Last night, I went to the track near my house to do some speed work. After warming up for a- mile-and-a-half, I decided to clock my laps. At the beginning of the running season in March, I was doing a lap right around 2 minutes which, to me, sucks, but it IS the beginning of the season.
Well, my first lap--are you ready for this?--was 1:48! That is the fastest lap I have ever done! Needless to say my additonal 3 or 4 laps paled, averaging around 1:52 but still, not too shabby, considering I wasn't feeling my best last night. I was cold (what else is new?), tired and my lower back stiffness was acting up (I'm getting a much needed massage in Thursday, though).
A 1:48 lap translates into about a 7:12 minute mile, providing you can keep up the pace. That's where endurance comes in. But still, that's encouraging for this early in the season.
Back to being cold. I want to have my thyroid checked out. I have been cold a lot this spring. Tom says it's because it has been, uh, cold. Very astute observation of his, LOL. But I don't remember being this distressed by it before. I think the 10-pound weight loss MIGHT have something to do with it. I noticed that after I lost the weight that heat didn't bother me as much, either, which is a good thing. But I will have the thyroid checked out just in case. It would help if I had a GP, though. Haven't had to see one in about, 25 years! I'll ask my sister-in-law for a referral.
Also need to talk with her about Las Vegas. T has a birthday coming up (65th-yikes!) and I would like to take him to Vegas for a long weekend. He would LOVE it! But I have no clue how much it will cost, which travel agent I should call, et cetera. Pia and my brother have been out there several times so she's the one to ask.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Sunday, May 14, 2006
A Poem for My Late Mom
TILT-A-WHIRL
One hot summer night in ‘65
we all went to Palisades Park,
"swings all day and after dark,"
me, Mommy, Daddy and Bobby.
I couldn't get enough
of the rides, the rides, the rides!
Oh, I wanted to be turned upside-down,
spun like cotton candy
until I was pink with dizziness,
holding onto my father for dear life,
while screaming faster, faster, faster!
We stopped at the Tilt-a-Whirl
where you're chained up
inside a cage
and the bottom drops out
while you're spinning,
upside-down, around and sideways.
No one wanted to try it,
except Mommy.
We couldn't believe it.
The same woman who shuddered
when I did wheelies down the big hill
on my bike, who wouldn't put her head
under the water at the town pool,
this same woman was being
transported to another dimension,
where lights danced
in myriad of colors, where
swirling white and silver metal rims
danced above people's lollipop heads.
No one wanted to try it
except Mommy.
We looked up, all of us
never taking our eyes
off that magical silver cage, glowing against the night,
spinning into eternity, cutting
its own path through outer space
with our mother inside.
One hot summer night in ‘65
we all went to Palisades Park,
"swings all day and after dark,"
me, Mommy, Daddy and Bobby.
I couldn't get enough
of the rides, the rides, the rides!
Oh, I wanted to be turned upside-down,
spun like cotton candy
until I was pink with dizziness,
holding onto my father for dear life,
while screaming faster, faster, faster!
We stopped at the Tilt-a-Whirl
where you're chained up
inside a cage
and the bottom drops out
while you're spinning,
upside-down, around and sideways.
No one wanted to try it,
except Mommy.
We couldn't believe it.
The same woman who shuddered
when I did wheelies down the big hill
on my bike, who wouldn't put her head
under the water at the town pool,
this same woman was being
transported to another dimension,
where lights danced
in myriad of colors, where
swirling white and silver metal rims
danced above people's lollipop heads.
No one wanted to try it
except Mommy.
We looked up, all of us
never taking our eyes
off that magical silver cage, glowing against the night,
spinning into eternity, cutting
its own path through outer space
with our mother inside.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Oh Yeah, Sign Me Up to Have Kids...
Amazing how many of the psychopathic little bastards there are, isn't it?
Teen Gets 12 Years for Poisoning Milk
By Associated Press
LAKEVIEW, Ore. - A 13-year-old girl convicted of attempting to kill two classmates by slipping rat poison into their milk was sentenced to up to 12 years in a juvenile detention center.
Holly Sweeney was ordered Friday to remain at the Hillcrest Girls' School in Salem until she is 25 with early release possible if she responds to treatment, the judge ruled.
Earlier this month, the judge found the Lakeview girl and her friend, Stephanie Quesnoy, 12, guilty of plotting and executing a plan to kill two classmates they disliked. Quesnoy is to be sentenced May 22.
Teen Gets 12 Years for Poisoning Milk
By Associated Press
LAKEVIEW, Ore. - A 13-year-old girl convicted of attempting to kill two classmates by slipping rat poison into their milk was sentenced to up to 12 years in a juvenile detention center.
Holly Sweeney was ordered Friday to remain at the Hillcrest Girls' School in Salem until she is 25 with early release possible if she responds to treatment, the judge ruled.
Earlier this month, the judge found the Lakeview girl and her friend, Stephanie Quesnoy, 12, guilty of plotting and executing a plan to kill two classmates they disliked. Quesnoy is to be sentenced May 22.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Running and "Ruggles"
There are as many reasons to run as there are runners, I suppose, but I’ve never met a runner who didn’t enjoy it. The bottom line is that whether you’ve run a marathon in all 50 states, have run for 30 years, or just completed your first 5K, the thing that all runners have in common is the love of the sport.
Try explaining that, however, to my non-running friends and family members, (I refer to them as Ruggles, such as in Harry Potter, where non-magical folk are referred to as Muggles). Don’t get me wrong, most of my friends and relatives (the ones I still speak to anyway) support and encourage what I do. But more often than not, you hear things like: “The only time I’ll run is when someone is chasing me.”
My dear mother told me years ago that if I ran track, I would get muscles in my legs. Heaven forbid!
Or what about the portly relation in Houston who asked me why I run so much? “Because it allows me to eat what I want,” I replied. “But I already eat whatever I want and I don’t have to run for it,” he said, patting his rotund belly. “In fact, they bring the food to me.”
In 2002, I excitedly told a friend in Seattle that I completed my first half-marathon. Without missing a beat, he asked, “What happened to the other half?” I THINK he was kidding. I’m not sure.
And then there’s, “You run in this cold weather?” “You run in this heat?” “You run in the rain?” Yes, yes, and yes!
I have a nephew who’s an orthopedic surgeon down in Houston. While some part of me likes to think he’s proud of his aunt, he always makes “tsk-tsk-ing” noises when I tell him some of the distances I run. “You keep that up and you’ll be coming to see me in few years and it won’t be for a social visit,” he said.
The kid (he will always be a kid to me) has a point, since he tells me that more than half of his patients are athletes or former athletes. But, you know, you can end up in the orthopedist’s office after having spent your life as a couch potato, too. That being said, I prefer my life off the coach and on the roads.
To me, running is as much a part of my life's routine as is brushing my teeth, although running is much more pleasurable and far less routine. Yes, there are some risks (to joints, tendons, muscles, vertebrae, etc.) involved but that can be said of ANYTHING in life that’s worth pursuing. The benefits far outweigh any of the little aches and pains I may encounter along the way.
Try explaining that, however, to my non-running friends and family members, (I refer to them as Ruggles, such as in Harry Potter, where non-magical folk are referred to as Muggles). Don’t get me wrong, most of my friends and relatives (the ones I still speak to anyway) support and encourage what I do. But more often than not, you hear things like: “The only time I’ll run is when someone is chasing me.”
My dear mother told me years ago that if I ran track, I would get muscles in my legs. Heaven forbid!
Or what about the portly relation in Houston who asked me why I run so much? “Because it allows me to eat what I want,” I replied. “But I already eat whatever I want and I don’t have to run for it,” he said, patting his rotund belly. “In fact, they bring the food to me.”
In 2002, I excitedly told a friend in Seattle that I completed my first half-marathon. Without missing a beat, he asked, “What happened to the other half?” I THINK he was kidding. I’m not sure.
And then there’s, “You run in this cold weather?” “You run in this heat?” “You run in the rain?” Yes, yes, and yes!
I have a nephew who’s an orthopedic surgeon down in Houston. While some part of me likes to think he’s proud of his aunt, he always makes “tsk-tsk-ing” noises when I tell him some of the distances I run. “You keep that up and you’ll be coming to see me in few years and it won’t be for a social visit,” he said.
The kid (he will always be a kid to me) has a point, since he tells me that more than half of his patients are athletes or former athletes. But, you know, you can end up in the orthopedist’s office after having spent your life as a couch potato, too. That being said, I prefer my life off the coach and on the roads.
To me, running is as much a part of my life's routine as is brushing my teeth, although running is much more pleasurable and far less routine. Yes, there are some risks (to joints, tendons, muscles, vertebrae, etc.) involved but that can be said of ANYTHING in life that’s worth pursuing. The benefits far outweigh any of the little aches and pains I may encounter along the way.
Best Quote Today
Best quote I heard all day, from a techie friend of mine:
"I'm giving up IT and going into something less stressful, like anally penetrating homophobic male tigers or shit like that."
"I'm giving up IT and going into something less stressful, like anally penetrating homophobic male tigers or shit like that."
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Guess You Had to Be There
From a friend of mine in The Lone Star State, on Cinco de Mayo:
I’m a failure. The biggest drinking day in the Southwest and it came to nothing. Nada.
I didn’t wake up in another town in a stall with a donkey, a broken piñata, two hookers, used condoms [ribbed, for her pleasure], half a twelve pack of Modelo Especial, empty margarita pitchers and a film crew from Telemundo.
Maybe I have high standards. This is subject to debate.
Instead, I woke up this morning in my own bed, alone.
Next year, I will plan better.
I’m a failure. The biggest drinking day in the Southwest and it came to nothing. Nada.
I didn’t wake up in another town in a stall with a donkey, a broken piñata, two hookers, used condoms [ribbed, for her pleasure], half a twelve pack of Modelo Especial, empty margarita pitchers and a film crew from Telemundo.
Maybe I have high standards. This is subject to debate.
Instead, I woke up this morning in my own bed, alone.
Next year, I will plan better.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
I Have a Bone to Pick with iTunes
I'm a big fan of 70s and 80s music and lately, I've been trying to fill up my iPod with some of my fave tunes from those eras. One of those songs is "It's Magic" by a one-hit-wonder group called Pilot. Well, iTunes has the song, all right, but here's the catch: You have to download the entire LAME-O "Herbie 2" soundtrack to get that one song! Sorry, but I am NOT spending $9.99 for one frigging song! Especially for that dopey movie!If you try to find another stand alone version of the song, you're shit outta luck. Yes, they exist, but none of them are the original. Why does iTunes do this? I noticed that other users were complaining, too, on the iTunes feedback bulletin board.Well, I'll just search around for a 70s compilation CD somewhere, I s'pose.
I posted this lament on my LiveJournal and a friend of mine wrote back:
"Usually the reason that happens is the movie soundtrack is on one label that paid to use another label's tune on their movie but the owning label does not do business with iTunes/Apple. That's why you don't see AC/DC, Beatles, Led Zep and many other bands - because they are on Sony or EMI that won't deal with Apple because they have deals with Napster (Lamester) or their own music store they're trying to get going. It annoys me too, so in situations like that I'll look first at the public library collection of music to check out, then to the used CD stores for cheap copies.Good luck hunting!"
I posted this lament on my LiveJournal and a friend of mine wrote back:
"Usually the reason that happens is the movie soundtrack is on one label that paid to use another label's tune on their movie but the owning label does not do business with iTunes/Apple. That's why you don't see AC/DC, Beatles, Led Zep and many other bands - because they are on Sony or EMI that won't deal with Apple because they have deals with Napster (Lamester) or their own music store they're trying to get going. It annoys me too, so in situations like that I'll look first at the public library collection of music to check out, then to the used CD stores for cheap copies.Good luck hunting!"
Aha...now I understand. Don't like it, but I understand.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Why Is This News?
And, furthermore, don't ALL fruitcakes taste as if they are 40 years old?
Man Rediscovers Gift Fruitcake From 1962
By Associated Press
Tue Apr 18, 8:12
WAUKESHA, Wis. - Lance Nesta did what many people do when receiving a fruitcake _ he set it aside, only to rediscover it more than 40 years later in his mother's attic. Nesta couldn't resist taking a peek at the cake, still in its original tin and wrapped in paper.
"I was amazed that it hadn't changed at all," he said.
Nesta's two aunts sent him the fruitcake in November 1962 while he was stationed in Alaska with the Army.
"I opened it up and didn't know what to do with it," Nesta said. "I sure wasn't going to eat it, and I liked my fellow soldiers too much to share it with them."
As best he can remember, he packed the cake with the rest of his belongings and shipped it home to Waukesha when he left the military a few years later. He recently rediscovered the boxed fruitcake in the attic of his mother's home in Waukesha.
His mom had given him advance warning of the fruitcake back in 1962.
"She knew I hated the damn things, but she said she didn't have the heart to tell my aunts, who had already mailed it," he said.
The cake arrived wrapped in brown paper with a red "fragile, handle with care" sticker on it. The cake itself was contained in a round blue tin printed with the words "Old Fashioned Fruitcake."
"Now it's just old," Nesta said.
While looking at the cake's container this week, he noticed the listed ingredients included rum and brandy.
"If I had known back then that it had rum and brandy in it, I would have eaten it," he said.
___
Man Rediscovers Gift Fruitcake From 1962
By Associated Press
Tue Apr 18, 8:12
WAUKESHA, Wis. - Lance Nesta did what many people do when receiving a fruitcake _ he set it aside, only to rediscover it more than 40 years later in his mother's attic. Nesta couldn't resist taking a peek at the cake, still in its original tin and wrapped in paper.
"I was amazed that it hadn't changed at all," he said.
Nesta's two aunts sent him the fruitcake in November 1962 while he was stationed in Alaska with the Army.
"I opened it up and didn't know what to do with it," Nesta said. "I sure wasn't going to eat it, and I liked my fellow soldiers too much to share it with them."
As best he can remember, he packed the cake with the rest of his belongings and shipped it home to Waukesha when he left the military a few years later. He recently rediscovered the boxed fruitcake in the attic of his mother's home in Waukesha.
His mom had given him advance warning of the fruitcake back in 1962.
"She knew I hated the damn things, but she said she didn't have the heart to tell my aunts, who had already mailed it," he said.
The cake arrived wrapped in brown paper with a red "fragile, handle with care" sticker on it. The cake itself was contained in a round blue tin printed with the words "Old Fashioned Fruitcake."
"Now it's just old," Nesta said.
While looking at the cake's container this week, he noticed the listed ingredients included rum and brandy.
"If I had known back then that it had rum and brandy in it, I would have eaten it," he said.
___
Monday, April 17, 2006
Random Musings
Who the Hell Is Dick?
I downloaded some Grateful Dead songs onto my iPod, some from CDs that I own, others from iTunes. I came across a pretty cool group of Dead songs called Dick's Picks in my travels and I'm wondering, "Who the hell is Dick?" Granted, Dick has some pretty good taste in Dead tunes (his U.S. Blues pick is awesome), but who is he and why do his picks matter? Where are Bob's picks? Or Mary's picks? Or, for that matter, Martta's picks? And I thought I was up on all that is Dead.
*************************************************************************************
First Place, Woo-hoo!
I took first place in my age at South Orange Rotary 5K this past Saturday. I felt that I ran well but I never dreamed that would take first place at any race this early in the season. I've started doing some speedwork on my own and that's probably been helping. This was a tough course, too. The first mile is all uphill...yuck! We DID have terrific weather, though, 70s and sunny. The best day for 2006 so far.
My time was 25:21. Not my personal best, but a personal best for this particular course. More than a minute faster than my 2004 time. I am praying to the fast twitch gods that this will be the first of many successes for me in my running career this season.
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Yoga? Zzzzzzz.
First off, let me start by saying that I think yoga is a beautiful thing. It's great for flexibility, stress reduction, spirituality and for people who cannot do weight bearing exercises. That being said, for the most part, I like more of an aerobic or anaerobic workout, like running, swimming, karate, etc.
The reason I bring this up because my sister-in-law RAVES about this yoga place in West Orange and has been trying to get me to come. I did go with her to some sort of anniversary party they had and honestly, I was not that impressed.
For one thing, throughout the entire party, the owners/instructors were shilling for membership. A BIG turnoff to me. Kind of used car lot-ish. Show us, don't tell us, as a former creative writing teacher of mine used to say. Make me want to come back, don't pressure me.
At one point, people got up to give testimonials. One of the stranger ones was a woman, about early 40s, who said that she was having pains in her chest so she decided to check out yoga! Uh, Honey, if I had chest pains, I would be on the phone to a cardiologist, not running to a yoga studio!
Also, while my sister-in-law's in great shape, most of the people doing the demos/testimonials were kind of on the, uh, zaftig side. Not what I would call fit. Think I'll stick with the running, swimming, bike riding and weight training.
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Reason #245 not to have kids.
Reason #245 not to have kids. They can kill you:
Bloodbath & burgers
Pa. cops call son Mr. Cool
BY ADAM NICHOLS in Lancaster County, Pa.,
and WARREN WOODBERRY JR. and HELEN KENNEDY in New York
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
A woman and a little boy outside the home where six members of the Wise family were murdered.
As the bludgeoned corpses of three generations of his family lay moldering inside their picturesque Amish country house, confessed killer Jesse (Jay) Wise took his girlfriend to McDonald's for hamburgers
Bloodbath & burgers
Pa. cops call son Mr. Cool
BY ADAM NICHOLS in Lancaster County, Pa.,
and WARREN WOODBERRY JR. and HELEN KENNEDY in New York
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
A woman and a little boy outside the home where six members of the Wise family were murdered.
As the bludgeoned corpses of three generations of his family lay moldering inside their picturesque Amish country house, confessed killer Jesse (Jay) Wise took his girlfriend to McDonald's for hamburgers
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Like a Patient Etherized...
OK, it's been two weeks now of getting a bird's eye view of Tony Soprano's ICU unit. There's a reason that only immediate family members are allowed in the ICU: No one else wants to see that! Having been in a few ICUs myself (as a visitor, not a patient, thank God), I can certainly speak from experience.
About 95% of the time, the patient is sleeping. During the other 5%, he or she is being attended to by hospital staffers to take care of such pleasantries as bodily functions and the changing of IV drips.
Don't get me wrong, I love The Sopranos and plan to watch every last episode, good, bad or indifferent. But enough of the ICU. I want to go home.
Which brings me to my next topic. Martta's World decrees that just as it is with the ICU--only immediate family members are allowed--the same should be true for Little League games. Yes, folks, only immediate family should EVER be allowed at these things. If you are NOT a member of said immediate family and you actually LIKE going to Little League games you are either 1. A pedophile or 2. A very, very sick individual who should not be allowed near living things. Really, you need help.
My boyfriend has two grandchildren, one of which is a lovely 10-year-old boy who plays Little League, among other things. He's actually a very cute, cool kid. He likes Weird NJ, he knows how to work an iPod, he likes scary movies. And yes, he plays catcher for his Little League team. Not that there's anything wrong with that. He's pretty decent, if I say so myself.
But the other kids? Oy vey, as they say! Hell on Earth is another phrase that comes to mind. Granted, there are a few bright bulbs on the tree, but for the most part, bad, boring and begrudgingly long.
Now I am all for kids playing sports, getting exercise, staying busy so they don't hold up the Local 7-11. But really, folks. Immediate family only.
About 95% of the time, the patient is sleeping. During the other 5%, he or she is being attended to by hospital staffers to take care of such pleasantries as bodily functions and the changing of IV drips.
Don't get me wrong, I love The Sopranos and plan to watch every last episode, good, bad or indifferent. But enough of the ICU. I want to go home.
Which brings me to my next topic. Martta's World decrees that just as it is with the ICU--only immediate family members are allowed--the same should be true for Little League games. Yes, folks, only immediate family should EVER be allowed at these things. If you are NOT a member of said immediate family and you actually LIKE going to Little League games you are either 1. A pedophile or 2. A very, very sick individual who should not be allowed near living things. Really, you need help.
My boyfriend has two grandchildren, one of which is a lovely 10-year-old boy who plays Little League, among other things. He's actually a very cute, cool kid. He likes Weird NJ, he knows how to work an iPod, he likes scary movies. And yes, he plays catcher for his Little League team. Not that there's anything wrong with that. He's pretty decent, if I say so myself.
But the other kids? Oy vey, as they say! Hell on Earth is another phrase that comes to mind. Granted, there are a few bright bulbs on the tree, but for the most part, bad, boring and begrudgingly long.
Now I am all for kids playing sports, getting exercise, staying busy so they don't hold up the Local 7-11. But really, folks. Immediate family only.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Passing Heads
Upon his death, the Fore tribe
of Eastern New Guinea
gathers around a fire and passes
the deceased's skull around
chanting for mercy on his soul.
Ocher flames leap from the timbers
and light up the black sky,
as the bloody skull is finally consumed.
Only gray ash remains, to be buried
among the ashes of the dead
that have gone before him.
Tonight a fire is lit
in the living room of a new divorcee
who sits among a tribe of others
who have gone before her.
Each take turns, passing around
the skulls of their ex-husbands,
chanting curses. They ask for no mercy.
Sparks fly, as one by one,
their memories are hurled into the fire.
Tomorrow, only gray ash will remain,
to be collected in urns of memories
that line the cluttered shelves of their souls.
of Eastern New Guinea
gathers around a fire and passes
the deceased's skull around
chanting for mercy on his soul.
Ocher flames leap from the timbers
and light up the black sky,
as the bloody skull is finally consumed.
Only gray ash remains, to be buried
among the ashes of the dead
that have gone before him.
Tonight a fire is lit
in the living room of a new divorcee
who sits among a tribe of others
who have gone before her.
Each take turns, passing around
the skulls of their ex-husbands,
chanting curses. They ask for no mercy.
Sparks fly, as one by one,
their memories are hurled into the fire.
Tomorrow, only gray ash will remain,
to be collected in urns of memories
that line the cluttered shelves of their souls.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Some Musings
My next race, a 10K, is on March 26 in Millburn. Can wait. I don't think I've raced a 10K since the fall. They've all been longer races, 10-milers, 15Ks, the 20K two weeks ago. I feel as ready as ever but nervous. My goal to to break 50 minutes in the 10K and 24 minutes in the 5K. Doable goals, I think.
As usual, I have some tough competition in my age group. Depending on who shows up at Millburn, I might not make it into the top 3 slots...we shall see.
************************************************************************************
A male co-worker, who I like very much, told me he thinks I'm getting too skinny. Besides the fact that it's not of his business, I'm not. I weigh exactly the same as I did 6 months ago. Maybe it's what I was wearing, who knows? Who cares? I feel great and I'd rather be thin than fat...so there!
The only thing is that my clothes from a year ago are all too big for me, when I was 10 lbs. heavier. I didn't think just 10 lbs. would make such a difference in clothing size. Lots of stuff just swims on me, like I'm wearing my big sister's hand-me-downs! I will give some of them away to Goodwill but some I really like (like one lavender suit) and I will need to have them taken in. Yes, it may prove costly but it's that or buy a whole new wardrobe. Don't get me wrong, I love to shop as much as the next woman but when do I have the time? Answer: I don't.
************************************************************************************
Through no fault of her own, just some plain old bad luck, a friend of mine from the running club got a DWI and lost her license for 7 months. And, since I am the only one she told about it, guess who will be driving her to all the races until October? It is a bit of an inconvenience but she IS a great friend and she's always been there for me. Poor thing. She's needs this now like the proverbial hole in the head. She just put her mom in a nursing home (Alzheimer's) and has some minor health issues of her own.
I AM a little pissed at her because she just told me this about 2 weeks ago. Had she told me sooner (when it happened), I could have gotten her a decent lawyer. More on that below:
She was driving home from the shore (Manasquan) one night last summer. She was not, I repeat NOT intoxicated. She had one frigging glass of wine at a friend's house.
Anyhoo, she was stopped by a cop because her lights were out. The reason they were out is that her car (an older model Honda from 1995) has a dashboard glitch. The dashboard lights come on even if the headlights are not on. She explained the glitch to the cop who stopped her. He asked her if she had been drinking and she told him the truth: She had one glass of wine.
Well, to make a long story short, he drags her ass down to the station and makes her take a breathalizer. She did not refuse the test. However, due to nerves, a panic attack, whatever, she could not get the damned thing to work. So, this asshole, records that she refused the test!!! After spending the night in jail, she was sent home and told she had to appear in court.
She calls her family *lawyer* (and I use that term lightly...he sounds more like a milquetoast to me) and he basically tells her that there's nothing she can do, the sitting judge is a real asshole, she'll probably get 7 months suspended, etc. Well, this prophecy came true. If she had gotten a real lawyer instead of a make-believe lawyer, I think she could have gotten a reduced suspension at least.
So, that's it in a nutshell. I feel really bad for her. I can't imagine not having access to my car, for 7 months yet. Sheesh!
As usual, I have some tough competition in my age group. Depending on who shows up at Millburn, I might not make it into the top 3 slots...we shall see.
************************************************************************************
A male co-worker, who I like very much, told me he thinks I'm getting too skinny. Besides the fact that it's not of his business, I'm not. I weigh exactly the same as I did 6 months ago. Maybe it's what I was wearing, who knows? Who cares? I feel great and I'd rather be thin than fat...so there!
The only thing is that my clothes from a year ago are all too big for me, when I was 10 lbs. heavier. I didn't think just 10 lbs. would make such a difference in clothing size. Lots of stuff just swims on me, like I'm wearing my big sister's hand-me-downs! I will give some of them away to Goodwill but some I really like (like one lavender suit) and I will need to have them taken in. Yes, it may prove costly but it's that or buy a whole new wardrobe. Don't get me wrong, I love to shop as much as the next woman but when do I have the time? Answer: I don't.
************************************************************************************
Through no fault of her own, just some plain old bad luck, a friend of mine from the running club got a DWI and lost her license for 7 months. And, since I am the only one she told about it, guess who will be driving her to all the races until October? It is a bit of an inconvenience but she IS a great friend and she's always been there for me. Poor thing. She's needs this now like the proverbial hole in the head. She just put her mom in a nursing home (Alzheimer's) and has some minor health issues of her own.
I AM a little pissed at her because she just told me this about 2 weeks ago. Had she told me sooner (when it happened), I could have gotten her a decent lawyer. More on that below:
She was driving home from the shore (Manasquan) one night last summer. She was not, I repeat NOT intoxicated. She had one frigging glass of wine at a friend's house.
Anyhoo, she was stopped by a cop because her lights were out. The reason they were out is that her car (an older model Honda from 1995) has a dashboard glitch. The dashboard lights come on even if the headlights are not on. She explained the glitch to the cop who stopped her. He asked her if she had been drinking and she told him the truth: She had one glass of wine.
Well, to make a long story short, he drags her ass down to the station and makes her take a breathalizer. She did not refuse the test. However, due to nerves, a panic attack, whatever, she could not get the damned thing to work. So, this asshole, records that she refused the test!!! After spending the night in jail, she was sent home and told she had to appear in court.
She calls her family *lawyer* (and I use that term lightly...he sounds more like a milquetoast to me) and he basically tells her that there's nothing she can do, the sitting judge is a real asshole, she'll probably get 7 months suspended, etc. Well, this prophecy came true. If she had gotten a real lawyer instead of a make-believe lawyer, I think she could have gotten a reduced suspension at least.
So, that's it in a nutshell. I feel really bad for her. I can't imagine not having access to my car, for 7 months yet. Sheesh!
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Oh Yeah, This Is Our Future, Folks
My advice to my friends and colleagues? Stay healthy or die young. Yes, this is our future and I sure as hell don't want them watching over me. When I read stuff like this, I am EVER SO GRATEFUL that I never had loathsome brats of my own.
And these were college students from prosperous homes! They did it "as a joke." Gee, I was a real crack up as a college student but I never set houses of worship on fire. Nosireebob. Oh, how I've missed out. I know it's a bad pun, but I hope they fry. And I hope that a big guy named Bubba makes them his bitches.
*******************************************************************************
3 College Students Arrested in Alabama Church Fires
By RICK LYMAN
Published: March 8, 2006
Three college students from the prosperous suburbs south of Birmingham, two of them 19 and one 20, were arrested today in the burning of nine Baptist churches in rural Alabama last month that federal officials say was a prank that spun out of control.
Arrested a few hours later was Matthew Lee Cloyd, 20, a student at the nearby University of Alabama-Birmingham whose mother was the owner of the 2000 Toyota 4Runner that had left the tracks, federal agents said in an affidavit accompanying the criminal complaint against the three men.
The identities of the accused came as a surprise to investigators, who had speculated that the arsons were the work of people intimately familiar with the remote rural roads where the fires were set, not products of Birmingham's upper-middle class, one the son of a doctor and another of a county constable.
"This is just so hard to believe," said Alabama Fire Marshal Richard Montgomery. "My profile on these suspects is shot all to heck and back."
Gov. Bob Riley said he was happy to learn that the fires were "an isolated incident" and not an organized attack on religious beliefs or Baptists. Speaking at a news conference announcing the arrests, he said the last five weeks had been "a pretty tough time" for church-goers.
James Cavanaugh, an official of the federal Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agency said the arrests were the result of following forensic evidence, rather than being given information. "We did not have a tip," he said.
One thing investigators had believed from the beginning was that there was no racial motive behind the arsons, as there had been to a string of church fires throughout the Southeast in the mid-1990's. And that, they said, was borne out.
Four of the churches burned in the early hours of Feb. 3 in Bibb County, about an hour south of Birmingham, had predominantly white congregations, while one was black. All four of the churches burned the morning of Feb. 7 in an even more remote stretch more than 90 minutes southwest of Birmingham, had black congregations.
But officials said the second round of burnings had been an attempted diversion, to draw investigators farther away from Birmingham.
Mr. DeBusk and Mr. Moseley appeared briefly before United States Magistrate Robert R. Montgomery in the Hugo Black Federal Courthouse in downtown Birmingham this morning. Both were slender and pale, with dark, floppy hair. Mr. DeBusk wore blue jeans and an orange hooded sweatshirt over a white T-shirt, Mr. Moseley a blue polo shirt over jeans.
They were ordered to return to court on Friday when a lawyer would be appointed for them if they had not already hired one and the issue of bail would be discussed. In the meantime, they were ordered to remain in custody.
According to the affidavit signed by Walker Johnson, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, analysis of the tire tracks had led agents on Monday to the home of Michael and Kimberly Cloyd on Birmingham's south side. The tire tracks matched a set special-ordered for Ms. Cloyd's 4Runner, but she told agents that her son, Matthew, was the vehicle's principal driver.
Ms. Cloyd told agents that her son had told her he had not set the fires, but knew who did. Dr. Cloyd said his son told him on Monday that he had been present at the arsons and knew who set them.
But a witness, unidentified in the affidavit, told agents that Matthew Cloyd said he and Mr. Moseley "had done something stupid," adding that it was something Mr. Moseley had done "as a joke and it got out of hand."
Agents later interviewed Mr. Moseley who, they said, confessed to setting the five fires in Bibb County with Mr. Cloyd and Mr. DeBusk. "Moseley stated that after they set fire to the first two churches, they saw fire trucks driving by," they said. "Moseley said that, after that, burning the other three churches became too spontaneous."
Agents said Mr. Moseley told them only that he and Mr. Cloyd had taken part in the second string of arsons, four days later. "These four churches were burned as a diversion, to throw investigators off," Mr. Johnson wrote in his affidavit. "Moseley said the diversion obviously did not work."
Mr. DeBusk, who was interviewed and arrested a short time later, also admitted behind present at the five arsons on Feb. 3, as well as kicking in the doors of two of the churches. He said the three had been out shooting deer in Mr. Cloyd's S.U.V. prior to the fires.
And these were college students from prosperous homes! They did it "as a joke." Gee, I was a real crack up as a college student but I never set houses of worship on fire. Nosireebob. Oh, how I've missed out. I know it's a bad pun, but I hope they fry. And I hope that a big guy named Bubba makes them his bitches.
*******************************************************************************
3 College Students Arrested in Alabama Church Fires
By RICK LYMAN
Published: March 8, 2006
Three college students from the prosperous suburbs south of Birmingham, two of them 19 and one 20, were arrested today in the burning of nine Baptist churches in rural Alabama last month that federal officials say was a prank that spun out of control.
Arrested a few hours later was Matthew Lee Cloyd, 20, a student at the nearby University of Alabama-Birmingham whose mother was the owner of the 2000 Toyota 4Runner that had left the tracks, federal agents said in an affidavit accompanying the criminal complaint against the three men.
The identities of the accused came as a surprise to investigators, who had speculated that the arsons were the work of people intimately familiar with the remote rural roads where the fires were set, not products of Birmingham's upper-middle class, one the son of a doctor and another of a county constable.
"This is just so hard to believe," said Alabama Fire Marshal Richard Montgomery. "My profile on these suspects is shot all to heck and back."
Gov. Bob Riley said he was happy to learn that the fires were "an isolated incident" and not an organized attack on religious beliefs or Baptists. Speaking at a news conference announcing the arrests, he said the last five weeks had been "a pretty tough time" for church-goers.
James Cavanaugh, an official of the federal Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agency said the arrests were the result of following forensic evidence, rather than being given information. "We did not have a tip," he said.
One thing investigators had believed from the beginning was that there was no racial motive behind the arsons, as there had been to a string of church fires throughout the Southeast in the mid-1990's. And that, they said, was borne out.
Four of the churches burned in the early hours of Feb. 3 in Bibb County, about an hour south of Birmingham, had predominantly white congregations, while one was black. All four of the churches burned the morning of Feb. 7 in an even more remote stretch more than 90 minutes southwest of Birmingham, had black congregations.
But officials said the second round of burnings had been an attempted diversion, to draw investigators farther away from Birmingham.
Mr. DeBusk and Mr. Moseley appeared briefly before United States Magistrate Robert R. Montgomery in the Hugo Black Federal Courthouse in downtown Birmingham this morning. Both were slender and pale, with dark, floppy hair. Mr. DeBusk wore blue jeans and an orange hooded sweatshirt over a white T-shirt, Mr. Moseley a blue polo shirt over jeans.
They were ordered to return to court on Friday when a lawyer would be appointed for them if they had not already hired one and the issue of bail would be discussed. In the meantime, they were ordered to remain in custody.
According to the affidavit signed by Walker Johnson, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, analysis of the tire tracks had led agents on Monday to the home of Michael and Kimberly Cloyd on Birmingham's south side. The tire tracks matched a set special-ordered for Ms. Cloyd's 4Runner, but she told agents that her son, Matthew, was the vehicle's principal driver.
Ms. Cloyd told agents that her son had told her he had not set the fires, but knew who did. Dr. Cloyd said his son told him on Monday that he had been present at the arsons and knew who set them.
But a witness, unidentified in the affidavit, told agents that Matthew Cloyd said he and Mr. Moseley "had done something stupid," adding that it was something Mr. Moseley had done "as a joke and it got out of hand."
Agents later interviewed Mr. Moseley who, they said, confessed to setting the five fires in Bibb County with Mr. Cloyd and Mr. DeBusk. "Moseley stated that after they set fire to the first two churches, they saw fire trucks driving by," they said. "Moseley said that, after that, burning the other three churches became too spontaneous."
Agents said Mr. Moseley told them only that he and Mr. Cloyd had taken part in the second string of arsons, four days later. "These four churches were burned as a diversion, to throw investigators off," Mr. Johnson wrote in his affidavit. "Moseley said the diversion obviously did not work."
Mr. DeBusk, who was interviewed and arrested a short time later, also admitted behind present at the five arsons on Feb. 3, as well as kicking in the doors of two of the churches. He said the three had been out shooting deer in Mr. Cloyd's S.U.V. prior to the fires.
And So a New Running Season Begins....
I had my first race of the 2006 season this past Sunday, the Newark Distance Classic. You have your choice of a 5K (3.1 miles) or a 20K (12.4 miles) and being the masochist that I am, guess which one I chose? :-)
All in all, I am very happy with my time. I did 1:50:37, about 12 minutes off last year's time. I was shooting for a true 9-minute mile pace which would have put me around 1:52, so I actually did better than anticipated, with a 8:54 pace. I chalk it up to the 10-lb. weight loss plus good coaching last year from Coach Joel.
This is not an easy course to begin with (lots of hills and grades), plus the nasty headwinds we had in our faces for about 75% of the race didn't help.
But I felt pretty good afterwards, albeit a little soreness which is normal. Unfortunately, I did get one of those mysterious low-grade headaches which I've been told can come from not warming up properly (guilty!) or not taking in enough fluids before the race (probably guilty as well). Excedrin with caffeine seems to do the trick.
I beat my poor honey which was a first but it's not really fair since he's injured. He's been told he has a bone spur in his right heel which is very painful. He probably should not have run the 20K but he wanted to do it. I yelled at him that he's got to go see a foot doc and get x-rays done. He promised me he would. The sooner you find out what's wrong, the sooner you can begin treatment. I really don't know anything about bone spurs except that they are common in overweight people. Tom, however, is anything but, so it's got to be due to overuse.
So, my next race is at the end of this month, a 10K in Millburn, a walk in the park after this one.
************************************************************************************
In other news, my cousin continues to send me lame emails. About 1 in 10 has a funny joke, but most of them are the kind where you're asked to "send this email to 100 people in 5 minutes or a terrible fate will befall you and your loved ones" or annoying proverbs about men versus women and so forth. I'd rather read emails from crooked Nigerians. Most of the time, I just delete her stuff without opening it.
But yesterday was the last straw. She sent me something about a guy who creates babies out of marzipan. That is just too creepy for me. My brain will never be the same after seeing this:
All in all, I am very happy with my time. I did 1:50:37, about 12 minutes off last year's time. I was shooting for a true 9-minute mile pace which would have put me around 1:52, so I actually did better than anticipated, with a 8:54 pace. I chalk it up to the 10-lb. weight loss plus good coaching last year from Coach Joel.
This is not an easy course to begin with (lots of hills and grades), plus the nasty headwinds we had in our faces for about 75% of the race didn't help.
But I felt pretty good afterwards, albeit a little soreness which is normal. Unfortunately, I did get one of those mysterious low-grade headaches which I've been told can come from not warming up properly (guilty!) or not taking in enough fluids before the race (probably guilty as well). Excedrin with caffeine seems to do the trick.
I beat my poor honey which was a first but it's not really fair since he's injured. He's been told he has a bone spur in his right heel which is very painful. He probably should not have run the 20K but he wanted to do it. I yelled at him that he's got to go see a foot doc and get x-rays done. He promised me he would. The sooner you find out what's wrong, the sooner you can begin treatment. I really don't know anything about bone spurs except that they are common in overweight people. Tom, however, is anything but, so it's got to be due to overuse.
So, my next race is at the end of this month, a 10K in Millburn, a walk in the park after this one.
************************************************************************************
In other news, my cousin continues to send me lame emails. About 1 in 10 has a funny joke, but most of them are the kind where you're asked to "send this email to 100 people in 5 minutes or a terrible fate will befall you and your loved ones" or annoying proverbs about men versus women and so forth. I'd rather read emails from crooked Nigerians. Most of the time, I just delete her stuff without opening it.
But yesterday was the last straw. She sent me something about a guy who creates babies out of marzipan. That is just too creepy for me. My brain will never be the same after seeing this:
Friday, February 24, 2006
Saturday, February 18, 2006
No Easter Eggs, No Volcanoes :-(
I was bored and decided to search for Microsoft Easter Eggs. The last time I did that was in 1998 on my old computer.
In case you don't know, Easter Egg is a term that refers to an undocumented feature or novelty that is in a program that the makers of said program placed there for additional fun and credits. Easter Eggs do not affect your computer's performance in any way, either to the hardware or software.
I remembered there was a really cool one called "Volcano" where you right-click on the desktop, click Properties, then click on the Settings tab, choose 3D text as a screen saver and then click on Settings. In the Text Box, you type "volcano" and click OK. Voila! You get a cool-looking volcano as a screen saver.
Well, I tried that and all I got was a 3D version of the word "volcano" spinning around on my screen. "Honey, why do we have the word volcano as a screen saver?" asked the boyfriend.
Uhh...here's why: Evidently, after some sleuthing on Net, I found out that Windows XP, which is what I have, does NOT have any Easter Eggs! Bummer! The reasons are varied. Some folks say that Microsoft sells a lot of XP software to many government agencies and they don't need any "stinkin' Easter Eggs" in the software for security reasons. Some other folks call bullshit on this and say it's only the American version of the software that lacks Easter Eggs and the reason why is simply that Microsoft wanted a more "corporate" version of its software in the XP and deleted all the Easter Eggs.
But, I still hold out hope. A small core of people claim there are a few Easter Eggs in the XP software if you know where to find them. Can anyone help? There's a beer in it for ya.
In case you don't know, Easter Egg is a term that refers to an undocumented feature or novelty that is in a program that the makers of said program placed there for additional fun and credits. Easter Eggs do not affect your computer's performance in any way, either to the hardware or software.
I remembered there was a really cool one called "Volcano" where you right-click on the desktop, click Properties, then click on the Settings tab, choose 3D text as a screen saver and then click on Settings. In the Text Box, you type "volcano" and click OK. Voila! You get a cool-looking volcano as a screen saver.
Well, I tried that and all I got was a 3D version of the word "volcano" spinning around on my screen. "Honey, why do we have the word volcano as a screen saver?" asked the boyfriend.
Uhh...here's why: Evidently, after some sleuthing on Net, I found out that Windows XP, which is what I have, does NOT have any Easter Eggs! Bummer! The reasons are varied. Some folks say that Microsoft sells a lot of XP software to many government agencies and they don't need any "stinkin' Easter Eggs" in the software for security reasons. Some other folks call bullshit on this and say it's only the American version of the software that lacks Easter Eggs and the reason why is simply that Microsoft wanted a more "corporate" version of its software in the XP and deleted all the Easter Eggs.
But, I still hold out hope. A small core of people claim there are a few Easter Eggs in the XP software if you know where to find them. Can anyone help? There's a beer in it for ya.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Friday, February 10, 2006
Farkin' Hypocrite
There's an article in Reuters today about Jack Abramoff, the former lobbyist at the center of a corruption scandal, where he refutes the claim that Bush didn't know him. In the article, Abramoff says that Bush met him "almost a dozen times," which goes against what The White House is saying.
So here we have a case of "he said, he said," but what gets me most is this statement:
Abramoff raised more than $100,000 for Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, a feat that won him an invitation to Bush's ranch in August 2003, the National Journal reported at the time. However, Abramoff said he did not make the trip because, as an Orthodox Jew, he cannot travel on Saturdays.
Oh, it's not OK to travel on the Sabbath as a religious Jew but it IS ok to lie about illegal campaign contributions under the guise of charitable donations?
Please. I've had enough of these *zealots* hiding behind the cloak of religion when it's convenient for them. I've already lost my religion years ago. Now I'm about to lose my lunch.
So here we have a case of "he said, he said," but what gets me most is this statement:
Abramoff raised more than $100,000 for Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, a feat that won him an invitation to Bush's ranch in August 2003, the National Journal reported at the time. However, Abramoff said he did not make the trip because, as an Orthodox Jew, he cannot travel on Saturdays.
Oh, it's not OK to travel on the Sabbath as a religious Jew but it IS ok to lie about illegal campaign contributions under the guise of charitable donations?
Please. I've had enough of these *zealots* hiding behind the cloak of religion when it's convenient for them. I've already lost my religion years ago. Now I'm about to lose my lunch.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
What a Crock!
A few posts back, I talked about this ex that was hounding me to get together even though he knows I have a serious BF and am very content and all that. Well, a little birdie told me to mosey on over to Yahoo personals where he has posted an ad. After said friend and I had a good laugh at some of the inaccuracies (and bad spelling) posted below, I actually felt relieved that he's doing this. Perhaps he will stop asking me to meet for coffee.
"I'm a librarian at a large university (no,we're not all little elderly laddies (sic)with blue hair)who would enjoy meeting a articulate woman of intelligence who shares my passion for historical novels, film noir, a great Cabernet, cozy restaurants, classical guitar, rain storms, good stories, interesting architecture and all the small things that we often bypass or forget each day that make life worth living."
A few comments, however. (You don't think I'd let him off the hook THAT easy, didja?) Did you ever meet a person who seemed to be knowledgeable in one area and he or she would constantly lord that over you? Well, that's him to a T. You see, he's a history major and within the first five minutes of meeting him, he will let you know this. In my experience, however, his knowledge of history is at best spotty and his knowledge of other topics pales in comparison. But history is the only arena in which he feels comfortable so he will proceed to hold court and act like a know-it-all in order that he feels superior. Oh, you've met him, have you? :-)
As far as the "great Cabernet goes," he has a passion for many other kinds of booze, too. In fact, I'd venture to say that he's a binge drinker. He's been hospitalized for liver ailments at least 3 times in the past two years. He was told that his liver is performing at 40% capacity. Yet, he chooses to continue drinking. What does that tell you?
"Cozy restaurants." Bring some cash. Now I'm a gal, that does not mind picking up the check now and then. But, with him, it will be more now than then. Oh, I should add, I hope you have a car and valid license because you'll be driving. He lost his license years ago because he was driving with expired insurance. His lazy ass never bothered to renew it.
I guess that I'm trying to say, is that he sounds great on paper (or on the Internet), but a word to the wise: Caveat emptor.
"I'm a librarian at a large university (no,we're not all little elderly laddies (sic)with blue hair)who would enjoy meeting a articulate woman of intelligence who shares my passion for historical novels, film noir, a great Cabernet, cozy restaurants, classical guitar, rain storms, good stories, interesting architecture and all the small things that we often bypass or forget each day that make life worth living."
A few comments, however. (You don't think I'd let him off the hook THAT easy, didja?) Did you ever meet a person who seemed to be knowledgeable in one area and he or she would constantly lord that over you? Well, that's him to a T. You see, he's a history major and within the first five minutes of meeting him, he will let you know this. In my experience, however, his knowledge of history is at best spotty and his knowledge of other topics pales in comparison. But history is the only arena in which he feels comfortable so he will proceed to hold court and act like a know-it-all in order that he feels superior. Oh, you've met him, have you? :-)
As far as the "great Cabernet goes," he has a passion for many other kinds of booze, too. In fact, I'd venture to say that he's a binge drinker. He's been hospitalized for liver ailments at least 3 times in the past two years. He was told that his liver is performing at 40% capacity. Yet, he chooses to continue drinking. What does that tell you?
"Cozy restaurants." Bring some cash. Now I'm a gal, that does not mind picking up the check now and then. But, with him, it will be more now than then. Oh, I should add, I hope you have a car and valid license because you'll be driving. He lost his license years ago because he was driving with expired insurance. His lazy ass never bothered to renew it.
I guess that I'm trying to say, is that he sounds great on paper (or on the Internet), but a word to the wise: Caveat emptor.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Quiverfull
Twins run in my family, on both sides no less, and I have this one cousin on my mom's side see who sends me about 8 emails a day (no kidding) of all kinds of blather, including pictures of kids that are supposedly related to me. I am not sure whose kids they are exactly but it's kinda like "second cousin, once-removed," et cetera and so forth. Does it ever stop?
A few years ago, I went to some sort of family function and the place was swarming with about 30 children, twins and singles, all under the age of 10! Where did these people come from and who are they? If I ran into them in public and fell over them, I wouldn't know them. One of my "first cousins, once removed" was sporting a "Jesus is My Homeboy" T-shirt. M'kay. Needless to say, I'm not rushing back to any family functions real soon. Not that it matters since my eldest brother had a fight with one of 'em a couple of years back and now they are not speaking to him, or to the rest of us. I wish them well but I embrace the peace and quiet.
A few years ago, I went to some sort of family function and the place was swarming with about 30 children, twins and singles, all under the age of 10! Where did these people come from and who are they? If I ran into them in public and fell over them, I wouldn't know them. One of my "first cousins, once removed" was sporting a "Jesus is My Homeboy" T-shirt. M'kay. Needless to say, I'm not rushing back to any family functions real soon. Not that it matters since my eldest brother had a fight with one of 'em a couple of years back and now they are not speaking to him, or to the rest of us. I wish them well but I embrace the peace and quiet.
Monday, January 30, 2006
I've Got the Beat
Well, I got the results of my echocardiogram and everything is A-OK. Yes, it determined that I have a mild heart murmur (I knew about that) but it's not bad enough to warrant antibiotics when visiting the dentist. That's cool. Hate taking meds.
While the test itself is non-invasive, it IS kinda creepy to hear your heart beating and whooshing. I was listening to it while trying to determine if what I was hearing was normal or abnormal. Of course, not being a medic, I had no way of knowing.
While the test itself is non-invasive, it IS kinda creepy to hear your heart beating and whooshing. I was listening to it while trying to determine if what I was hearing was normal or abnormal. Of course, not being a medic, I had no way of knowing.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Too Gone For Too Long
This is one of my favorite Randy Travis songs and I send it out to an ex (when I say ex, I mean EX, talking 15 years ago!), who still sends me emails saying he misses me and wants to see me. Too effin' bad, Dude. You just don't get it, do you? Well, I'll let Randy tell it (with apologies, I just changed "she's" to "he's").
You've been too gone, for too long,
it's too late to come back now
It's been so long since you walked out my door
now you're just an old song nobody sings anymore
I gotta a new love and he's the true love
but darlin' how could you have known?
you've been too gone, for too long
now it's too late to come back home
You've came a long way, goin' the wrong way
don't even set your suitcase down
You wanted to roam, now you're paying the bills
you're an old rollin' stone who rode over the hills
I had a good cry when you said "Goodbye"
I didn't wanna let you go
but you've been too gone for too long
now it's too late to come back home
I had a good cry when you said "Goodbye"
I didn't wanna let you go
but you've been too gone for too long
so why don't you just stay gone?
now you've been too gone for too long
now it's too late to come back home.
You've been too gone, for too long,
it's too late to come back now
It's been so long since you walked out my door
now you're just an old song nobody sings anymore
I gotta a new love and he's the true love
but darlin' how could you have known?
you've been too gone, for too long
now it's too late to come back home
You've came a long way, goin' the wrong way
don't even set your suitcase down
You wanted to roam, now you're paying the bills
you're an old rollin' stone who rode over the hills
I had a good cry when you said "Goodbye"
I didn't wanna let you go
but you've been too gone for too long
now it's too late to come back home
I had a good cry when you said "Goodbye"
I didn't wanna let you go
but you've been too gone for too long
so why don't you just stay gone?
now you've been too gone for too long
now it's too late to come back home.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
As If....
As if I needed another reason to hate teenage boys:
Teen thugs film attack
Nab 4 in brutal assault on immigrant
BY CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
In a sick sequel to the Florida fools who were videotaped beating a homeless man, four Philadelphia teens grabbed a camera, picked a victim at random and filmed themselves pounding the man to a pulp.
The victim, a Haitian immigrant, suffered a busted jaw and narrowly escaped being hit by a car before the teenage terrors were nabbed and charged with attempted murder.
"The sad thing is that it doesn't seem like it was a big deal to these kids," said Philadelphia police spokesman Lt. John Walker. "It was like they were making a documentary."
The oldest suspect, 18-year-old Tyrez Osbourne, was caught crying to his mommy by the local ABC affiliate, WPVI-TV.
"I'm not even on camera assaulting the man," Osbourne insisted. "I don't understand why I'm here."
Walker said witnesses can place Osbourne and the other suspects, whose names have not been released because they are 17 and 16, at Friday's crime scene.
"They're pretty much laughing through the movie, even when one of them tries to throw the victim in front of an oncoming car," he said.
Officials would not release the footage, but Walker said it shows the alleged hoodlums "doing some gangsta rapping and then they're walking and talking about how bad they are."
Finally, said Walker, one of the teens said "just pick somebody out for me."
"Unfortunately, that's when the victim shows up in the video," the officer said. "You can see a teen step in front of him. He strikes him in the jaw and the man falls against a wall. He's screaming, 'Why are you doing this to me?'"
The other teens can been seen pounding on the prone man and then the hulking 17-year-old who landed the first punch allegedly pushed the victim in front of oncoming traffic, Walker said.
The victim, a 30-year-old engineering student from Haiti who attends Drexel University, told investigators he intends to return home to Haiti, because he feels safer in his chaotic homeland.
Teen thugs film attack
Nab 4 in brutal assault on immigrant
BY CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
In a sick sequel to the Florida fools who were videotaped beating a homeless man, four Philadelphia teens grabbed a camera, picked a victim at random and filmed themselves pounding the man to a pulp.
The victim, a Haitian immigrant, suffered a busted jaw and narrowly escaped being hit by a car before the teenage terrors were nabbed and charged with attempted murder.
"The sad thing is that it doesn't seem like it was a big deal to these kids," said Philadelphia police spokesman Lt. John Walker. "It was like they were making a documentary."
The oldest suspect, 18-year-old Tyrez Osbourne, was caught crying to his mommy by the local ABC affiliate, WPVI-TV.
"I'm not even on camera assaulting the man," Osbourne insisted. "I don't understand why I'm here."
Walker said witnesses can place Osbourne and the other suspects, whose names have not been released because they are 17 and 16, at Friday's crime scene.
"They're pretty much laughing through the movie, even when one of them tries to throw the victim in front of an oncoming car," he said.
Officials would not release the footage, but Walker said it shows the alleged hoodlums "doing some gangsta rapping and then they're walking and talking about how bad they are."
Finally, said Walker, one of the teens said "just pick somebody out for me."
"Unfortunately, that's when the victim shows up in the video," the officer said. "You can see a teen step in front of him. He strikes him in the jaw and the man falls against a wall. He's screaming, 'Why are you doing this to me?'"
The other teens can been seen pounding on the prone man and then the hulking 17-year-old who landed the first punch allegedly pushed the victim in front of oncoming traffic, Walker said.
The victim, a 30-year-old engineering student from Haiti who attends Drexel University, told investigators he intends to return home to Haiti, because he feels safer in his chaotic homeland.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Glad She's Gone!
"We heard the news the other day/And we don't know what to say/Except we're glad she's gone (glad she's gone)/You're rid of her (glad she's gone)."
These are the lyrics from a 70s pop band from Syracuse, NY, called the Pop Tarts. It's a girl singing to a guy, saying she's glad his ex is gone, she was no good for him, et cetera.
But, it COULD be applied to Anna Benson!
I, for one, am glad she's gone. Good riddance, Bubblehead!
These are the lyrics from a 70s pop band from Syracuse, NY, called the Pop Tarts. It's a girl singing to a guy, saying she's glad his ex is gone, she was no good for him, et cetera.
But, it COULD be applied to Anna Benson!
I, for one, am glad she's gone. Good riddance, Bubblehead!
Thursday, January 19, 2006
RIP, Nixmary Brown
If you're reading this, most likely you've been following the accounts of the murder of little Nixmary Brown of Brooklyn who was brutally beaten to death at the hands of her stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez. Her mother did nothing to save her.
I'll spare you all the gory details (if you want them, you need look no further than The New York Post or The Daily News) but suffice it to say, this 7-year-old child knew nothing but a short life of pain, starvation and torture at the hands of BOTH of her parents, the people who should have loved and protected her.
And, let there be no doubts: I emphasized the word BOTH for a reason. You watch. In the days to come, now that the wake and funeral are over, the spotlight will be on the ACS, the child welfare agency that failed Nixmary and others like her (more on this later); the people who knew something was wrong but said and/or did nothing; and the lawyers. Especially the lawyers.
Mark my words. The little girl's body is not even cold in the ground yet and the mother's lawyer is already looking for an alibi. No, he's not denying that she took part in the murder but he's telling anyone who will listen that she, herself, was a victim and therefore suffers from Battered Women's Syndrome, the same syndrome suffered by Hedda Nussbaum more than 15 years ago. Everyone's a victim today, everyone has their own syndrome, how convenient. I call bullshit.
In my eyes, the mother is even guiltier than the stepfather! Why? Because she killed her own flesh and blood.
Flash ahead to today, January 20: The miscreant stepfather is now telling anyone who will listen that Nixmary pretty much deserved what she got because she didn't behave! And, he's crying crocodile tears saying he's sorry he killed her, but... What a croc, indeed.
I wish for two things to come out of this:
1. Privatization of the ACS. Little Nixmary is not the first tragic consequence of the ACS and its union drones. They just don't seem to get it, do they? My solution is to not just revamp this useless agency but to shut it down completely, make it a private enterprise and hire some top notch MSWs with salaries to match their abilities. Then no longer will we have to hear the hew and cry of "We are so overworked and underpaid, blah-blah-blah."
2. That Nixmary's *mother* and stepfather live to be 100 years old--in prison--and have to think about what they did every day for the rest of their sorry, pitiful lives.
I'll spare you all the gory details (if you want them, you need look no further than The New York Post or The Daily News) but suffice it to say, this 7-year-old child knew nothing but a short life of pain, starvation and torture at the hands of BOTH of her parents, the people who should have loved and protected her.
And, let there be no doubts: I emphasized the word BOTH for a reason. You watch. In the days to come, now that the wake and funeral are over, the spotlight will be on the ACS, the child welfare agency that failed Nixmary and others like her (more on this later); the people who knew something was wrong but said and/or did nothing; and the lawyers. Especially the lawyers.
Mark my words. The little girl's body is not even cold in the ground yet and the mother's lawyer is already looking for an alibi. No, he's not denying that she took part in the murder but he's telling anyone who will listen that she, herself, was a victim and therefore suffers from Battered Women's Syndrome, the same syndrome suffered by Hedda Nussbaum more than 15 years ago. Everyone's a victim today, everyone has their own syndrome, how convenient. I call bullshit.
In my eyes, the mother is even guiltier than the stepfather! Why? Because she killed her own flesh and blood.
Flash ahead to today, January 20: The miscreant stepfather is now telling anyone who will listen that Nixmary pretty much deserved what she got because she didn't behave! And, he's crying crocodile tears saying he's sorry he killed her, but... What a croc, indeed.
I wish for two things to come out of this:
1. Privatization of the ACS. Little Nixmary is not the first tragic consequence of the ACS and its union drones. They just don't seem to get it, do they? My solution is to not just revamp this useless agency but to shut it down completely, make it a private enterprise and hire some top notch MSWs with salaries to match their abilities. Then no longer will we have to hear the hew and cry of "We are so overworked and underpaid, blah-blah-blah."
2. That Nixmary's *mother* and stepfather live to be 100 years old--in prison--and have to think about what they did every day for the rest of their sorry, pitiful lives.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
10 Trivia Tips About Miss Martta
Ten Top Trivia Tips about Miss Martta!
- In the kingdom of Bhutan, all citizens officially become Miss Martta on New Year's Day!
- Marie Antoinette never said 'let them eat cake' - this is a mistranslation of 'let them eat Miss Martta'!
- The book of Esther in the Bible is the only book which does not mention Miss Martta.
- Reindeer like to eat Miss Martta.
- Miss Martta will always turn right when leaving a cave!
- Miss Martta was banned from Finland because of not wearing pants!
- A cluster of bananas is called a hand and consists of 10 to 20 bananas, which are individually known as Miss Martta!
- The porpoise is second to Miss Martta as the most intelligent animal on the planet!
- Lightning strikes Miss Martta over seven times every hour!
- When provoked, Miss Martta will swivel the tip of her abdomen and shoot a jet of boiling chemicals at her attacker!
Friday, January 13, 2006
Crisis!
I just spoke to a skinny friend of my mine who is going to Florida at the end of this month and {{{{HORRORS!}}}}} has gained a few pounds and cannot fit into her size 4 shorts and pants any longer!
My question is should I smack her now or wait until she comes over on Sunday to borrow some of my size 6s?
My question is should I smack her now or wait until she comes over on Sunday to borrow some of my size 6s?
Saturday, January 07, 2006
I'm Ready for My Closeup
Evidently, my doctor thinks I'm somewhat of a success story because I've managed to lower my cholesterol without drugs but just by making some lifestyle changes. As a result, she asked me if I would mind being featured in a national news release video about women and heart disease being produced by the American Heart Association. I told her that if it meant educating other women about the dangers of high cholesterol and heart disease, sure.
Well, last week I got a call from the video company and it was a go! I talked to the boyfriend (they wanted to feature him, too, about the effect my lifestyle changes had on him), he was cool with it and we all agreed on Saturday, Jan. 7, as a shoot date. The vid production team said they were shooting (no pun intended) for a half-day shoot, beginning at 10 AM and ending up around 1:30 PM.
Prior to the shoot, I needed to get permission from my two older brothers to use their likenesses in the taping, since the AHA wanted to show the familial relationship to heart disease. Both brothers were agreeable, although one of them asked if I would be using a flattering photo! LOL! I told him, of course, that I would use the one from my older brother's wedding a year ago.
The crew was extremely professional. They showed up early and were done by noon! If they moved any furniture and whatnot, it was moved back into its proper place before they left. They had instructed me on what colors to wear, how to dress and what questions they would be asking me.
That being said, I think they should have asked me more about the type of dwelling in which I reside. When they arrrived at my place, the cameramen groaned that I lived in a three-story walkup! No big deal to me but then again, I don't have to carry 50 pounds of camera equipment up the stairs, either. They were also a bit perturbed that I live in an apartment which faces the street, thereby picking up all the street noise. These are physical things over which I have no control but I still think they should have asked me about them so that they wouldn't be so surprised when they arrived.
The first 20 minutes of so was spent filming me running in Verona Park. Fortunately, today was a gorgeous day so the cameraman got some good shots. He filmed me running towards him and then away from him and the lake in the background was a nice backdrop. A couple of people walking by wondered what we were doing and that was kinda cool. My 15 minutes of fame had arrived!
Back to the apartment when they proceeded to interview me about my family history, my own history and my thoughts about women and heart disease. I think a big point of this video is to show women that heart disease is not just a "man's disease," that it's still the #1 killer of both men AND women. It's just that in the past, all of the studies and research have focused on men.
They had told me not to wear red or any type of print or pattern that might be distracting. So I had worn a black turtleneck and black pants which made me look very slender. However, since my running outfit had been all black, the cameraman decided that I needed a splash of color. Well, since red was out (too bad, it's a fave of mine), I suggested an olive green V-neck sweater. They didn't seem thrilled about it until I put it on and then they loved it! Said it brought out my hair and eyes. Speaking of hair, the interviewer would occasionally lean over to push a tiny strand of hair off my face.
Then (and this one cracked me up) I was told that they needed to powder to my nose and forehead because my skin was shiny! I always complain about my dry skin in the winter and am always slathering on tons of moisturizer so I don't know where the shine came from. Maybe because I had just come back from running, who knows. They asked if I had any powder (I don't, I never wear it) but they did have their own.
For the most part the interviewer liked my answers, only asking me to repeat a couple of them for emphasis. The street noise proved to be problematic at times, though, and we had to halt taping a couple of times due to a car horn or truck noise.
Then it was onto the kitchen where they wanted to get some b-roll and me and BF preparing food. This was the most annoying part of the shoot, I have to say. Everytime one of us opened up the fridge or a kitchen cabinet, we had to turn cans, bottles and boxes around so as not to display brand names! I understand why they asked us to do this but it was still a pain in the arse.
Also, it felt very fake to be cutting up fruit for salad after we just ate breakfast about an hour ago and making inane conversation while doing it but I imagine that most of this will end up on the cutting room floor. The director said she'd rather have too much b-roll than not enough.
Anyhoo, it was a fun morning. But I gotta tell ya, I would NOT want to do this (be an actor or a video spokesperson) for a living. It's a fussy business.
Well, last week I got a call from the video company and it was a go! I talked to the boyfriend (they wanted to feature him, too, about the effect my lifestyle changes had on him), he was cool with it and we all agreed on Saturday, Jan. 7, as a shoot date. The vid production team said they were shooting (no pun intended) for a half-day shoot, beginning at 10 AM and ending up around 1:30 PM.
Prior to the shoot, I needed to get permission from my two older brothers to use their likenesses in the taping, since the AHA wanted to show the familial relationship to heart disease. Both brothers were agreeable, although one of them asked if I would be using a flattering photo! LOL! I told him, of course, that I would use the one from my older brother's wedding a year ago.
The crew was extremely professional. They showed up early and were done by noon! If they moved any furniture and whatnot, it was moved back into its proper place before they left. They had instructed me on what colors to wear, how to dress and what questions they would be asking me.
That being said, I think they should have asked me more about the type of dwelling in which I reside. When they arrrived at my place, the cameramen groaned that I lived in a three-story walkup! No big deal to me but then again, I don't have to carry 50 pounds of camera equipment up the stairs, either. They were also a bit perturbed that I live in an apartment which faces the street, thereby picking up all the street noise. These are physical things over which I have no control but I still think they should have asked me about them so that they wouldn't be so surprised when they arrived.
The first 20 minutes of so was spent filming me running in Verona Park. Fortunately, today was a gorgeous day so the cameraman got some good shots. He filmed me running towards him and then away from him and the lake in the background was a nice backdrop. A couple of people walking by wondered what we were doing and that was kinda cool. My 15 minutes of fame had arrived!
Back to the apartment when they proceeded to interview me about my family history, my own history and my thoughts about women and heart disease. I think a big point of this video is to show women that heart disease is not just a "man's disease," that it's still the #1 killer of both men AND women. It's just that in the past, all of the studies and research have focused on men.
They had told me not to wear red or any type of print or pattern that might be distracting. So I had worn a black turtleneck and black pants which made me look very slender. However, since my running outfit had been all black, the cameraman decided that I needed a splash of color. Well, since red was out (too bad, it's a fave of mine), I suggested an olive green V-neck sweater. They didn't seem thrilled about it until I put it on and then they loved it! Said it brought out my hair and eyes. Speaking of hair, the interviewer would occasionally lean over to push a tiny strand of hair off my face.
Then (and this one cracked me up) I was told that they needed to powder to my nose and forehead because my skin was shiny! I always complain about my dry skin in the winter and am always slathering on tons of moisturizer so I don't know where the shine came from. Maybe because I had just come back from running, who knows. They asked if I had any powder (I don't, I never wear it) but they did have their own.
For the most part the interviewer liked my answers, only asking me to repeat a couple of them for emphasis. The street noise proved to be problematic at times, though, and we had to halt taping a couple of times due to a car horn or truck noise.
Then it was onto the kitchen where they wanted to get some b-roll and me and BF preparing food. This was the most annoying part of the shoot, I have to say. Everytime one of us opened up the fridge or a kitchen cabinet, we had to turn cans, bottles and boxes around so as not to display brand names! I understand why they asked us to do this but it was still a pain in the arse.
Also, it felt very fake to be cutting up fruit for salad after we just ate breakfast about an hour ago and making inane conversation while doing it but I imagine that most of this will end up on the cutting room floor. The director said she'd rather have too much b-roll than not enough.
Anyhoo, it was a fun morning. But I gotta tell ya, I would NOT want to do this (be an actor or a video spokesperson) for a living. It's a fussy business.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Where There's Smoke, There's Ire
There was a letter in last week's Verona News, the weekly freebie that gets delivered to all township residents, defending people's right to smoke in public places. This, of course, was written in response to pending legislation to make smoking illegal in public places in New Jersey, as it is in New York.
The letter went on to say that "smokers have rights" and before you know it, the health police will be going after people who eat fatty foods. Uh, not quite the same thing there. Yes, it's true, tobacco IS a legal substance and people who smoke cigarettes generally don't rob or kill people to feed their habit. (Although, with what it costs for a pack of butts these days, that may soon change.) Yes, in New Jersey, people still have a right to smoke to their heart's content in public places.
And, I'll even take it a step further and admit that, as of yet, there is no strong scientific evidence that proves that exposure to second-hand smoke causes disease. Yes, it's true that if you have a pre-existing lung disease or asthma, the smoke will probably aggravate your condition. But CAUSE disease? Bring on the proof.
That being said, I think most people, smokers included, will agree that second-hand smoke is just plain disgusting. It gets into your hair, your clothes and no one, except another chain smoker perhaps, enjoys kissing a smoker. My brother smokes and even he agrees that the smoke is gross. If we are out in a restaurant, he always steps outside or goes into the bar area to light up. If he's at home or in someone else's home, he steps outside. Yes, he is one of the few considerate smokers. "Few" being the operative word here.
So, using the convoluted logic of the smokers, why is that in New Jersey, smokers have rights but those of us who do not smoke, well, we can go pound sand. What about MY right to breathe clean air? What about MY right to go home, after a night dining out or dancing, without smelling like a friggin' ashtray? And, what about the rights of people who make their living working at bars, restaurants, and clubs in NJ? What about their right to work in a smoke-free environment?
New York, and other U.S. and European cities who have followed suit, have the right idea. When the anti-smoking law was first implemented, everyone whined that it would hurt business but that has not been the case. If anything, people who normally wouldn't go out to a club or restaurant because of the smoke, now go in droves.
We're not saying that smokers can't smoke. Light up all you want, that's your business. But when you're blowing smoke in MY face, that's where your rights end. If the majority of smokers had been considerate in the first place, like my brother, then we wouldn't need to consider such a law.
The letter went on to say that "smokers have rights" and before you know it, the health police will be going after people who eat fatty foods. Uh, not quite the same thing there. Yes, it's true, tobacco IS a legal substance and people who smoke cigarettes generally don't rob or kill people to feed their habit. (Although, with what it costs for a pack of butts these days, that may soon change.) Yes, in New Jersey, people still have a right to smoke to their heart's content in public places.
And, I'll even take it a step further and admit that, as of yet, there is no strong scientific evidence that proves that exposure to second-hand smoke causes disease. Yes, it's true that if you have a pre-existing lung disease or asthma, the smoke will probably aggravate your condition. But CAUSE disease? Bring on the proof.
That being said, I think most people, smokers included, will agree that second-hand smoke is just plain disgusting. It gets into your hair, your clothes and no one, except another chain smoker perhaps, enjoys kissing a smoker. My brother smokes and even he agrees that the smoke is gross. If we are out in a restaurant, he always steps outside or goes into the bar area to light up. If he's at home or in someone else's home, he steps outside. Yes, he is one of the few considerate smokers. "Few" being the operative word here.
So, using the convoluted logic of the smokers, why is that in New Jersey, smokers have rights but those of us who do not smoke, well, we can go pound sand. What about MY right to breathe clean air? What about MY right to go home, after a night dining out or dancing, without smelling like a friggin' ashtray? And, what about the rights of people who make their living working at bars, restaurants, and clubs in NJ? What about their right to work in a smoke-free environment?
New York, and other U.S. and European cities who have followed suit, have the right idea. When the anti-smoking law was first implemented, everyone whined that it would hurt business but that has not been the case. If anything, people who normally wouldn't go out to a club or restaurant because of the smoke, now go in droves.
We're not saying that smokers can't smoke. Light up all you want, that's your business. But when you're blowing smoke in MY face, that's where your rights end. If the majority of smokers had been considerate in the first place, like my brother, then we wouldn't need to consider such a law.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?
| You Passed 8th Grade Math |
 Congratulations, you got 9/10 correct! |
Great. But they never told me the one I got wrong. I have an idea, though. It's probably the one about median, mode, mean, etc.
Friday, December 23, 2005
Day-um!
Gotta tell ya'll. I don't follow sports much and I certainly don't go ga-ga over ballplayers but that Johnny Damon? Day-um! What a hunkabunk! With hair or out! Gotta go take cold shower now. Bye.
Please Make Them Go Away
Happy holidays, folks, and best wishes for the New Year!
Before we close the year out, however, there's something I need to get off my chest and hopefully, off the bodies of some poor souls who may not know any better. Yes, I am talking about fashion don'ts here.
What follows are Martta's 10 Fashion Pet Peeves which I hope will meet a quick demise in 2006:
1. Gaucho pants. Worn mostly by women, these are pants that couldn't decide whether they wanted to be shorts, culottes, or cropped pants. Instad, they hang right below a woman's knees which, according to most fashion gurus, is NOT the most attractive part of the body, certainly not a place to which you want to draw the eye. I don't care if you are are God's most perfect mammal, these simply do not look good on any body type. Ever.
2. Belly Shirts on People with, uh, Bellies. I don't care if you have more rolls than an Italian bakery, but I don't need them in my face 24/7 when I'm walking down the street or dining in the food court at the Mall of America. I'm sorry, but unless you have abs on which you can bounce a quarter, you are a making a fashion statement that is just not working.
3. Low Rise Jeans On...Oh, Just See #2. As with belly shirts, if you have 52-inch hips with love handles, I'd love for you to stop wearing these. Nuff said.
4. Underwear as Outerwear. Uh, there's a reason it's called underwear, folks. It's meant to be worn UNDER your clothes. I don't care how cute your bra is, I don't need to be looking at your nasty-ass straps in public. And men, the pants-hanging-off-the-ass look is so five minutes ago. If I want to see prison garb, I'll visit Riker's.
5. Men Who Wear Hats Indoors. Three things go through my mind when I see a guy (who is NOT a professional baseball player) in a baseball hat worn indoors: 1. Bald 2. Loser. 3. Bald Loser. Ditto for grown men who wear ski caps all year round. Unless you are 11 years old and building a snow fort, lose the hat, Dude.
6. Pointy-pointy shoes. I thought the Wicked Witch was dead.
7. Nine-inch Nails. No, I'm not talking about the band, whom I love. It's those let's-see-how-long-I-can-grow-them-before-I-poke-someone's-eye-out nails. Everyone is wondering: "How does she, uh, wipe herself?" Surely, you want people thinking different thoughts when you first meet.
8. Cowel-neck sweaters. It's not much that they look bad, it's that yours truly can never drape them correctly. Finally, out of desperation, I just give up and buy a regular turtleneck. How DO you fold those suckers?
9. More Than Two Face Piercings. One or two, I can handle but any more than that, you become a hazard on a fishing boat.
10. Multiple Tech Items Attached to Your Person. I often wonder, when I see someone wearing a cell phone, Blackberry, iPod, walkie-talkie, if they were buried tomorrow, how long would their half life be?
Before we close the year out, however, there's something I need to get off my chest and hopefully, off the bodies of some poor souls who may not know any better. Yes, I am talking about fashion don'ts here.
What follows are Martta's 10 Fashion Pet Peeves which I hope will meet a quick demise in 2006:
1. Gaucho pants. Worn mostly by women, these are pants that couldn't decide whether they wanted to be shorts, culottes, or cropped pants. Instad, they hang right below a woman's knees which, according to most fashion gurus, is NOT the most attractive part of the body, certainly not a place to which you want to draw the eye. I don't care if you are are God's most perfect mammal, these simply do not look good on any body type. Ever.
2. Belly Shirts on People with, uh, Bellies. I don't care if you have more rolls than an Italian bakery, but I don't need them in my face 24/7 when I'm walking down the street or dining in the food court at the Mall of America. I'm sorry, but unless you have abs on which you can bounce a quarter, you are a making a fashion statement that is just not working.
3. Low Rise Jeans On...Oh, Just See #2. As with belly shirts, if you have 52-inch hips with love handles, I'd love for you to stop wearing these. Nuff said.
4. Underwear as Outerwear. Uh, there's a reason it's called underwear, folks. It's meant to be worn UNDER your clothes. I don't care how cute your bra is, I don't need to be looking at your nasty-ass straps in public. And men, the pants-hanging-off-the-ass look is so five minutes ago. If I want to see prison garb, I'll visit Riker's.
5. Men Who Wear Hats Indoors. Three things go through my mind when I see a guy (who is NOT a professional baseball player) in a baseball hat worn indoors: 1. Bald 2. Loser. 3. Bald Loser. Ditto for grown men who wear ski caps all year round. Unless you are 11 years old and building a snow fort, lose the hat, Dude.
6. Pointy-pointy shoes. I thought the Wicked Witch was dead.
7. Nine-inch Nails. No, I'm not talking about the band, whom I love. It's those let's-see-how-long-I-can-grow-them-before-I-poke-someone's-eye-out nails. Everyone is wondering: "How does she, uh, wipe herself?" Surely, you want people thinking different thoughts when you first meet.
8. Cowel-neck sweaters. It's not much that they look bad, it's that yours truly can never drape them correctly. Finally, out of desperation, I just give up and buy a regular turtleneck. How DO you fold those suckers?
9. More Than Two Face Piercings. One or two, I can handle but any more than that, you become a hazard on a fishing boat.
10. Multiple Tech Items Attached to Your Person. I often wonder, when I see someone wearing a cell phone, Blackberry, iPod, walkie-talkie, if they were buried tomorrow, how long would their half life be?
Friday, December 09, 2005
Michael McCrory, You Rock!
From today's Daily News:
Let's get along
Bayside: As a member of the majority of Americans who celebrate Christmas, I would like to make a deal with the liberal Grinches and their pals at the ACLU. Don't interfere with Christmas season this year, and I won't interfere with your "Terrorists Are People Too" campaign or the "Give a Pedophile a Chance" movement until after the new year.
Michael McCrory
Let's get along
Bayside: As a member of the majority of Americans who celebrate Christmas, I would like to make a deal with the liberal Grinches and their pals at the ACLU. Don't interfere with Christmas season this year, and I won't interfere with your "Terrorists Are People Too" campaign or the "Give a Pedophile a Chance" movement until after the new year.
Michael McCrory
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Hovercraft
It's weird how things that happened to you years ago can just pop into your head in an instant.
The catalyst for today's tale was being stopped on 8th Avenue in New York City by a British tourist asking directions to the nearest subway. Her accent reminded me how much I miss England. Alas, the last time I was there was 1978! I'm sure that many things in London have changed since then, some for the better, some for the worse, but I would like to revisit one day.
One of my fondest memories of England was my free ride on the Hovercraft, from Brighton to Port Calais in France. But first a little background:
I was 20 years old, in my junior year at Syracuse University, studying art history abroad for 6 weeks. I was living with about 7 or 8 other young women in a flat in Kensington. Between classes, lectures and visits to various galleries and museums throughout London and its surroundings, we had considerable downtime to travel on our own. What a treat for a young woman who had never before been abroad much less by herself!
Anyway, on one particular day, a few of my flatmates and I went to Brighton. I was the only one from our group who actually dared to swim in the ocean, however. Everyone else complained that it was way too cold. Not me. I didn't want to travel back home across the Atlantic without having experienced the British version of the beach. It was very different than the beaches I had grown up with on the Jersey coast. For one thing, it was quieter and much more civilized. No boom boxes blaring, no trash scattered about. The downside is that instead of soft sandy beaches, you had hard pebbles. Pity the poor feet! That took some getting used to but eventually I did.
After the beach, we went and had lunch at a fish and chips place. At this junction, my flatmates wanted to go shopping. I wanted to continue exploring so we parted ways. Continuing down to the dock area, I noticed a big commotion. I asked someone what was going on and he replied, "Free Hovercraft rides!"
Now I didn't know the difference between a Hovercraft and Hoover vacuum cleaner. From this same gent, I learned that the Hovercraft was basically a HUGE vessel with an inflatable bottom and a helicopter-like contraption on top. I had never seen anything like it before and neither had most of the Brits. Normal travel time across the channel to France was about 2 hours by boat. With the Hovercraft, it was 1/2 an hour! And, they were offering free rides. Why not?, I asked myself.
There was one little problem, however. Being a dopey kid, I had neglected to take my U.S. Passport with me that day. Granted, the world was a very different place back in 1978 and most of time, you could safely travel around England without having your bag or person checked every hour. However, this was travel to another country. If your were not a citizen of the U.K., you needed a passport to ride the Hovercraft to France.
I bemoaned my lot to the kind man who had given me a lesson about the Hovercraft. "I guess I can't go," I said. "I forgot my passport." His words to me: "Keep your mouth shut." Excuse me? Was he all of a sudden being surly to me? "With your red hair and green eyes, you look like you could be from Ireland. As long as you don't open your mouth to speak, you should be fine. Get in line."
I did as he said and sure enough, I was passed through, no questions asked! This was amazing!
I enjoyed the Hovercraft ride immensely (as well as my newfound status as an Irish citizen). The ride was incredible, albeit a bit bumpy, but truth be told, we made it to Port Calais in half an hour.
So, that's how I got to visit France for a day, even though it was not part of my original itinerary.
The catalyst for today's tale was being stopped on 8th Avenue in New York City by a British tourist asking directions to the nearest subway. Her accent reminded me how much I miss England. Alas, the last time I was there was 1978! I'm sure that many things in London have changed since then, some for the better, some for the worse, but I would like to revisit one day.
One of my fondest memories of England was my free ride on the Hovercraft, from Brighton to Port Calais in France. But first a little background:
I was 20 years old, in my junior year at Syracuse University, studying art history abroad for 6 weeks. I was living with about 7 or 8 other young women in a flat in Kensington. Between classes, lectures and visits to various galleries and museums throughout London and its surroundings, we had considerable downtime to travel on our own. What a treat for a young woman who had never before been abroad much less by herself!
Anyway, on one particular day, a few of my flatmates and I went to Brighton. I was the only one from our group who actually dared to swim in the ocean, however. Everyone else complained that it was way too cold. Not me. I didn't want to travel back home across the Atlantic without having experienced the British version of the beach. It was very different than the beaches I had grown up with on the Jersey coast. For one thing, it was quieter and much more civilized. No boom boxes blaring, no trash scattered about. The downside is that instead of soft sandy beaches, you had hard pebbles. Pity the poor feet! That took some getting used to but eventually I did.
After the beach, we went and had lunch at a fish and chips place. At this junction, my flatmates wanted to go shopping. I wanted to continue exploring so we parted ways. Continuing down to the dock area, I noticed a big commotion. I asked someone what was going on and he replied, "Free Hovercraft rides!"
Now I didn't know the difference between a Hovercraft and Hoover vacuum cleaner. From this same gent, I learned that the Hovercraft was basically a HUGE vessel with an inflatable bottom and a helicopter-like contraption on top. I had never seen anything like it before and neither had most of the Brits. Normal travel time across the channel to France was about 2 hours by boat. With the Hovercraft, it was 1/2 an hour! And, they were offering free rides. Why not?, I asked myself.
There was one little problem, however. Being a dopey kid, I had neglected to take my U.S. Passport with me that day. Granted, the world was a very different place back in 1978 and most of time, you could safely travel around England without having your bag or person checked every hour. However, this was travel to another country. If your were not a citizen of the U.K., you needed a passport to ride the Hovercraft to France.
I bemoaned my lot to the kind man who had given me a lesson about the Hovercraft. "I guess I can't go," I said. "I forgot my passport." His words to me: "Keep your mouth shut." Excuse me? Was he all of a sudden being surly to me? "With your red hair and green eyes, you look like you could be from Ireland. As long as you don't open your mouth to speak, you should be fine. Get in line."
I did as he said and sure enough, I was passed through, no questions asked! This was amazing!
I enjoyed the Hovercraft ride immensely (as well as my newfound status as an Irish citizen). The ride was incredible, albeit a bit bumpy, but truth be told, we made it to Port Calais in half an hour.
So, that's how I got to visit France for a day, even though it was not part of my original itinerary.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Chicken Necks
A friend of mine writes a weekly humor column for the Delaware Valley News and this week's topic was "Fun Things to Do with Turkey Giblets" or something like that. I wrote back to him, telling him that I actually made soup out of the giblets (works with chicken as well as turkey) and actually (true confession coming up) EAT THE NECK! His response was "Gross!"
Well, OBVIOUSLY he has never tasted giblet and neck soup! Plus, I grew up in a house where it was considered a sin to waste anything resembling food. So as not to deprive the rest of you folks of the opportunity to enjoy said recipe, here it is:
You will need:
Medium-sized saucepan
giblets and neck from a turkey or chicken
(leave the fat on the neck for flavor; it gets removed later)
5 carrots, peeled and chopped
5 stalks of celery, chopped
1 medium onion, peeled
1/4 cup of barley
dill or parsley to taste
1 can of chicken broth
1 cup of water
salt and pepper (optional)
Remove the plastic bag of "innards" from your turkey or chicken. Wash everything off thoroughly in cold water. In a medium saucepan, add innards (giblets and neck), carrots, celery, onion, barley, and dill and/or parsley. Pour in contents of broth; add water.
Bring everything to a boil and then turn down heat to a simmer. Cook for about a half hour. When you can push a fork through the carrots, it's done.
Remove skin from neck before eating. I should also mention that some people just use the giblets for flavoring and then discard them or feed them to the dog; that's up to you. I also don't add salt to my food, just pepper, but you may want to.
Bon appetit!
Well, OBVIOUSLY he has never tasted giblet and neck soup! Plus, I grew up in a house where it was considered a sin to waste anything resembling food. So as not to deprive the rest of you folks of the opportunity to enjoy said recipe, here it is:
You will need:
Medium-sized saucepan
giblets and neck from a turkey or chicken
(leave the fat on the neck for flavor; it gets removed later)
5 carrots, peeled and chopped
5 stalks of celery, chopped
1 medium onion, peeled
1/4 cup of barley
dill or parsley to taste
1 can of chicken broth
1 cup of water
salt and pepper (optional)
Remove the plastic bag of "innards" from your turkey or chicken. Wash everything off thoroughly in cold water. In a medium saucepan, add innards (giblets and neck), carrots, celery, onion, barley, and dill and/or parsley. Pour in contents of broth; add water.
Bring everything to a boil and then turn down heat to a simmer. Cook for about a half hour. When you can push a fork through the carrots, it's done.
Remove skin from neck before eating. I should also mention that some people just use the giblets for flavoring and then discard them or feed them to the dog; that's up to you. I also don't add salt to my food, just pepper, but you may want to.
Bon appetit!
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
From the Only in America Files
Only in America, can someone create a Flash animation like this one:
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/flash/hipponoodles.html
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/flash/hipponoodles.html
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
My Top 10 Guitar Gods
As promised, here is the list of my Top 10 Guitar Gods:
1. Link Wray -- Admittedly, he had a lot of lame songs but you can't beat the guitar on Rumble.
2. Bill Justis Band -- Who can forget Raunchy?
3. Duane Eddy -- Check out my blog a couple of posts back.
4. Chuck Berry -- Not so much for his rock 'n' roll tunes, but if you ever get a chance to check out guitar solos like Deep Feeling, you'll be hooked.
5. The Chantays -- One word: Pipeline!
6. Ween -- One of my fave experimental bands from New Hope, PA. The guitar on A Tear for Eddie and Buenos Tarde, Amigo will blow you away.
7. Russ Hicks -- Steel guitarist featured on Ween's 12 Great Country Hits CD. Flawless.
8. Ghoultown -- A band out of Dallas, TX, that has some of most haunting songs and guitar solos you'll ever hear. Google them: they share their tunes. Don't pass up Killer in Texas.
9. Nelson Riddle -- The theme from Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse. Need I say more?
10. Dead Kennedys -- I could listen to East Bay Ray's guitar solo on Police Truck over and over and over. Love the Echoplex effect!
1. Link Wray -- Admittedly, he had a lot of lame songs but you can't beat the guitar on Rumble.
2. Bill Justis Band -- Who can forget Raunchy?
3. Duane Eddy -- Check out my blog a couple of posts back.
4. Chuck Berry -- Not so much for his rock 'n' roll tunes, but if you ever get a chance to check out guitar solos like Deep Feeling, you'll be hooked.
5. The Chantays -- One word: Pipeline!
6. Ween -- One of my fave experimental bands from New Hope, PA. The guitar on A Tear for Eddie and Buenos Tarde, Amigo will blow you away.
7. Russ Hicks -- Steel guitarist featured on Ween's 12 Great Country Hits CD. Flawless.
8. Ghoultown -- A band out of Dallas, TX, that has some of most haunting songs and guitar solos you'll ever hear. Google them: they share their tunes. Don't pass up Killer in Texas.
9. Nelson Riddle -- The theme from Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse. Need I say more?
10. Dead Kennedys -- I could listen to East Bay Ray's guitar solo on Police Truck over and over and over. Love the Echoplex effect!
Who's the Other Turkey?
Today in The Times it said that Bush has pardoned two turkeys. I only see one in the picture. Who's the other one, Bill Clinton?
Money for Nothing? That's Rich!
At first I thought this was a satire but no, it's a real story on the AP Wire. I actually agree with the last quote, though:
Report: Death penalty cost $253M and executed no one in NJ
November 21, 2005
TRENTON, N.J. -- In the 23 years since New Jersey reinstated the death penalty, the law has cost taxpayers about $253 million and executed no one, according to a new study.
"Money For Nothing? The Financial Cost of New Jersey's Death Penalty" was released Monday by New Jersey Policy Perspective, a research group.
The report broke down the death penalty-related costs as follows:
_County prosecutors/state Attorney General's Office: $180 million;
_State Public Defender's Office: $60 million;
_State Department of Corrections: $6.8 million;
_Court Costs: $6.5 million.
That works out to $4.2 million for each death sentence imposed in New Jersey.
In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the 40 state death penalty statutes that existed at the time, ruling that giving juries complete discretion over sentencing conflicted with the Eighth Amendment ban on "cruel and unusual punishment."
New Jersey, which first adopted capital punishment in 1796, passed a new death penalty law in 1982 that conformed to the high court's mandates.
Since then, New Jersey jurors have returned death verdicts 60 times. Ten people are now on death row at the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton. Most of the others have had their death sentences overturned and replaced with life in prison.
One died of natural causes and another was killed by a fellow death row inmate.
On a related topic, state Sen. Raymond Lesniak said he hopes to get a vote on a measure he wrote that would abolish New Jersey's death penalty law.
"We should abolish the death penalty to remove our potential to kill innocent people," he said. "By replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment without parole we will ensure that murderers are kept behind bars for the rest of their lives."
Report: Death penalty cost $253M and executed no one in NJ
November 21, 2005
TRENTON, N.J. -- In the 23 years since New Jersey reinstated the death penalty, the law has cost taxpayers about $253 million and executed no one, according to a new study.
"Money For Nothing? The Financial Cost of New Jersey's Death Penalty" was released Monday by New Jersey Policy Perspective, a research group.
The report broke down the death penalty-related costs as follows:
_County prosecutors/state Attorney General's Office: $180 million;
_State Public Defender's Office: $60 million;
_State Department of Corrections: $6.8 million;
_Court Costs: $6.5 million.
That works out to $4.2 million for each death sentence imposed in New Jersey.
In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the 40 state death penalty statutes that existed at the time, ruling that giving juries complete discretion over sentencing conflicted with the Eighth Amendment ban on "cruel and unusual punishment."
New Jersey, which first adopted capital punishment in 1796, passed a new death penalty law in 1982 that conformed to the high court's mandates.
Since then, New Jersey jurors have returned death verdicts 60 times. Ten people are now on death row at the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton. Most of the others have had their death sentences overturned and replaced with life in prison.
One died of natural causes and another was killed by a fellow death row inmate.
On a related topic, state Sen. Raymond Lesniak said he hopes to get a vote on a measure he wrote that would abolish New Jersey's death penalty law.
"We should abolish the death penalty to remove our potential to kill innocent people," he said. "By replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment without parole we will ensure that murderers are kept behind bars for the rest of their lives."
Labby's on a Diet
Awww, my gorgeous God dog, Chief, is now on a diet, doctor's orders!
I spoke to my brother about 2 months ago and he told me that at the ripe old age of 6 (42 in people years), Chief had become very fussy about his food. He was either ignoring it or taking his food outdoors to eat or playing with it first.
I suggested that maybe he was just becoming bored with this food since he's on kind of a restricted diet (lamb & rice) due to allergies. So, my brother took him to the vet and the vet said that he was being overfed. I mean, he wasn't really fat but now that he's on the shady side of 40, he's got to watch it (just like me, LOL!) Labs DO have a tendency to gain weight as they age.
My bro cut back on his portions and sure enough, he's eating normally again, lost a few pounds, and is a MEAN, LEAN, CANINE MACHINE once again.
Pictures, I want new pictures, dammit!!!
Monday, November 21, 2005
Duane Eddy and Gretsch Guitars
Did you ever get a tune stuck in your head for no reason at all? This happened to me over the weekend and fortunately, it was an instrumental by legendary guitarist Duane Eddy so I didn't care. Eddy, as many of you know, was famous for his twangy Gretsch Guitar sound. The thing that bugged me, however, was that for the life of me, I could not remember the name of said tune.
I have about 100 or so 45 RPM records in my collection (down from about 600 or so--it was becoming a storage problem) so I went through them and --Eureka!--I found it. It was a song called The Lonely One released in 1959 on Jamie Records. (The flip side is a song called Detour, which I like but not as much). Growing up, Duane Eddy was played in my house a lot so I grew to love his stuff. So glad that I still have this record.
I wanted to download it to my iPod but, alas, iTunes does not have this particular Eddy song in its catalog as of yet. I plan to email them to see if they can add it.
I've always been attracted to songs with great-sounding guitars, no matter what the genre. Some others come to mind: the diabolical-sounding guitar on many of the Dead Kennedy's songs; Steve Cropper's snarky guitar on Green Onions; almost ANYTHING with a steel guitar; a song by the band Ween called Buenos Tarde, Amigo ...always sends chills up my spine.
I'm gonna try to make this my next research project: a list of my 10 best guitarists (and songs).
I have about 100 or so 45 RPM records in my collection (down from about 600 or so--it was becoming a storage problem) so I went through them and --Eureka!--I found it. It was a song called The Lonely One released in 1959 on Jamie Records. (The flip side is a song called Detour, which I like but not as much). Growing up, Duane Eddy was played in my house a lot so I grew to love his stuff. So glad that I still have this record.
I wanted to download it to my iPod but, alas, iTunes does not have this particular Eddy song in its catalog as of yet. I plan to email them to see if they can add it.
I've always been attracted to songs with great-sounding guitars, no matter what the genre. Some others come to mind: the diabolical-sounding guitar on many of the Dead Kennedy's songs; Steve Cropper's snarky guitar on Green Onions; almost ANYTHING with a steel guitar; a song by the band Ween called Buenos Tarde, Amigo ...always sends chills up my spine.
I'm gonna try to make this my next research project: a list of my 10 best guitarists (and songs).
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Out of the Donkey's Mouth, Into the Fire
Normally, I don't like to swipe things but this was so good, I couldn't resist.
Swiped from "Quotes from Democrats About the Threat of Iraq-Truth!"
www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/b/bushlied.htm
Accusations that President Bush lied to the American people about whether there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are counterbalanced by quotes from prominent Democrats about Saddam Hussein and weapons in Iraq.
Most of these statements were during the debate over whether to use force against Iraq.
There are several quotes. Most of them come during a time in the Clinton administration when decisions were being made about action against Saddam Hussein and amid concerns about weapons of mass destruction.
"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998-Truth! This was a quote from President Clinton during a presentation at the Pentagon defending a decision to conduct military strikes against Iraq.
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998-Truth! Bill Clinton went to the Pentagon on this occasion to be briefed by top military officials about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. His remarks followed that briefing.
"Iraq is a long way from USA but, what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998-Truth! This is a quote from Albright during an appearance at Ohio State University by Albright, who was Secretary of State for Bill Clinton.
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998-Truth!
This was at the same Ohio State University appearance as Madeline Albright.
"We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S.Constitution and Laws, to take necessary actions,(including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998-Truth! According to the U.S. Senate website, the text of this letter was signed by several Senators, both Democrat and Republican, including Senator John McCain and Joseph Lieberman.
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998-Truth! The text of this statement by Nancy Pelosi is posted on her congressional website.
"Hussein has .. chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999-Truth! This was from an appearance Albright made in Chicago. She was addressing the embargo of Iraq that was in effect at the time and criticism that it may have prevented needed medical supplies from getting into the country. Albright said, "There has never been an embargo against food and medicine. It's just that Hussein has just not chosen to spend his money on that. Instead, he has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction, and palaces for his cronies."
"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue a pace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."
Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, December 5, 2001--Truth! The only letter with this quote from December 5, 2001 that we could find did not include the participation of Senator Bob Graham, but it was signed nine other senators including Democrat Joe Lieberman. It urged President Bush to take quicker action against Iraq.
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."
Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002-Truth! These were remarks from Senator Levin to a Senate committee on that date.
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002-Truth! This and the quote below was part of prepared remarks for a speech in San Francisco to The Commonwealth Club.
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002-Truth!
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002-Truth! Part of a speech he gave at Johns Hopkins.
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities.
Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."
Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002-Truth! On the floor of the Senate during debate over the resolution that would authorize using force against Iraq. He was urging caution about going to war and commented that even though there was confidence about the weapons in Iraq, there had not been the need to take military action for a number of years and he asked why there would be the need at that point.
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002-Truth! Senator Kerry's comments were made to the Senate as part of the same debate over the resolution to use force against Saddam Hussein.
"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002-Truth! Senator Rockefeller's statements were a part of the debate over using force against Saddam Hussein.
"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his
chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do." Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002-Truth! Senator Waxman's contribution to the Senate debate over going to war.
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002-Truth! Senator Clinton acknowledged the threat of Saddam Hussein but said she did not feel that using force at that time was a good option.
"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real ..."
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan.23.2003-Truth!
In a speech to Georgetown University.
Swiped from "Quotes from Democrats About the Threat of Iraq-Truth!"
www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/b/bushlied.htm
Accusations that President Bush lied to the American people about whether there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are counterbalanced by quotes from prominent Democrats about Saddam Hussein and weapons in Iraq.
Most of these statements were during the debate over whether to use force against Iraq.
There are several quotes. Most of them come during a time in the Clinton administration when decisions were being made about action against Saddam Hussein and amid concerns about weapons of mass destruction.
"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998-Truth! This was a quote from President Clinton during a presentation at the Pentagon defending a decision to conduct military strikes against Iraq.
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998-Truth! Bill Clinton went to the Pentagon on this occasion to be briefed by top military officials about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. His remarks followed that briefing.
"Iraq is a long way from USA but, what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998-Truth! This is a quote from Albright during an appearance at Ohio State University by Albright, who was Secretary of State for Bill Clinton.
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998-Truth!
This was at the same Ohio State University appearance as Madeline Albright.
"We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S.Constitution and Laws, to take necessary actions,(including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998-Truth! According to the U.S. Senate website, the text of this letter was signed by several Senators, both Democrat and Republican, including Senator John McCain and Joseph Lieberman.
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998-Truth! The text of this statement by Nancy Pelosi is posted on her congressional website.
"Hussein has .. chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999-Truth! This was from an appearance Albright made in Chicago. She was addressing the embargo of Iraq that was in effect at the time and criticism that it may have prevented needed medical supplies from getting into the country. Albright said, "There has never been an embargo against food and medicine. It's just that Hussein has just not chosen to spend his money on that. Instead, he has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction, and palaces for his cronies."
"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue a pace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."
Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, December 5, 2001--Truth! The only letter with this quote from December 5, 2001 that we could find did not include the participation of Senator Bob Graham, but it was signed nine other senators including Democrat Joe Lieberman. It urged President Bush to take quicker action against Iraq.
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."
Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002-Truth! These were remarks from Senator Levin to a Senate committee on that date.
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002-Truth! This and the quote below was part of prepared remarks for a speech in San Francisco to The Commonwealth Club.
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002-Truth!
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002-Truth! Part of a speech he gave at Johns Hopkins.
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities.
Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."
Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002-Truth! On the floor of the Senate during debate over the resolution that would authorize using force against Iraq. He was urging caution about going to war and commented that even though there was confidence about the weapons in Iraq, there had not been the need to take military action for a number of years and he asked why there would be the need at that point.
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002-Truth! Senator Kerry's comments were made to the Senate as part of the same debate over the resolution to use force against Saddam Hussein.
"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002-Truth! Senator Rockefeller's statements were a part of the debate over using force against Saddam Hussein.
"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his
chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do." Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002-Truth! Senator Waxman's contribution to the Senate debate over going to war.
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002-Truth! Senator Clinton acknowledged the threat of Saddam Hussein but said she did not feel that using force at that time was a good option.
"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real ..."
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan.23.2003-Truth!
In a speech to Georgetown University.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Please Tell This Asshat to Shut Up!
I remember the day John Lennon was shot day as if it were yesterday.
I was driving to work (I worked in East Orange at the time) and had the radio on. They were playing all John Lennon songs, non-stop, no commercials. My first thought was, "Is he coming out with a new album or something?" And then the announcer broke in, talking about how John Lennon had been shot. My reaction was, "Who would want to shoot John Lennon?" I know he had his detractors and all, but kill him? I could not imagine who would do something like that, it was surreal.
My co-workers were in shock, too. It was all anyone could talk about that day and the next.
And then we learned about this asshat named Mark David Chapman. A nobody. A mentally deranged man. "A confused person," as Yoko referred to him. A man who, to this day, makes no apologies, just offers a kinda "the devil made me do it" alibi.
About a year later, I was in Mill's Tavern in Greenwich Village and I was listening to David Peel perform. As many of you know, David Peel and the Lower East Side Band (what ever happened to him?) was discovered in Washington Square Park by John Lennon. Later, Lennon produced a number of his songs and albums and even performed with him on "Give Peace a Chance."
That night at Mill's Tavern, Peel played one song called, "I Hate You, Mark David Chapman." At the end of the number, he shouted out, "Rest in Pieces."
My sentiments exactly. And, please stop giving this fucktard publicity!
********************************************************************************
Chapman: Nothing could have stopped Lennon's murder
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The man who murdered John Lennon 25 years ago says "nothing could have stopped" his twisted quest to track down and assassinate the ex-Beatle.
"I was under total compulsion," killer Mark David Chapman says in a segment to be aired Friday on "Dateline NBC."
"It was like a train, a runaway train, there was no stopping it."
Chapman fatally shot Lennon on Dec. 8, 1980, as the musician and his wife, Yoko Ono, returned home from a night in a Manhattan recording studio. Chapman's comments came from audiotapes made in 1991-92 and first used as part of a British documentary.
Chapman recalled waiting for Lennon that night, then reacting as he saw a limousine pull up outside the ex-Beatle's home.
"I heard a voice in my head saying, `Do it, do it,'" Chapman recounted. "And as he passed me I pulled out the gun, aimed at his back and pulled the trigger five times in succession."
Chapman recalled that his desire to kill Lennon began one day in his apartment in Hawaii, where he was sitting on the floor and looking at the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album. His animosity soon began to consume Chapman.
"There was a successful man who kind of had the world on a chain, so to speak, and there I was, not even a link of that chain, just a person who had no personality," Chapman said. "And something in me just broke."
I was driving to work (I worked in East Orange at the time) and had the radio on. They were playing all John Lennon songs, non-stop, no commercials. My first thought was, "Is he coming out with a new album or something?" And then the announcer broke in, talking about how John Lennon had been shot. My reaction was, "Who would want to shoot John Lennon?" I know he had his detractors and all, but kill him? I could not imagine who would do something like that, it was surreal.
My co-workers were in shock, too. It was all anyone could talk about that day and the next.
And then we learned about this asshat named Mark David Chapman. A nobody. A mentally deranged man. "A confused person," as Yoko referred to him. A man who, to this day, makes no apologies, just offers a kinda "the devil made me do it" alibi.
About a year later, I was in Mill's Tavern in Greenwich Village and I was listening to David Peel perform. As many of you know, David Peel and the Lower East Side Band (what ever happened to him?) was discovered in Washington Square Park by John Lennon. Later, Lennon produced a number of his songs and albums and even performed with him on "Give Peace a Chance."
That night at Mill's Tavern, Peel played one song called, "I Hate You, Mark David Chapman." At the end of the number, he shouted out, "Rest in Pieces."
My sentiments exactly. And, please stop giving this fucktard publicity!
********************************************************************************
Chapman: Nothing could have stopped Lennon's murder
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The man who murdered John Lennon 25 years ago says "nothing could have stopped" his twisted quest to track down and assassinate the ex-Beatle.
"I was under total compulsion," killer Mark David Chapman says in a segment to be aired Friday on "Dateline NBC."
"It was like a train, a runaway train, there was no stopping it."
Chapman fatally shot Lennon on Dec. 8, 1980, as the musician and his wife, Yoko Ono, returned home from a night in a Manhattan recording studio. Chapman's comments came from audiotapes made in 1991-92 and first used as part of a British documentary.
Chapman recalled waiting for Lennon that night, then reacting as he saw a limousine pull up outside the ex-Beatle's home.
"I heard a voice in my head saying, `Do it, do it,'" Chapman recounted. "And as he passed me I pulled out the gun, aimed at his back and pulled the trigger five times in succession."
Chapman recalled that his desire to kill Lennon began one day in his apartment in Hawaii, where he was sitting on the floor and looking at the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album. His animosity soon began to consume Chapman.
"There was a successful man who kind of had the world on a chain, so to speak, and there I was, not even a link of that chain, just a person who had no personality," Chapman said. "And something in me just broke."
Monday, November 14, 2005
I Don't Like Spam!
No, I'm not referring to the Monty Python sketch of the same name but to the crap I find in my email box, both at home and at work. Is the Rolex watch company hurting so bad that it needs to send out millions of spam emails a day? Ditto for the pharmaceutical companies. I liked it better when they were selling their wares on the street illegally.
Microsoft's Outlook Express offers a block email feature but as soon as I block one, ten more appear. And they have most inane titles in the subject line, a mere stringing together of words which make absolutely no sense at all: "aspic beetles come hither far," or "bent sausage radio hair." I feel like an unwitting spectator at a Dada symposium poetry fest.
And yes, I have Norton Anti-Virus installed and run Spybot frequently. Doesn't seem to help when it comes to spam.
I am at my wits end and will entertain any suggestions you might have.
Microsoft's Outlook Express offers a block email feature but as soon as I block one, ten more appear. And they have most inane titles in the subject line, a mere stringing together of words which make absolutely no sense at all: "aspic beetles come hither far," or "bent sausage radio hair." I feel like an unwitting spectator at a Dada symposium poetry fest.
And yes, I have Norton Anti-Virus installed and run Spybot frequently. Doesn't seem to help when it comes to spam.
I am at my wits end and will entertain any suggestions you might have.
Friday, November 11, 2005
Thursday, November 10, 2005
November Blues
I love autumn but at this time of year I always get a little blue due to the change in my running schedule. Shorter days means that I cannot run outside after 5 or so which really sucks since I don't get home until around 6:45. So, this means that the treadmill at the gym is my new best friend until late December when the days begin to get longer. Even so, you can never count on the weather in winter: sleet, freezing rain, icy roads, blech. And, there are also more work and family obligations during the fall-winter that encroach on my running schedule (how dare they!) My speed training workouts are also put on hold until March. As is true for many runners, I *lose* a little bit in speed over the winter, which makes me sad.
The up side is that I do spend more time in the gym and get to concentrate on building up my core and upper body and that's not a bad thing.
If I can just get through my birthday and the holidays, I'll be fine. As you all know, there's food EVERYWHERE this time of year: in the office, at friend's homes, even when you go out for lunch in Manhattan, you have the free sample people hawking their wares. Just say "No!"
*************************************************************************************
Speaking of eating, I am really mad at my digital camera right now, if it's possible to get angry at material objects. The thing eats up batteries like there's no tomorrow! Even when it's not in use.
On the day of the NYC Marathon, I discovered the batteries had died and I didn't even use it that much in the last month. I had to make a unscheduled pitstop at Duane Reade for new ones. GRRR! Missed being able to take a photo of the elite women as a result. I even had those *special* batteries in there, the ones created for high-tech appliances.
Not sure what to do about this. The camera was purchased at B&H so I think I'll give them a call. I'm spending a fortune on batteries.
The up side is that I do spend more time in the gym and get to concentrate on building up my core and upper body and that's not a bad thing.
If I can just get through my birthday and the holidays, I'll be fine. As you all know, there's food EVERYWHERE this time of year: in the office, at friend's homes, even when you go out for lunch in Manhattan, you have the free sample people hawking their wares. Just say "No!"
*************************************************************************************
Speaking of eating, I am really mad at my digital camera right now, if it's possible to get angry at material objects. The thing eats up batteries like there's no tomorrow! Even when it's not in use.
On the day of the NYC Marathon, I discovered the batteries had died and I didn't even use it that much in the last month. I had to make a unscheduled pitstop at Duane Reade for new ones. GRRR! Missed being able to take a photo of the elite women as a result. I even had those *special* batteries in there, the ones created for high-tech appliances.
Not sure what to do about this. The camera was purchased at B&H so I think I'll give them a call. I'm spending a fortune on batteries.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Theater of the Absurd, Part I
11.9/WEDNESDAY/7 pm.
JON KATZ appears at Watchung Booksellers to discuss his new book, KATZ ON DOGS: A COMMONSENSE GUIDE TO TRAINING AND LIVING WITH DOGS. Note: this is a people-only event.
WTF? How are you supposed to learn how to co-exist with dogs at a people-only event? I swear, there is SOOO much anti-canine-ism in our society today. I thought things would get better by 2005, but noooo! Plenty of "No Dogs Allowed" signs still dot the landscape.
It's a doggone shame.
JON KATZ appears at Watchung Booksellers to discuss his new book, KATZ ON DOGS: A COMMONSENSE GUIDE TO TRAINING AND LIVING WITH DOGS. Note: this is a people-only event.
WTF? How are you supposed to learn how to co-exist with dogs at a people-only event? I swear, there is SOOO much anti-canine-ism in our society today. I thought things would get better by 2005, but noooo! Plenty of "No Dogs Allowed" signs still dot the landscape.
It's a doggone shame.
Monday, November 07, 2005
Please Don't Feed the Bear!
Note to Friends and Family: Yes, I know my birthday is coming up, I know Thanksgiving and Christmas are almost here but please, I implore you: PLEASE DON'T (OVER)FEED THE BEAR!The Bear, of course, being me.
Please don't offer me second helpings, insist I have dessert, make faces when I don't completely clear my plate, keep refilling my wine/beer glass! I have 4 or 5 more races this year and I need to do well. Therefore, I CANNOT gain back the weight I lost this year or I will run like I am wearing lead boots.
It's not that I don't wuv you all (or your cooking). I just want to finish out the year with a bang. I have a chance to make third place in my age for a state running award. Don't blow it!
The Bear thanks you.
Please don't offer me second helpings, insist I have dessert, make faces when I don't completely clear my plate, keep refilling my wine/beer glass! I have 4 or 5 more races this year and I need to do well. Therefore, I CANNOT gain back the weight I lost this year or I will run like I am wearing lead boots.
It's not that I don't wuv you all (or your cooking). I just want to finish out the year with a bang. I have a chance to make third place in my age for a state running award. Don't blow it!
The Bear thanks you.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Note to Advertisers: Bugger Off!
Hey, I don't mind people posting comments on this blog if they are relevant. But if you're an advertiser, you are NOT welcome here. Now go home!
GRRR!
GRRR!
Friday, November 04, 2005
Is Maureen Dowd Necessary?
This column from The Washingtonian is two years old but it sums up perfectly how I feel about Maureen Dowd. There was a profile of her in this week's New York magazine and I can't count how many times the reporter (a woman, mind you) referred to Dowd's "charm," her "attractiveness," her "red hair," how men found her irresistable...BARF!
What the fark this has to do with her being a well-known columnist for The New York Times I don't know. Also, after reading New York magazine piece, I haven't learned anything about Dowd that I didn't know before, other than the fact that she has four siblings. What does she do when she's not sashaying her ass around Washington? Does she have a life outside of work? My apologies if you like her work but I just can't take this chickie seriously.
*************************************************************************************
MEDIA CATFIGHT
Too Cute for Words
Maureen Dowd Can Be Funny When Writing About Movies or Fashion. But She Should Stay Out of Politics.
By CATHERINE SEIPP
I suppose we all have our own time-to-stop-throwing-the-newspaper-across-the-room-and-just-cancel-the-damned-thing moments. For me it was November 14, 2001, when I encountered five little words in Maureen Dowd’s New York Times column about the wrongness of invading Afghanistan. “The world’s in a swirl,” wrote Dowd, “and things are changing at a dizzying pace.”
Yes, things have a way of doing that. But the world’s in a swirl? There was something so quintessentially girlish and inane about the phrase—so quintessentially Dowd, with its rhymey, fashion-runway language. Her point, if she had one, was that war is unpleasant and the Northern Alliance is mean. P.S.: President George W. Bush was becoming “chummy” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“When Mr. Bush called Mr. Putin to invite him to the ranch,” Dowd wrote, fluttering toward her conclusion, “the Russian president said he was looking forward to riding horses with the American president. Mr. Bush had to explain that he doesn’t ride. He prefers to saddle up his jeep or his golf cart, Gator, around the ranch.”And this meant . . . what? Nothing, but in a Maureen Dowd column, meaning has become unnecessary. It was just another schoolgirl spitball lobbed at Bush: Screw you and the horse you didn’t ride in on.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed Dowd’s precious column that day. “Little Miss Dowd says ‘Ick,’ ” Lucianne Goldberg noted on her Web site, summing up not only Dowd’s inane tone of that moment but pretty much everything the New York Times’s star columnist has written after September 11. That things are changing at a dizzying pace seems to have thrown her for a loop. You could stuff all Dowd’s anti-whack-Iraq columns into a hat and pull one out at random; odds are “Little Miss Dowd Says ‘Ick’ ” would be the theme in a nutshell.
Let’s consider some of her latest work. This past November she was invited by the Saudi government to what might be called the Useful Idiot tour of Saudi Arabia, land of colorful characters. Did you know that citizens of Riyadh dislike Americans and don’t want to be told what to do by President Bush and that women there can’t drive? Yes? Well, now Maureen does too. She also now knows that Saudi police don’t want any women to show their ankles—“I thought I’d catch a break because I’m an American Catholic, not a Muslim.” You have to wonder about the provincialism of someone who has to travel halfway round the world to discover that.
By December, Dowd was safely back in her microworld of DC shoptalk and fashion observations, which was a relief, because her biggest weakness is foreign policy and reading her pie-eyed observations of life in Saudi Arabia, so disappointingly different from I Dream of Jeannie, was like watching a car wreck. Still, there was nothing that was not stale. A Christmas column about the growing popularity of plastic surgery (who’d have thunk it?) noted the impassiveness of Dick Cheney’s mug and concluded with this moral: “In the White House, as in so many other American homes this holiday, appearance counts.”A December column about Bill Frist included the usual lame wordplay—“So why did they give this 50-year-old surgeon . . . room to operate?”
And as Glenn Reynolds noted on his Instapundit site, the column included “classic New York Times use of passive voice . . . although Dowd is careful to slip in that Bill Frist has been ’scolded for racial insensitivity,’ she doesn’t bother to say by whom, or for what.”The Maureen Dowd story is at least vaguely familiar to anyone who follows the careers of media stars. Unlike so many of her Ivy League-educated colleagues, she’s a local girl from a working-class Irish Catholic family, the youngest of five children of a DC cop.Dowd majored in English at Catholic University, and her first job was at the pool-and-tennis club at the Washington Hilton. She got her start in journalism taking dictation and phone messages at the old Washington Star. She didn’t do either of these tasks very well, according to her own recollection, but editor Jim Bellows—legendarily sharp at spotting nascent writing talent—promoted her to reporter.
When the Star folded, Dowd worked at Time for a while, then landed at the New York Times, moving from the Metro desk back to Washington in 1986. Ever since, she’s been something of a golden girl.There’s a famous story from the early ’90s illustrating her status at the Times. At a staff meeting, then-executive editor Max Frankel angered Dowd by remarking that her perhaps overly flattering front-page story about Kitty Kelley’s Nancy Reagan biography was beneath the paper’s standards. Dowd walked out—some say she also threatened to quit—and soon received flowers and an apology.
Dowd is famously private for a journalist. I couldn’t find any story about her that she cooperated with after 1995. “Ms. Dowd does not speak to the press,” her assistant told New York magazine media columnist Michael Wolff in 1999. Dowd’s inner circle over the years has included Times executive editor Howell Raines, Leon Wieseltier of the New Republic, Times reporter Alessandra Stanley, The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin, actor Michael Douglas (in his pre-Catherine Zeta-Jones days, at least), and pundit Michael Kinsley. Esquire featured her as one of its “Women We Love” in the early ’90s. But to many outside her coterie, Dowd has become the Woman You Love to Hate.
Critics have called her style catty, or at least kittenish. But this doesn’t really seem apt anymore. Cats scratch, and Dowd no longer draws blood.An effective criticism of Bush’s foreign policy has to involve more than just chirping “Rummy” and “Boy Emperor” from the sidelines or dreaming up whimsical dialogues. Dowd is now more pixieish than kittenish, which is part of what makes her so annoying. Who wants to deal with Tinkerbell flitting around when you’re trying to read the op-ed pages?Although Dowd is now lambasted on the Internet—where she’s regularly referred to as Moron Dud and Modo the Dodo and Stupid Pan Dowdy—she has never been beyond media criticism, despite being something of a sacred cow in Washington and at the Times.James Poniewozik, now at Time, summed up the anti-Dowd case for Salon in 1999. “Does Maureen Dowd believe in nothing?” he asked rhetorically, just after she’d won the Pulitzer for cute but essentially trivial columns about the Monica Lewinsky scandal. “You could say that Maureen Dowd believes in being an asshole, which is not an insignificant journalistic tenet.”
Perhaps because of her slipperiness, Dowd has served as something of an inkblot: People disliked her according to their own personal concerns and prejudices. After Dowd got her Times column in 1995, Susan Faludi took Dowd to task in the Nation for not being a politically correct liberal and serious feminist like her predecessor Anna Quindlen.Investigative reporter Katherine Boo, now at the Washington Post, took up the case against Dowd in a 1992 piece called “Creeping Dowdism” for the Washington Monthly. “Campaign planes and buses are freighted with Dowd disciples: hyperliterate capital-W Writers with an eye for detail and an ear for the shuffling going on behind the curtain,” Boo warned.
As a result, she added, “the democratic process is reduced to Pirandello, to theater of the absurd.”I remember hearing colleagues at the time carp that Dowd’s coverage of the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton campaigns was overly personal and unfair, but I’ve never bought the notion that traditional dry-as-dust reporting is therefore pristinely unbiased. I admired Dowd’s style when she was a reporter. The Times op-ed page’s loss when she arrived there was also the Washington beat’s loss. Her famous campaign-trail observation that Clinton’s visit to Oxford University was a return to a place “where he didn’t inhale, didn’t get drafted, and didn’t get a degree” still stands as one of the all-time great leads.Her frequent forays into Times pop-culture coverage produced pieces that were often dazzling: Her interview with Kevin Costner remains a definitive portrait of the movie star as clueless egomaniac.
Her observations of the first President Bush’s many malapropisms—like referring to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band as the Nitty Ditty Nitty Gritty Great Bird—certainly added to the culture, providing years of fodder for Saturday Night Live.Complaints about Dowd have moved beyond her flashy reporting style and water-beetle habit of skimming the surface.Her crimes against readers now fall into three main categories—formulaic nuttiness, posturing, and condescension. Sometimes she manages to compress all her essential traits into the first few paragraphs, such as this August 21 “Coup De Crawford” column about Bush and his advisers.“The plotters are meeting down at the Ponderosa today,” Dowd began, efficiently combining her formulaic alliteration and pop-culture habits—in this case, a reference to the old TV western Bonanza (a reminder that Bush is a cowboy).
“They waited to huddle in Crawford until the flower child Colin Powell had gone up to the Hamptons, ensconced with the white-wine-swilling toffs scorned by the president.” Dowd is actually on Powell’s side here, though it takes a minute to figure that out, what with all the sneering, but she can’t resist reminding you of her girl-of-the-people street credentials—as if she’s never been to the Hamptons or swilled white wine herself. The vital Dowdism in this graph, though, is toff—a British expression only an affected American would use—because it gets her reflexive posturing established up front.
“With the diffident general brunching with the Dean & DeLuca set [more faux populism, more sneering], Cheney, Rummy, Condi, and W. [check out the nicknames] can get down to bidness [in case you’ve forgotten, Bush is a cowboy] on the ranch, scheming to smoke Saddam. [Two, four, six, eight—when in doubt, alliterate.]“We used to worry about a military coup against civilian authority. Now we worry about a civilian coup against military authority.” Dowd’s condescension is encapsulated in these “we”s—her insulated world makes her assume that “we” all worry about this.How, I wondered at the time, can the commander-in-chief of the armed forces execute a civilian coup? Josh Chafetz, an American graduate student at Oxford who keeps track of Dowd’s disconnects, explained it the next day on his Web site. “I hate to bring up a pesky thing like the Constitution, especially when dealing with a legal eagle like Dowd, but . . . the military is meant to be under civilian control. The idea of a civilian coup against military authority is completely incoherent in a democratic state.”
Chafetz expanded his Dowd observations in October for a Weekly Standard piece called “The Immutable Laws of Maureen Dowd.” I asked him why he thought Dowd is so infuriating now. “You can’t really argue against her,” he e-mailed back. “You can’t say why she’s wrong because first you’d have to identify a point to her column, and that’s precisely what you can’t do because of the sort of columns that she writes.”But I’d say that it’s her condescension, even more than her superficiality and silliness, that so rankles readers. I don’t know Dowd, and I live in Los Angeles, not Washington, so I only see her when the Times flies her out to the summer TV press tour every July.
She cuts a memorable figure because she attends press conferences in a bizarrely casual getup: tank top over sports bra over sweatpants over running shoes, with hair up in a clip and—this part never varies—sunglasses worn indoors. (Is there something about Washington retinas that makes them peculiarly sensitive to the light in Los Angeles hotel ballrooms? The only other attendee who affects the sunglasses-indoors shtick is the Washington Post’s Lisa de Moraes.)Dowd’s goin’-to-California costume is, at first glance, merely a dated and preposterous notion of how the natives dress around here—as if I assumed the thing to wear to any Washington event were a Reagan-red Adolfo suit. It’s silly, clichéd, and corny. But more than that, it’s a patronizing display on Dowd’s part. Just like her columns.
What the fark this has to do with her being a well-known columnist for The New York Times I don't know. Also, after reading New York magazine piece, I haven't learned anything about Dowd that I didn't know before, other than the fact that she has four siblings. What does she do when she's not sashaying her ass around Washington? Does she have a life outside of work? My apologies if you like her work but I just can't take this chickie seriously.
*************************************************************************************
MEDIA CATFIGHT
Too Cute for Words
Maureen Dowd Can Be Funny When Writing About Movies or Fashion. But She Should Stay Out of Politics.
By CATHERINE SEIPP
I suppose we all have our own time-to-stop-throwing-the-newspaper-across-the-room-and-just-cancel-the-damned-thing moments. For me it was November 14, 2001, when I encountered five little words in Maureen Dowd’s New York Times column about the wrongness of invading Afghanistan. “The world’s in a swirl,” wrote Dowd, “and things are changing at a dizzying pace.”
Yes, things have a way of doing that. But the world’s in a swirl? There was something so quintessentially girlish and inane about the phrase—so quintessentially Dowd, with its rhymey, fashion-runway language. Her point, if she had one, was that war is unpleasant and the Northern Alliance is mean. P.S.: President George W. Bush was becoming “chummy” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“When Mr. Bush called Mr. Putin to invite him to the ranch,” Dowd wrote, fluttering toward her conclusion, “the Russian president said he was looking forward to riding horses with the American president. Mr. Bush had to explain that he doesn’t ride. He prefers to saddle up his jeep or his golf cart, Gator, around the ranch.”And this meant . . . what? Nothing, but in a Maureen Dowd column, meaning has become unnecessary. It was just another schoolgirl spitball lobbed at Bush: Screw you and the horse you didn’t ride in on.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed Dowd’s precious column that day. “Little Miss Dowd says ‘Ick,’ ” Lucianne Goldberg noted on her Web site, summing up not only Dowd’s inane tone of that moment but pretty much everything the New York Times’s star columnist has written after September 11. That things are changing at a dizzying pace seems to have thrown her for a loop. You could stuff all Dowd’s anti-whack-Iraq columns into a hat and pull one out at random; odds are “Little Miss Dowd Says ‘Ick’ ” would be the theme in a nutshell.
Let’s consider some of her latest work. This past November she was invited by the Saudi government to what might be called the Useful Idiot tour of Saudi Arabia, land of colorful characters. Did you know that citizens of Riyadh dislike Americans and don’t want to be told what to do by President Bush and that women there can’t drive? Yes? Well, now Maureen does too. She also now knows that Saudi police don’t want any women to show their ankles—“I thought I’d catch a break because I’m an American Catholic, not a Muslim.” You have to wonder about the provincialism of someone who has to travel halfway round the world to discover that.
By December, Dowd was safely back in her microworld of DC shoptalk and fashion observations, which was a relief, because her biggest weakness is foreign policy and reading her pie-eyed observations of life in Saudi Arabia, so disappointingly different from I Dream of Jeannie, was like watching a car wreck. Still, there was nothing that was not stale. A Christmas column about the growing popularity of plastic surgery (who’d have thunk it?) noted the impassiveness of Dick Cheney’s mug and concluded with this moral: “In the White House, as in so many other American homes this holiday, appearance counts.”A December column about Bill Frist included the usual lame wordplay—“So why did they give this 50-year-old surgeon . . . room to operate?”
And as Glenn Reynolds noted on his Instapundit site, the column included “classic New York Times use of passive voice . . . although Dowd is careful to slip in that Bill Frist has been ’scolded for racial insensitivity,’ she doesn’t bother to say by whom, or for what.”The Maureen Dowd story is at least vaguely familiar to anyone who follows the careers of media stars. Unlike so many of her Ivy League-educated colleagues, she’s a local girl from a working-class Irish Catholic family, the youngest of five children of a DC cop.Dowd majored in English at Catholic University, and her first job was at the pool-and-tennis club at the Washington Hilton. She got her start in journalism taking dictation and phone messages at the old Washington Star. She didn’t do either of these tasks very well, according to her own recollection, but editor Jim Bellows—legendarily sharp at spotting nascent writing talent—promoted her to reporter.
When the Star folded, Dowd worked at Time for a while, then landed at the New York Times, moving from the Metro desk back to Washington in 1986. Ever since, she’s been something of a golden girl.There’s a famous story from the early ’90s illustrating her status at the Times. At a staff meeting, then-executive editor Max Frankel angered Dowd by remarking that her perhaps overly flattering front-page story about Kitty Kelley’s Nancy Reagan biography was beneath the paper’s standards. Dowd walked out—some say she also threatened to quit—and soon received flowers and an apology.
Dowd is famously private for a journalist. I couldn’t find any story about her that she cooperated with after 1995. “Ms. Dowd does not speak to the press,” her assistant told New York magazine media columnist Michael Wolff in 1999. Dowd’s inner circle over the years has included Times executive editor Howell Raines, Leon Wieseltier of the New Republic, Times reporter Alessandra Stanley, The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin, actor Michael Douglas (in his pre-Catherine Zeta-Jones days, at least), and pundit Michael Kinsley. Esquire featured her as one of its “Women We Love” in the early ’90s. But to many outside her coterie, Dowd has become the Woman You Love to Hate.
Critics have called her style catty, or at least kittenish. But this doesn’t really seem apt anymore. Cats scratch, and Dowd no longer draws blood.An effective criticism of Bush’s foreign policy has to involve more than just chirping “Rummy” and “Boy Emperor” from the sidelines or dreaming up whimsical dialogues. Dowd is now more pixieish than kittenish, which is part of what makes her so annoying. Who wants to deal with Tinkerbell flitting around when you’re trying to read the op-ed pages?Although Dowd is now lambasted on the Internet—where she’s regularly referred to as Moron Dud and Modo the Dodo and Stupid Pan Dowdy—she has never been beyond media criticism, despite being something of a sacred cow in Washington and at the Times.James Poniewozik, now at Time, summed up the anti-Dowd case for Salon in 1999. “Does Maureen Dowd believe in nothing?” he asked rhetorically, just after she’d won the Pulitzer for cute but essentially trivial columns about the Monica Lewinsky scandal. “You could say that Maureen Dowd believes in being an asshole, which is not an insignificant journalistic tenet.”
Perhaps because of her slipperiness, Dowd has served as something of an inkblot: People disliked her according to their own personal concerns and prejudices. After Dowd got her Times column in 1995, Susan Faludi took Dowd to task in the Nation for not being a politically correct liberal and serious feminist like her predecessor Anna Quindlen.Investigative reporter Katherine Boo, now at the Washington Post, took up the case against Dowd in a 1992 piece called “Creeping Dowdism” for the Washington Monthly. “Campaign planes and buses are freighted with Dowd disciples: hyperliterate capital-W Writers with an eye for detail and an ear for the shuffling going on behind the curtain,” Boo warned.
As a result, she added, “the democratic process is reduced to Pirandello, to theater of the absurd.”I remember hearing colleagues at the time carp that Dowd’s coverage of the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton campaigns was overly personal and unfair, but I’ve never bought the notion that traditional dry-as-dust reporting is therefore pristinely unbiased. I admired Dowd’s style when she was a reporter. The Times op-ed page’s loss when she arrived there was also the Washington beat’s loss. Her famous campaign-trail observation that Clinton’s visit to Oxford University was a return to a place “where he didn’t inhale, didn’t get drafted, and didn’t get a degree” still stands as one of the all-time great leads.Her frequent forays into Times pop-culture coverage produced pieces that were often dazzling: Her interview with Kevin Costner remains a definitive portrait of the movie star as clueless egomaniac.
Her observations of the first President Bush’s many malapropisms—like referring to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band as the Nitty Ditty Nitty Gritty Great Bird—certainly added to the culture, providing years of fodder for Saturday Night Live.Complaints about Dowd have moved beyond her flashy reporting style and water-beetle habit of skimming the surface.Her crimes against readers now fall into three main categories—formulaic nuttiness, posturing, and condescension. Sometimes she manages to compress all her essential traits into the first few paragraphs, such as this August 21 “Coup De Crawford” column about Bush and his advisers.“The plotters are meeting down at the Ponderosa today,” Dowd began, efficiently combining her formulaic alliteration and pop-culture habits—in this case, a reference to the old TV western Bonanza (a reminder that Bush is a cowboy).
“They waited to huddle in Crawford until the flower child Colin Powell had gone up to the Hamptons, ensconced with the white-wine-swilling toffs scorned by the president.” Dowd is actually on Powell’s side here, though it takes a minute to figure that out, what with all the sneering, but she can’t resist reminding you of her girl-of-the-people street credentials—as if she’s never been to the Hamptons or swilled white wine herself. The vital Dowdism in this graph, though, is toff—a British expression only an affected American would use—because it gets her reflexive posturing established up front.
“With the diffident general brunching with the Dean & DeLuca set [more faux populism, more sneering], Cheney, Rummy, Condi, and W. [check out the nicknames] can get down to bidness [in case you’ve forgotten, Bush is a cowboy] on the ranch, scheming to smoke Saddam. [Two, four, six, eight—when in doubt, alliterate.]“We used to worry about a military coup against civilian authority. Now we worry about a civilian coup against military authority.” Dowd’s condescension is encapsulated in these “we”s—her insulated world makes her assume that “we” all worry about this.How, I wondered at the time, can the commander-in-chief of the armed forces execute a civilian coup? Josh Chafetz, an American graduate student at Oxford who keeps track of Dowd’s disconnects, explained it the next day on his Web site. “I hate to bring up a pesky thing like the Constitution, especially when dealing with a legal eagle like Dowd, but . . . the military is meant to be under civilian control. The idea of a civilian coup against military authority is completely incoherent in a democratic state.”
Chafetz expanded his Dowd observations in October for a Weekly Standard piece called “The Immutable Laws of Maureen Dowd.” I asked him why he thought Dowd is so infuriating now. “You can’t really argue against her,” he e-mailed back. “You can’t say why she’s wrong because first you’d have to identify a point to her column, and that’s precisely what you can’t do because of the sort of columns that she writes.”But I’d say that it’s her condescension, even more than her superficiality and silliness, that so rankles readers. I don’t know Dowd, and I live in Los Angeles, not Washington, so I only see her when the Times flies her out to the summer TV press tour every July.
She cuts a memorable figure because she attends press conferences in a bizarrely casual getup: tank top over sports bra over sweatpants over running shoes, with hair up in a clip and—this part never varies—sunglasses worn indoors. (Is there something about Washington retinas that makes them peculiarly sensitive to the light in Los Angeles hotel ballrooms? The only other attendee who affects the sunglasses-indoors shtick is the Washington Post’s Lisa de Moraes.)Dowd’s goin’-to-California costume is, at first glance, merely a dated and preposterous notion of how the natives dress around here—as if I assumed the thing to wear to any Washington event were a Reagan-red Adolfo suit. It’s silly, clichéd, and corny. But more than that, it’s a patronizing display on Dowd’s part. Just like her columns.
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