examining each other for box cutters.

quite frankly, i feel that releasing so much information (along with the impression that security will be bumped up in those areas) is akin to sending all your fielders waaaaaaay out and having babe ruth bunt. play ball. 08.02.04

bling. bling.
latin singing sensation marc anthony divorced miss universe, for cryingoutloud, to marry j.lo. uh, ok.

to seal the deal, he just plunked down a reported £13,000.00 (that's english pounds, yo) for this pair of (you'd better siddown) flipflops. and she shall have music wherever she goes... 06.18.04

requiem eternum...
... ad nauseum. my remote got a real workout the past few days as the country lost its collective mind and flung itself at the altar of the late (and past president) ronald reagan. the kind of idolatry i witnessed reminds me of the packed streets filled with screaming mourners following eva peron's passing.

with all due respect, he was just a man. in fact, i was never an admirer of mr. reagan, his policies, or his attitudes. he made his decisions as though we had all been born at equal spots at the start line. while i admire those who pull themselves up by their bootstraps, i believe many children, through no fault of their own, were plunged beneath the poverty line in the name of reaganomics.

many of them are still waiting, as adults, for something to trickle their way. fortunately, the majority have survived his strong medicine. now there's talk of putting his face on money. get a grip, people. 06.13.04

grace under pressure...
kobe bryant seems to be playing better than ever as his trial for sexual assault looms. one thing i'll give him: he has excellent self-control when he wants to. too bad he didn't see fit to exercise same while away from the mother of his child. 05.12.05

i see london, i see france...
poor michael jackson. why a grown man would refer to young boys as "rubbers" is beyond me... authorities seized a couple pair of the pop star's skivvies from a private collection. looking for dna. if they find something, it's time to switch detergents, no? i wanna know why anyone would want to own the drawers of anyone, celebrity or not. ewwwWWW! 05.03.05