The New (and Better) Bail-Out Plan According to a Tax-Payer

Instead of giving billions of dollars to bankers, to Wall Street, to Freddie and Fannie, to auto makers, to investment firms who invested unwisely, to all those big businesses with their hands out and their greed still apparent, and doing it all in the name of "saving the economy" with little or no regard to the millions of Americans who make up that economy - instead of that - why not allocate the same billions to us, the people, the ones who are going to foot the bill in the end regardless of who the direct recepient is, the ones who are out of work, who are drowning under mortgages which are eating 50% of their paychecks each month and let them, let us, pay off our mortgages and our outstanding credit cards and our bank loans and our auto loans?

The money would flow from us right back into the business institutions who are begging for government assistance dollars, thus easing their self-made crunch as well as our own. The dollars would circulate - but widely instead of narrowly - and I sincerely doubt that a nation composed of individuals who are mostly (or totally) out of personal debt would object to eventually paying higher taxes to repay the government bail-out loan which came to THEM instead of bypassing them and going directly to the very people who either acted irrationally and irresponsibly with their money and/or outright misrepresented themselves, lied to their customers and ripped them off in the first place.

I've been listening to CNN all morning and I've yet to see how the common man is going to benefit, other than very very indirectly, and, more likely, not at all, from a plan which will surely, certainly, without a doubt, cost them several billions of additional tax dollars in the end.

If we are going to have to bear the cost of a government bail out (and it becomes more and more apparent that we are) shouldn't we, at the very least, be the ones being bailed?

Jinx - No Mo' Foo'Ball Weekends Fer Us

Friday morning we left early and spent the night at Dan's mom's house. It was interesting. Virtually no one was speaking to one another by the time we left on Saturday morning.

After leaving his mom's, we drove about 8 1/2 hours to Ma. - 4 hours of which were spent trying to cross the G.Washington Bridge in New York. It's the first time I've seen New York - I don't wish to repeat the vision. Then we got slightly lost once we got to Mass. No biggie. We did find the hotel and it was nice. The hot tub rocked.

I have a hard time understanding that people drive through New York more than once in a lifetime and that they actually enjoy it.

Sunday morning we left for a 1PM kick-off time before 9AM. Everyone told us it would take that long due to traffic. Everyone lied. We were at the stadium by 10. We walked and walked and walked from the parking lot to the stadium. (Have I ever mentioned that I HATE walking? Or that I don't do it very well due to an old back injury and resulting surgery? Consider yourself told. I don't walk very well.) We had to go thru tunnels and over bridges and, well, you get the idea, I didn't like it. Fortunately there's a mall next to the stadium so we killed some time sitting on benchs in front of stores. They let people into the stadium at 11 so we were some of the first people in their seats - which was cool - until it wasn't. The temperature was in the 80's and it quickly got HOT. So we'd sit awhile, wander back inside awhile, sit awhile until the game started. Spent a small fortune on beers, food, bottled water and a pick Patriot's hat for me while waiting and wandering.

And then they lost. Not just lost, mind you, but LOST.

And so it went for three full quarters....and so did we. And so did everyone else. And we walked and walked and walked back to the parking lot. Which was farther away then it was in the beginning because we came out the wrong doors. It took hours to get out of the parking lot.

I have a hard time understanding that people do this more than once in a lifetime and that they actually enjoy it.

We left Ma. this morning at 9 and made a small detour to a casino in Delaware. I won a few bucks - almost enough to pay for the tire I'm going to have to buy tomorrow seeing as how we blew the left rear one right down to the rim somewhere on I95 in Baltimore.

But we're home - finally. The cats vomited all over the stairway in our absence. To say nothing of the other nasty thing they did in front of the fireplace. (Which they always do is we're gone longer than they think is appropriate...and apparently this time we were gone a whole lot longer then they thought appropriate.)

I have a hard time understanding that people do this more than once in a lifetime and that they actually enjoy it.

No Politics, No Economy, No Palin - It's FOOTBALL WEEKEND

We're out the door in a bit - off for a 4 day weekend (Oh Blessed of All Events) in New England. We have tickets to the Patriots/Miami game on Sunday afternoon. We'll drive drive drive to New Jersey, spend the night with Dan's mom and then drive drive drive to Foxborough where we've reserved a room with a hot tub and we'll giggle and soak and watch television and order room service until Sunday afternoon when we trek off to the game.

Nothing to do but have fun.

Hillary Backer Backs McCain - You Got My Back, I Got Yours

Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter and member of the Democratic National Committee’s Platform Committee, will endorse John McCain for president on Wednesday, her spokesman tells CNN.

and if you wonder why - perhaps this will help explain it:

Forester is the CEO of EL Rothschild, a holding company with businesses around the world. She is married to international banker Sir Evelyn de Rothschild. Forester is a member of the DNC’s Democrats Abroad chapter and splits her time living in London and New York.

AlaskaReal - A Native's Eye View of Palin and Politics in Alaska

AlaskaReal

This is one of the most comprehensive Alaska related blogs I've had the fortune to come across.

Anyone with the least bit of interest in Alaskan politics really needs to give it way more than a few second read.

More on the Flooding in Munster, In.

Hammond Clinic/MunsterMed Inn



Taco Bell on Calumet

Flooding In Munster, In.

Ike hit home yesterday.

My 85 year old mother is a patient undergoing short term physical therapy following a serious illness in a nursing home in Munster, Indiana. Her twin sister is a long term totally bedridden patient in the same facility.

Yesterday afternoon, following a record rainfall, a levy on The Little Calumet, the river which once ran immediately behind my backyard, broke. The resulting flood closed streets, cut power, and flooded hundreds of home, forcing the evacuation of over 400 families - and the nursing home.

It took nearly 10 frantic hours to locate my mother and aunt who were moved by a private ambulance company and The National Guard in specially built ambulances to several medical facilies in areas unaffected by the flood waters.

They are both safe and sound - but rattled. My aunt has not left her bed in over 5 years but she seems to have taken the move pragmatically. My mother is not coping so well. She is worried about her house which is also close to the banks of the Little Cal in Lansing, Il. No one's been able to get through the streets to check on it's condition and we are unable to contact any neighbors.

My sister, who also lives in nearby Lansing, Il. is under a mandatory evacuation order but so far is choosing to stay. She lost her entire first level to a malfunctioning sump pump just 6 weeks ago. She was, however, unable to leave once she decided to stay due to street closings. My oldest son was stuck in So. Carolina following a long weekend trip waiting to catch a flight home. My youngest son and his girlfriend, who also live in the Munster area, are stiill unaccounted for. His cell phone is not working and she has not returned my calls as of yet. Their area was not hit so hard and they live on the second floor of a large apartment building, so I am presuming they are ok....otherwise I shall go crazy.

My heart goes out to all who have suffered at the hands of such disasterous weather lately. To Texas, and Louisiana, Indiana, Illinois, Idaho, The Carolinas, Florida and every other place which has been affected, prayers and thoughts are with you.

A big "thank you" to The Indiana National Guard and The Munster Volunteer Fire Department as well as to the amazing staff at The Munster Med Inn who braved the waters and left their own flooded homes and families to tend to their patients. Several of the staff at Med Inn traveled with their patients to their temporary homes in order to keep their fears at bay by offering a familiar face and a friendly hand.

These are people who are underpaid and overworked. People who give of themselves and their time, putting their own needs and fears aside in order to aid those with bigger needs and bigger fears. These are the heroes. These are Americans.



The National Guard Evacuates The Munster Med Inn


update: The two unaccounted for children have called and been counted. Both are ok...one is at work and one is enroute to work but with the distinct possibility that he will not be able to make it.

McCain Throws Hissy-Fit - "My Way or the Lie-Way"

Ok...now we have it. John McCain, when confronted on The View by woman in lipstick about his current spate of lies and half-truths, blamed Barak Obama's refusal to hold joint "Town Hall Meetings" as being responsible for the current tenor of McCain's campaign.

McCain later was pressed on the increasingly derisive tone of the campaign and his new television commercial that carries the widely discredited claim Obama supported comprehensive sex education for kindergartners as an Illinois state senator.

McCain defended the ad's claims as well as those of a Web ad that said Obama's "lipstick on a pig" comments were directed at Palin. He added that the tone of the campaign might have been more amicable if Obama had agreed to his proposals for a series of town-hall meetings.

"If we had done what I asked Sen. Obama to do, I don't think you'd see the same tenor of this campaign," he said. "Why don't you ask Obama the next time he's on this show why won't he be in town meetings with me?"

Hockey Mama For Obama

Signs seen (pro and con) at a recent Anchorage, Alaska rally protesting Sarah Palin's campaign.

Bush In A Skirt
Palin: She Be Failin'
I Love My Alaska Girl
Jesus Was a Community Organizer
We Luv Our Lady Guv
Palin: Thanks But No Thanks
Smearing Alaska's Good Name One Scandal @ a Time
Candidate To Nowhere
Rape Kits Should Be Free
Voted For Her Once: Never Again!
Community Organizers are the Real Patriots
Barbies for War
I Shall Not Be Pandered To
Give Palin Your Vote AND Your Draft Age Child
Sarah Palin: So Far Right She's Wrong
Sarah Palin Is My Hero
Alaska Is Not Frisco
Gun Rights
Coat Hangers for McCain
Sarah Palin, Undoing 150 Years of American Feminism
Hockey Mama for Obama (on a hockey stick)

Who Paid for the Rape Kit if You Were Raped in Wasilla?

Women, if you've ever been raped, if you've ever known anyone who's been raped, if you even fear being raped and you're a Sarah Palin supporter, and even if you're not worried about the possibility of being forced to carry a resulting pregnancy to term, it might behoove you to know that as recently as 8 years ago the Town of Wasilla, Alaska (and ONLY the town of Wasilla, Alaska,) under the mayorship of Sarah Palin, charged the victim for her own rape exam, rape kit and forensic testing.

After numerous complaints, the State of Alaska stepped in and passed legislation requiring that the city pick up the tab. Charlie Fannon, Police Chief of Wasilla, appointed to his position by Palin after her dismissal of the previous police chief, protested the law, saying that it would cost Wasilla $5,000 to $14,000 a year if the city had to foot the bill for rape exams.


Damn good thing Ms. Palin hadn't yet been made governor at the time, isn't it?

Rock Fish and Sea Crabs and Grizzlies, McCain!!

If you've heard Sen. John McCain's stump speech you've surely heard him talk about grizzly bears. The federal government, he declares with horror and astonishment, has spent $3 million to study grizzly bear DNA. "I don't know if it was a paternity issue or criminal," he jokes, "but it was a waste of money."

A McCain campaign commercial also tweaks the bear research: "Three million to study the DNA of bears in Montana. Unbelievable."

Ok, so we know how he feels about wasting 3 million dollars of the taxpayer's money on Montana grizzly bears - I wonder how he feels about 4 million dollar Alaskan sea crabs and 2 million dollar Alaskan rock fish - to say nothing of $8 million to "improve" a former Alaskan Navy airfield which handles 8 scheduled flights a month?

To quote Senator McCain - not about the bears or the crabs or the fish - but about the sheer hypocrisy -


Unbelievable!!

McCain Raising Money for "The Old Washington"

Ya know that maverick, McCain? The one who says he's not part of the old boy's network? The McCain that swears he's different and he's all about "change?" The dude that's not a "party person?"

Well, he's out raising money for The Old Boys all around the nation.

Republican John McCain is asking donors to give far in excess of what they can contribute to him directly, even as he is limited to taking only public funds for the fall campaign.

McCain's fundraising is legal because the money he is asking for does not come straight to him. He is collecting funds for federal and state GOP committees that will aid his White House bid. Donors can give a total of nearly $70,000 to these committees, far in excess of the $2,300 individuals can give directly to a candidate.

The Arizona senator appeared at a $4 million fundraiser Monday night in Chicago where donors gave anywhere from $1,000 to nearly $70,000. Most of the money was split among the RNC and state parties in the battleground states of Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to Bill Strong, who helped organize the event.

Contributors who gave at least $25,000 attended a private dinner with McCain.

Strong said enthusiasm among donors was high, partly because of vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. "We got unsolicited telephone calls from female executives in the Chicago area offering to contribute money," he said. "Fundraising has accelerated since the convention."

Bounds said McCain would do more fundraising for the joint committees; he couldn't say how much.

Jan Baran, a top GOP ethics lawyer, said the joint fundraising is not unusual. But he noted "there's an irony there that Sen. McCain is swearing off private money for his own campaign … but actively raising money for party organizations."

Change? No.

Irony? Yes.

"Lipstick on a Pig" McCain Said It First

In 2007, John McCain criticized Democratic contenders for offering what he called costly universal health care proposals that require too much government regulation. While he said he had not studied Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's health-care plan, he said it was "eerily reminiscent" of the failed plan she offered as first lady in the early 1990s.

I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," he said of her proposal.

He's not even the first, other politicians have also used the phrase in recent years, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Rep. John Mica of Florida and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, among others.

Torie Clarke, a former McCain adviser, even wrote a book called, "Lipstick on a Pig: Winning In the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game."

And so - I'm unsure why McCain's camp is demanding an apology from Senator Obama.

Unless, of course, he gave one to Hillary back in 2007.

Words to Ponder

Jesus Christ was a community organizer.
Pontius Pilate was a governor.

Okey, Women, We Can Take This One!!!

The figures are in and, quite frankly, it figures - Men are swayed by figures.

62% of men surveyed by CNN have a favorable opinon of Sarah Palin while only 53% of women feel the same way. Fifty-seven percent of male respondents said Palin was qualified, 14 points higher than women. A majority of women polled, 55 percent, said Palin is not qualified.

Overall, 50 percent of all respondents think Palin is qualified to serve as president, compared with 70 percent who see the Democratic nominee for vice president, Sen. Joe Biden, as qualified.


I don't understand it, but there it is.

Men are also more likely to think Sarah Palin is being treated unfairly.

So, I never thought I utter these words, but here they are:

Sisters, Unite!!!

We really CAN do it. We really CAN get the best person elected. We've got the numbers and we've got the voices and we've got the, dare I say it, EXPERIENCE.

Women know women. There's a reason that women are less trustful of a woman who self-professes to be a hockey-mom/barracuda/pit bull with lipstick.

We are smart enough and experienced enough to question the judgement of a woman 36 weeks pregnant with leaking water who decides it's safe to travel 10+ hours on a plane and in an automobile. We are smart enough and experienced enough to know that women place their unborn children above everything - and if the unborn child is placed lower than self - there's a problem with priorities.

Regardless of it's "fairness" it's a fact. Being able to prioritize is an important aspect of both motherhood and presidency. If you can't do it in one you probably aren't going to be too good at doing it in another.

We are intelligent enough to know that there's a line which needs to be drawn between your personal life and your public life. We are intelligent enough to question how well a person can draw that line when she fires a man for not firing her brother-in-law. We are wise enough to know that we are not the only ones who feel that way - we are level headed enough to know that there is an active investigation going on into the matter. Those of us who've been around also know that, as a rule, where there's smoke there's fire.

We instinctively recognize bullshit and it's not far removed from mooseshit. We understand that Sarah Palin supported the Bridge to Nowhere long enough to get herself elected and to collect a big fat check for her state before she was smart enough to distance herself from it. We are wise enough to know she still spent the money she collected.

We, girlfriends, are smart. All of us - old, young, and in-between - black, white, brown and yellow - rich, poor and middle-class - enducated and uneducated.

We, girlfriends, are smart because we rule!!!

Get out there - read, read, read. Study the facts, seek the truth, trust your instincts. We'll get a woman in office one of these days. Let's make sure it's the right one.

We've waited all these lifetimes. We can wait 4 more years. Chosing the wrong woman would be a disaster. John McCain is basing his whole election on the mistaken belief that women are interchangable Barbie Dolls. John McCain decided that if he put a woman on his ticket that women voters would flock to his side. John McCain chose the wrong woman - tell him so. Tell him he seriously underestimated our intelligence, our ability to judge, our morality and our power.

Vote Obama.

Just a Recap

Take the time, follow the link to the New York Times.

Read it and weep.

Community Organizers - So Which Is It ?

I'm confused.

Are community organizer's some of the "best and smartest" Anerica has to offer or are they inexperienced and without responsibility?

Senator McCain appears to be flip-flopping around like a wounded moose again.

The most recent about-face took place in a Face the Nation interview when John McCain vowed that he will appoint Democrats to his cabinet if elected.

"It's going to be the best people in America, the smartest people in America," McCain said. "So many of these problems we face -- for example, energy independence -- what's partisan about that?"

He said he'll also ask some members of his Cabinet "to work for a dollar a year. They've made enough money. But I'll also ask people who have struggled out there in the trenches to help people, to volunteer in their communities, who understand these problems at that level, which obviously is lost on a lot of -- a lot -- a big segment of Washington."

Who was that lost on again, Mr. McCain? Your Washington or the other guy's Washington? Or was it your Washington last week and someone else's this week?

I am also impressed with the symbolic dollar a year salary for Cabinet members who've "made enough money." THe reason I am especially impressed is because this is coming from a man whose wife is a multi-millionaire, whose own Senate salary and book royalities in 2007 were $258,800, and who is "unsure of how many houses he owns, (the answer is 8) and still collects a cool $58,000 yearly in untaxed income (from the very government he wants to change) as disability pension.

Any plans to return the presidential salary should you get it? Or at least give up the disability pension in the hopes that one or two of those 400 homeless Iraq vets who really needs it can be fit into the budget next year?

How much is "made enough," Senator McCain?

Or does that bring us back to the magic 5 million again?

Speaking of Media Bias

Yesterday the McCain campaign announced that Sarah Palin would finally meet the press later this week in a previously offered interview with ABC and Charles Gibson.

Gibson, if you recall, cohosted the much panned and pointedly biased Democratic Debate back in April.

In the first 40 minutes of Wednesday's two-hour Democratic debate, the moderators asked Obama about his remarks that small-town residents bitterly cling to guns and religion; the inflammatory sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright (Stephanopoulos followup: "Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?"); why Obama doesn't wear an American flag pin; and his relationship with William Ayers, a former Weather Underground radical who has acknowledged involvement in several bombings in the 1970s.

In the only comparably aggressive question directed at Clinton, Stephanopoulos cited an ABC/Washington Post poll challenging her honesty and tied it to her false tale of having once come under sniper fire in Bosnia.

"Senator Obama is the front-runner," said Stephanopoulos, the network's chief Washington correspondent and a former Clinton White House aide. "Our thinking was, electability was the number one issue," and questions about "relationships and character go to the heart of it."

It'll be interesting to see if "relationships and character go to the heart of it" in the Palin interview, won't it?

Pro-Choice Women Have Babies, Too

All the talk about Bristol Palin's pregnancy and Sarah Palin's decision to give birth to a Down's Syndrome child got me thinking -

It really is none of our business.

What is our business, however, is the fact that while mentioning the subject has been declared off-limits, Sarah Palin is still being held up as some sort of absolute saint for having made the choices she's made. Those voters who are strongly in Sarah Palin's camp seem to feel that only those who agree 100% with their and their candidate's strong position on abortion would ever dare have the courage to have reacted in the same manner.

In other words, they are as cynical as we.

No one seems willing to entertain the thought that even without overturning Roe Vs Wade, that even without strong family support, that even without strong Christian beliefs that a (dare I say it) Pro-Choice woman might have, if left to her own devices, chosen the same path as Sarah and Bristol have chosen.

Pro-Choice does not necessarily mean Pro-Abortion. It means exactly what it says - CHOICE. It means, in effect, I can do what I choose and you, you can do what you choose. It means there are people who understand circumstances, who understand agony, who understand the possibility of being backed into a corner and it means, most of all, they will not judge you, they will only judge themselves. It means they understand that the world is not black and white - that it is various shades of gray and it means they are uncomfortable imposing their morality upon others.

I know this because I was Sarah Palin's daughter once upon a time. I, too, faced a teenaged pregnancy. A friend of mine, she was Sarah Palin once upon a time. She, too, gave birth to a special needs child. We both knew what was going on, we both knew what our options were, we both, without a moment's hesitation, chose to give birth. We've both lived with our decisions for a very long time and we're both 100% convinced that we did the right thing - for ourselves and for our children. We do not, however, feel that because it was right for us that it is right for everyone. No one should have that right. No one should have that power.

What they should have is the education necessary to make an informed decision. What they should have is the support of their family and their community and their government to help them carry out that decision - regardless of what it may be.

And that, that's what Sarah Palin in denyied them when she voted for abstinance-only sexual education programs in her school system. That's what she denies them when she states that she favors abortion only in the event that the mother's life is endangered by giving birth. That's what she denied them when she reduced funding for special needs children in her school system. And these are some of the things she would like to change for the rest of us - she's just not being as vocal about it yet.

Sarah Palin does not give women credit for being capable of carrying out the most important of decisions on their own. She will, if given the chance, do her darnest to remove the decision making process at all, to narrow their option to one, to back them into that corner, to remove their education and to place their life and their future and the lives and futures of their children in the hands of the state. Either that, or she will force them back into the same dirty, infection-ridden, humiliating back alley that Roe V Wade took them out of.

I don't care where you go - I don't care what path you take or what choice you make -I will make the same assumption about you that I wish people to make about me - that you are an intelligent woman who knows her own life and her own capabilites far better than anyone who is not you can ever know. I will support you as a fellow human being regardless of your decision because I remember, with gratitude, a time when someone supported me in mine - but I have neither the ego nor the desire to force you into anything or to strip you of every option but one.

Pro-Choice supporters are not simply in favor of abortion, regardless of what Sarah and her ilk would have us believe. They are in favor of options - and education. They, unlike many of the Pro-Life supporters, are willing to trust women to do the right things for themselves and by themselves, without state-supported mandates, without government-imposed morality and, most of all, without fear.

And that means having your child as well as aborting your child.

Well. Gag Me

with a presidential spoon.

You'd think a woman who could face down a 1,400 pound moose wouldn't be so reluctant to face a reporter or two. Of course the

can't ask her questions about abortion rights or foreign policy or book banning - and you can't shoot a reporter and then drape his hide


across your office couch, but still - aren't we, as a nation, entitled to hear her speak sans speechwriter?

Wasilla City Hall

This is where Sarah Palin got her experience:

That Bird Don't Fly on eBay

One of the mainstay stories which supposedly shows us just how decisive and how frugal Sarah Palin can be is the one touted at the recent convention - you know the one - the "I put the plane on eBay" story. The one retold by John Mccain while on the road in Cedarburg, Wisconsin today when he said, "You know what I enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was purchased by her predecessor and sold it on eBay — and made a profit."

Great story - until you find out that the plane didn't sell on eBay, it was given to a private broker who sold it at a $600,000 loss....and the dude who bought it is now seeking another $50,000 from the state for unexpected maintenance issues.

Flip Flop Karl Rove

John McCain and Heath Care - Giving Us All The Lie

The whole speech is too much to address - and people other than myself will do a much better job of dissecting it.

I'll speak only of the small part I understand in both my heart and my head to be a bold faced lie.

Somewhere in the middle of his acceptance speech John McCain said this:

My health care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance. His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government-run health care system where a bureaucrat... where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.


1) John McCain's so-called "Health Care Plan" is not a plan it is a ramble which does everything but address the issue, filled with wishes and wants and words of no consequence which then trails off into a stance on autism and no other specific disease. Speaking as someone who's spent over 15 years working in the medical field, as someone who, over the years, has been insured, under-insured and totally uninsured, and as the parent of two children with special health needs, even the ramble stinks.

2) I am, currently, a medical secretary. I work with health insurance companies and policy holders all day long - 8 hour a day, 6 days a week. I know the good ones, I know the bad ones, I know what works and what doesn't and why.

3) Nowhere do I recall Obama's plan including a "government run health care system" but

4) Even if it did it would not be the worst thing to happen to health care. The government-run plans such as Medicare and many of the state run programs, such as Medicaid, are NOT filled with bureaucrats - nor does anyone or anything stand between you and your doctor. Medicare allows it's members to seek treatment or advice from any doctor of their choice. They do not interfer, they seldom question and they always pay a fair amount and they always pay quickly and on time. Medicare is NOT an HMO where care is dictated by the insurance company, Medicare is a PPO which allows patients to seek treatment from any primary care physician or specialist who is a member of the Medicare network - and because Medicare is such a huge provider virtually ALL physicians participate in the network.

5) In summary, a PPO type program such as the government-run Medicare is one of the best health insurance policies a person can have. With a PPO a policy holder can seek and receive treatment from any approved primary care physician or specialist without first seeking approval from either the health insurance carrier or anyone else. Because doctors tend to actually get paid by PPO's without too much hassle, most doctors are enrolled in the plans and are known as "preferred providers" which means the insurance company will cover at 100% the approved charges and the patient will pay either nothing at all or a pre-agreed co-pay and nothing else. An HMO is second best. In an HMO the policy holder can seek treatment from a plan-approved primary care physicians and they can see a specialist only if referred to the specialist by the primary care doctor. Not all physicians belong to all HMO plans, they tend to pay less and they almost always require much more paperwork on the part of the physician's office. They tend to deny charges, which PPOs do not often do, and they don't always pay even the approved charges in a timely fashion.

6) Be that as it may, ANY insurance is better than NO insurance, which is what many Americans have now and what they will continue to have if John McCain and Sarah Palin are elected.

Maybe It's Sneaky Sarah?

An ethics complaint against Sarah Palin was filed by The Alaska Public Safety Employees Association on Wednesday, September 03, 2008 charging that either Sarah Palin or aides to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin improperly obtained her former brother-in-law's state police personnel files and cited information from those records to raise complaints about the officer.

Sarah Snide and Shrill or Sarah Saintly and Sincere?

The Republicans and The Democrats don't agree. FOXNEWS and ABC don't agree. The Independent's can't make up their minds. The reporters and the pundits on CNN don't agree. Hell, even my own children and I are getting heated over it. Text messages are flying fast and furious. My husband's gonna kill me when he gets the cell phone bill.

Newsweek has a headline story called "She's Just Like Your Neighbor." And maybe she is - if you live in Alaska. The truth is, however, most of us don't. And I don't know about you but my neighbors are Muslims, Greeks, Jews, Africans, Indians, Hispanics and African-Americans. The closest anyone in my building comes to being "just like" Sarah Palin is me. And I'd consider that an insult.

I don't think she's a rising star here in Washington D.C., but I was pretty fearful that she might be knocking 'em dead in the small towns in the Midwest - and then I read the following article in my (small) home town Indiana newspaper this morning.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.

Some examples:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform -- not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded
Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state -- by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right -- change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington -- throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.AP


My faith in small-town America is renewed. They left out a few things - like the proposed book burning when Sarah was Mayor of Wassila and they never touched on Trooper-Gate or the fact that Sarah, who repeatedly avowed to her superiour love of America, routinely courted The Alaska Independence Party of which her husband was a 6 year member or that that particular group wants to secceed from The U.S.. Nor did they mention that her church regularily holds meetings on "How to overcome homosexuality" and "The Jews are being punished by God for their refusal to recognize Jesus as their Saviour." They also neglected to point out that for all his talk about the sanctity of the family and the utter baseless gall of anyone daring to even mention Sarah's children, that Senator McCain once cracked wise about Chelsea Clinton by saying, during a major GOP speech,
"Do you know why Chelsea's so ugly? Because Janet Reno's her father"

I have real hope, though. It's a small paper and maybe there wasn't room for all of it. Especially considering there's so much of it.

They did a fine job of unmasking Sarah and John and the entire party, tho, didn't they? I'm rightfully proud of them.

It would behoove The Republican Party to once and for all quit seriously underestimating the "average" American's intelligence.

Found on FaceBook

I found this on April's facebook page.

I fell in love.

The Bugs Are Back In Town

On Being Confined Indoors

What are you, oh most fearsome bug
that haunts my balcony?
You've terrorized my fearless cats
and scared the pants off me.

The noise produced by your hind legs
fills up the Southern sky.
Perhaps it's just your mating call
but I'm prepared to die.

Your wingspan rivals aer-o-planes -
you drone most dreadfully.
I've seen young field mice carried off
by smaller things than thee.

You've got to be four inches wide
and two more inches high.
I've never seen your kind before -
you'd make St Gratus cry.

Those pinchers that you wave around -
were those supposed to be -
or were they just gratuitous
when Satan set you free?

I've always felt that bugs had rights -
I wouldnt hurt a fly.
But then again I've never had
one stare me in the eye.

I'd catch you in a pickle jar -
I'd risk the devil's wrath
would "suicide by insect bite"
not be my epitaph.

A poem FOR me!!!

What a way to start a morning!! Eratosphere has a Tribute to Critters thread and Donna, God love her, wrote one for me.

Our Mrs. Heidy-Halberstein
will save your ass or crack your spine.

She’s in your face or got your back,
protecting mice when cats attack.

Her strong positions, fast opined,
strike with force and charm combined.

She fans the flames then stirs the pot.
But that‘s okay, we like it hot!

Thanks, Donna. I needed that!!!

Words on War from Someone Other Than John McCain

We've all heard McCain speak on his war experiences - ad nauseum.

He walks, he talks, he postures and pontificates. He collects a tax-exampt $58,000 a year in disability money even though he's capable of doing all of those things and more because, his staff says, he is "technically disabled."

I'm sick of hearing John McCain talk about his heroism, (he got shot down - losing his 5th and final plane, for those of you who keep count of such things,) he spent half his life in the military ( he spent a grand total of about 20 hours in actual combat,) his grace under pressure, (he cracked after 5 days like a hard boiled egg on the edge of a counter top.)

How about a few words from a real hero?

Meet Ron Kovic - paralyzed from the chest down for the last 40 years from a wound received during his second tour in Viet Nam - listen to what he's got to say:

"I am the living death, the Memorial Day on wheels. I am your Yankee Doodle Dandy, your John Wayne come home, your Fourth of July firecracker exploding in the grave."

"We who have witnessed the obscenity of war and experienced its horror and terrible consequences have an obligation to rise above our pain and suffering and turn the tragedy of our lives into a triumph."

Now that's a man worthy of the title "veteran." People like John McCain dishonor him and every other veteran of Viet Nam or any other war every time they open their mouth and vomit forth pap and propaganda.

McCain-Rich vs Obama-Rich

The candidates were recently asked what would be a "rich income" and Obama said $250,000 a year and McCain said five million dollars a year.

I think what the candidates have forgotten is that "rich" isn't always defined by a monetary scale.

In the early 70's I was a very young and very single mother - my son and I had a small, low income apartment in a not-so-good neighborhood. I had a 12 year old car with bad brakes and a faulty exhaust which a dear aunt had given to me. I slept on a mattress on the floor, not because mattresses on the floor were in vogue, but on a $3.00 an hour waitressing salary the cost of a real bed was impossible to justify. My son slept in a crib which was 25 years old. I rarely ate the day or two before payday - the money I made just didn't cover living expenses and food enough for both of us.

But, looking back, if someone asked me when I felt the richest and the most secure, I'd have to say that was the time. I was rich because I had a job I liked, I had a car that ran, I had a roof over my head and I had the best baby in the world. I had friends and I had family, I had my health and, most of all, I had hope for the future and boundless optimism.

People who are afraid of the future, people who are pessimistic, people who are suspicious, those people never have enough. Whether they make $30,000 a year or $250,000 a year or 5 million dollars a year - it is not going to be enough.

I don't necessarily think that money is the sole concern of the working class. It is to the extent that they sometimes think it's the answer to all their problems - and then they get more and they find that it's only the answer to some of their problems. More money might buy them a better house, but it won't make that house a happy one or a safe one.

I'll go out on a limb here and say that the very rich worry far more about money than the very poor do. When you're worried about survival everything else pales and disappears in comparision.

As for those in-between here are some of the things having more money won't do; Having money won't make you stop fearing that your son might end up fighting in a war no one believes in, it won't make the gas crisis go away, it won't make you stop fearing that you're going to someday be the victim of a crime, it won't make you trust the government or the politicians who run the government, it won't make you love your neighbor or make your neighbor love you, it won't make you healthy or intelligent or bright or beautiful.

Having money simply gives you more to lose and heightens your sense of insecurity. Hence, the 5 Million Dollar Candidate being so quick to suggest war. It is a get them before they get me mentality. The more you have, the more paranoid you become that someone is going to try to take it away.

If a politician could find a way to give us back our optimism and our hope, he'd be in like flint. I think Obama's trying - but we've become, as a nation and as individuals, much more jaded and fearful then we were when JFK was able to give us Camelot.

In the recent Saddleback forum one of the questions was "What would you do for the orphans?" I was appalled that neither candidate bothered to even touch on why we had orphans in the first place. Get rid of the wars, get rid of the diseases, get rid of the religious and political persecutions which kill parents around the world and you've gotten rid of the bulk of all orphans in the world today. It is a problem humanity has created. It is a problem humanity can eradicate. The question should not have been, "What can we do to care for the hundreds of thousands of orphans in the world today?" The question should have been, "What can we do to prevent the further orphaning of children today?" You cannot fix a situation if you do not eradicate the continuing cause.

It is far easier (and far less costly) to prevent a problem than it is to cure one. That goes for all problems, wars, energy costs, religious mistrust, racial hatred, health issues, enviornmental concerns - not just orphans. It's all a mess right now but it's not reached critical mass yet. It's a very full pot, granted, but adding to it by fear-mongering, war-mongering, painting visions of future doom, "talking tough" without being able to back it up, lying, story-telling and name-calling is not going to fix it - it is going to make it overflow and catch fire.

Taxes, at this point, are (or should be) immaterial. Nothing is free - everyone should be willing to pay a fair share of what's necessary. That goes for the rich as well as the not-so-rich. Make it proportionate and I don't think the poor man's going to object. Arguing over what constitutes "rich" isn't going to change anything. It's not just about dollars, it's also about sense.

Common sense.

Doesn't anyone have it anymore?

We wouldn't need nearly so many tax dollars if we didn't have so many unnecessary costs in the first place.

A Modern Day Romulus and Remus

A newborn baby abandoned outdoors in winter by her 14-year-old mother was found safe in a dog pen with a mother dog and her brood of puppies near the city of La Plata, Argentine.

Farmer Fabio Anze found the naked baby girl on Thursday, being kept warm among his dog China's puppies. Anze called the police and the baby was taken to a hospital.

Egidio Melia, director of the Melchor Romero hospital, told television and newspaper reporters that the baby was just a few hours old when she was found, and was in good health although she had some bruises.

Nighttime temperatures are chilly but not freezing in the Southern Hemisphere winter in the rural area around La Plata, 40 miles (60 km) south of Buenos Aires.

Police said they had located the 14-year-old girl who gave birth to the baby outdoors during the night.

It was not clear whether the mother left her baby in the dog's pen or whether the dog found the baby outdoors and carried it in to join her puppies.

Insecticide and The Sandwich Generation

What a cruddy week. My mom's been in the hospital, my office has an infestation of gnatty little fruit flies and my boss tried to poison them and ended up poisoning me, instead.

I've been home sick with some sort of allergic reaction to the indiscriminate spraying of large cans of Raid in an enclosed office space where all of the windows and all of the duct work and all of the fresh air vents had been duct-taped shut prior to said spraying. The aforementioned Raid spraying was done in addition to the professional exterminator's spraying which had been done only hours before. This has happened not just once, mind you, but twice on different days. My throat hurts, I'm hoarse and it feels like an elephant has been sitting on my chest. Plus I can't get the smell of insecticide out of my nose and throat. I've been staying home for two reasons, 1) It hurts my throat to talk or swallow and 2) I'm afraid of what's still to come. The building maintenance supervisor (after drilling a hole in a wall and inserting a small scope, not unlike the one which a gastroentologist would use to ram down your throat and look into your stomach with) is talking about jackhammering the tub and cement flooring in order to reach what he describes as "Several feet of standing green water which is trapped beneath your bathroom in which we think the bugs are breeding." Many years ago two of my three children were stricken with Legionnaires Disease. I have not trusted any source of stagnant water, much less "several feet of standing green water" since then. It took forever to diagnosis, they very nearly died and even though they were fortunate enough to survive while many others did not they still suffered lingering effects for years afterwards.

My 85 year old mother has been hospitalized in Indiana for the last 10 days. What started out a half-treated UTI progressed into confusion, dehydration and an inability to ambulate. Considering she's lived alone since my aunt died several years ago, that's a problem. For now she's fully recovered from the UTI but she's still unable to walk or dress without assistance. My sister and I have had her transferred to a short term rehab facility - hoping she can get her strength back and return to her home. I'll most likely be going home in a week or so to help her get back on her feet and to assess the situation. Best case scenerio she'll be able to function with some daily visits from relatives, friends and whatever social agencies I can find. Worst case scenerio, she won't.

It's awful to get old in some cases. To be unable to care for oneself must be the worst of the worst. In my mother's case there's nothing medically wrong. A good bit of arthritis, a small touch of forgetfulness, a whole lot of sadness and anger at the world in general and her family in particular, but nothing threatening or fatal. Her heart is good, her lungs are good, her circulation is good, her overall physical health is excellent. Her mental well-being is another story. She just can't or won't get out of bed and care for herself anymore.

They say you're lucky to have your health when you reach a certain age but I suppose if you feel like you have nothing else it's nowhere near enough.

I have officially joined The Sandwich Generation.

Coincidence? You Decide!

A Blaine man was found dead five hours after his wife returned home from jail for attempting his murder.

Ya gotta love smallish town headlines.

Waiting For The Sun - Flash Prompting

Who Is This Coming?

It's almost six in the morning and it's still dark outside. She's nearly comatose, but not quite. She hears although she seldom speaks, she sees although she does not acknowledge, she thinks but she does not share her thoughts.

Mostly she just ignores the world around her. She's spent a long time, almost 86 years, in this world - she thinks that maybe she's ready to leave it behind. It's not what lies beyond life which frightens her - it's the act of leaving that she's still a bit uncomfortable with.

On the other hand, there's nothing holding her here. Everyone she knew once is gone. She's buried her mother and father, two good-for-nothing husbands, a son, a daughter, one tiny unborn grandchild and an untold number of friends and lesser family. She's outlived every one of them. They were weak, the whole lot of them - not one of them was as strong or as tenacious as she.

The thought makes her smile.

Suddenly she hopes there's an afterlife. God knows this one hasn't been all that good to her. But then again, maybe the next one won't be, either. She's always believed in both God and science and she knows that for every action there is a reaction. If there's a heaven then it follows that there's also a hell.

She quits smiling then and fumbles for the rosary that the nurses let her keep underneath her pillow. A little insurance praying never hurt anyone. Even though it's almost morning and shift change she's still tired and praying always puts her to back sleep.

She hopes that damn hospice woman doesn't show up today. All that talk about relaxing and closing her eyes and going towards the light makes her skin crawl. Oh sure, they mean well, but she wasn't born yesterday, you know. There's no long tunnel, no longed-for family waiting at the end, no golden light beckoning. She's seen enough of life to know that just as there's only darkness when you close your eyes there's also only darkness when you die.

By the third Hail Mary her mind begins to drift. For some reason, even thought she hasn’t thought about him in years, she remembers the man no one wanted her to love; the soldier she'd sneak out of the window to meet when her parents thought she was safely sleeping. She remembers the ring he gave her before he left for Normandy, the one she wore on a silver chain around her neck where her father wouldn't see it. She remembers the plans they had for when he returned. The ones where they were going to run away and be married and live happily ever after - just him and her and damn the differences in faith and family.

She smiles a sleepy girlish smile and suddenly her heart beats faster, her respirations increase. She drops the rosary and tries to sit up but the old familiar pain in her chest suddenly hurts too much - she thinks about ringing the bell for the nurse, she thinks about the soldier who never returned, she thinks about how easy it would be to let the pain consume her. She struggles to reach full consciousness and wonders if it's turned into morning yet.

She forces open her eyes and turns her head to look out the window. Ah, thank God, the sun's coming up, bright and beautiful as always - it's time, the day nurses will be here soon enough. She's made it through another night.

Thank God for the sun; she loves the sun - there's safety in the sun. Bad things only happen in the night, nothing bad ever happens when the sun is shining.

Mindful of the ache in her chest, she slowly raises her head to get a better look as the last few bits of sunrise break over the horizon. But wait - what's this? How strange. Is that a young man in an old fashioned uniform smiling at her, holding out his hand? It almost looks as though he's in the center of the sun, waiting just for her. How can this be? She thinks she might be dreaming. She forgets her pain and fearlessly struggles to a sitting position. What is this speck in the familiar morning brightness? What sort of man could stand in the hot hot heart of the golden orb? Could this be Him, coming out of the sun?

Incredible Video Cat + Crow

More Flash Fiction

There’s a child in the water – the greenish, yellowish, brackenish, and overwhelmingly pine scented water. He’s upside down, both feet in the air, with his broad baby shoulders wedged tight against the ridged sides of the deep metal wash bucket - almost as if he tried to crawl, headfirst, back into the soothing liquid heat of some warm primal birth canal.

But it’s cold. The dirty water’s cold. The baby’s cold. The room’s cold, the house is cold, everything’s cold. I’m cold. And it's all so quiet – except, of course, it isn’t. Everyone else’s slower sirens are still arriving outside and inside there’s a screaming mother and a cursing father and somewhere, in another room, there are children playing and a television set is blaring, incongruously tuned to Sesame Street.

Underneath the drunken father’s loudly offered explanation, the unintelligible high-pitched ramblings of the three small babbling brothers, and the mother’s hysterical and repetitious “Holy Mary, Madre de Dios,” I can hear the familiar voice of Oscar-the-Grouch, stuck right-side-up inside his own silver can, grousing at some unseen intruder.

It's the baby, it's just the baby that's so awfully quiet. It’s unusual for toddlers this size to be so quiet. Truthfully, I’m amazed by how still everything seems to be when, if fact, if I’d just quit thinking about how quiet he is, I’d realize that things are rapidly approaching unbearably noisy.

And so I do – and instantaneously I want everyone around me to shut-up. I want the mother to quit keening and the brothers to quit babbling and the father to sober up and quit yelling and I want someone to go into the other room and shut the goddamn television off and make that stupid whining Oscar just go the hell away. I want the sirens outside to stop sirening, I want my heart to quit pounding so loudly in my ears that I’m almost positive that I’m going to be sick, and, most of all, I want that god forsaken clean-footed baby to pull his big-old swollen infant head out of that carelessly abandoned bucket of last night’s dirty-assed Pine-Sol water and I want him to grin some crooked, wide-mouthed, 6-toothed, 13 month old grin and I want to hear him holler “Peek-a-boo” at all of us so that I don’t have to be the one to walk over there, yank him out and confirm what I goddamned well already know to be true.

Playing With Flash Fiction

I've been experimenting with "Flash."

Dangerously addictive stuff.

Humpty-Dumpty Elizabeth Edwards

I am so disgusted with John Edwards. Not angry, not disappointed, not surprised, not forgiving - just disgusted. And just a touch outraged.

I am disgusted for what he's done, not to the public, but to his family - more specifically, to his wife, Elizabeth. I am sorry she must face her betrayal in public. It's hard enough to face in private.

I was married to a man who cheated. In my particular case we were no longer married when I found out. We'd been separated for months by the time one of his friends let that particular cat out of the bag. We'd split up for various reasons, alcoholism, child abuse, physical and mental cruelty, lots of good reasons, but infidelity was not one of them.

I remember going home after hearing the news - and feeling numb and disbelieving. By then it's not that I didn't think him capable of such an act, it's just that I didn't believe myself capable of not knowing. I was not angry at him - I was angry at myself. I never said, "How could he?" Instead I asked myself over and over again, "How could you not know? How could you have been so trusting, so blind, so stupid?"

It's not just about the act itself. Sex is fairly cheap - and it can be (and often is) meaningless. What it ends up being about is betrayal. The betrayal of trust - the time stole from yourself and your children; the money spent on another woman that could have fed your children; the ordinary conversations he had with her that you were home alone starving for; the dinners eaten alone while you believed he was working overtime; the nights you stayed awake, waiting, until 2 or 3 in the morning, convinced that he'd been in an accident; the numerous nights you spent in some emergency room with a desperately ill child, frantically trying to reach his father and being unable to do so; the thought that everyone knew - except you, of course. And close on that thought, the thought that everyone either pitied you or was laughing at you - and had been for months, maybe even years.

I'm not sure which is worse - the pity or the laughter. No one ever sets out to be the object of pity or the butt of a joke. No one in their right mind wants to be either thing. Maybe it's worse for some of us than others - sometimes your pride is all you have left and when even that's taken away the despair that follows is without comparison. There's nothing left to hold onto. As the spine stiffens, the core cracks.

And in the end, it doesn't matter. You either survive or you don't. Most of us do. I'm sure Elizabeth with survive this - she's a strong woman that's survived much worse - her son's death at 16 and her own diagnosis of incurable breast cancer. The question is, however, why should she have to survive his mistake his failure?? Acts of God are simply that - acts of God. Children die for reasons unknown to man, people get cancer at random - God challenges us and we rise to meet the challenge. Man, however, has no such divine right - rgardless of how infallible or how above the law he may think he is.

Her ability to trust is ruined. There will always be some small part of herself that she'll never be able to give to anyone else ever again. She. like I, like every other individual, male or female, who's ever been betrayed by someone they loved, will go to her grave with the knowledge that love and trust are not synonymous, that they are two different things, and that you can never again think of one in tandem with the other.

No amount of excuse, no amount of I'm sorry will ever put those two things back together again.

Why the Right Words Are Important

Henbane or Fat Hen? Which would you prefer in your salad?

Just Plain Funny

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Sleeping Cats Don't Lie

Soooo....how much does big black kitty hate little black kitty? Maybe not so much after all. At least not so much when nobody's home. I came home unexpectedly quiet this afternoon - and caught them in the act!! Ah-Ha!!

I Love This Kinda Stuff

Retriever adopts tiger-cubs

How'd Ya Like to Make $1,485.55 a second? Be Exxon

Gosh, what a shame - Exxon only made $1,485.55 a second in it's last fiscal quarter. They were expected to do better. Things are tough all over, aren't they?

I'll bet Melissa doesn't feel so bad now that she knows she's not the only one feeling the pinch ....it's always reassuring to know that others are suffering, too.

Arghhh

Good God!! Someone found this blog by googling the words "Free Kitten Corpse."

Not only did they find it - apparently Terminal Chaosity is the second offered pick.

Arghhhhh!!!

Two From the Heart

At Seven

This is when you learned to fear your food:
the summer squash sagged soft, the winter beans.
First came the night, the kitchen table where
you couldn't bear to eat and so were forced
to sleep, small head against congealing plate
'til dawn. Then came the day - with mother on
her knees as if in prayer, her index finger down
her throat - and yours - and you just stood there dumbly,
numbly, holding back her hair. Where's Grandma J.?
Where's dad? Where's God and what the hell? Can't
anybody hear the wretched retching coughs,
the gags that herald time before school time?
She's sick, she's purifying both of you.
You'll feel better afterwards - she promises.

You kissed the sour mouth goodbye, and hoped
the forewarned threat of death did not occur
before noon, before lunch, before you made
it home again - before you'd time to save her.

Triolet Challenge (For Patti)

I Am



Why can't you see? I am the best -
The poet of the century.
God's given me the tools. I'm blessed.
Why can't you see? I am the best.
I'm humble, yet above the rest.
There's no one that comes near to me.
Why can't you see? I am the best -
The poet of the century.

Fun

Shuffle Words

This Is Just So Wrong

I'm terza rima, and I talk and smile. Where others lock their rhymes and thoughts away I let mine out, and chatter all the while. I'm rarely on my own - a wasted day Is any day that's spent without a friend, With nothing much to do or hear or say. I like to be with people, and depend On company for being entertained; Which seems a good solution, in the end. What Poetry Form Are You?

I, Alone

Revision #1
(the flip-flop)

I, Alone

Now I lay me down to sleep
it's one o'clock - the hour of dread
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
when all the kids are tucked in bed
If I should die before I wake
with all their prayers devoutly said
I pray the Lord my soul to take
Though I, alone, fear God is dead.


I, Alone

It's one o'clock - the hour of dread -
and now I lay me down to sleep
when all the kids are tucked in bed
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
with all their prayers devoutly said
If I should die before I wake
and I, alone, fear God is dead.
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Cat Litter as Fashion Accessory

I Have Cats in My Drawers

This Week In Pictures

Ok, let's see - on Monday there was a freak storm around 4PM. It got dark, it got rainy, it got windy. Suddenly there was the sound of a train where no train should be heard - and then the very Midwestern sound of imploading glass. The picture below is my office window.

I really thought I was safe here, yanno? From tornados, anyhow.

















On Tuesday Carla sent Maddie pics....On Wednesday we decided to drive home for her christening next month. We'll drive all day Friday, stay over Saturday and Sunday and then drive all day Monday. It'll be worth it, tho. I can't wait to see her in person - and before she's walking, too.















And today - today was temporary truce day here in Virginia.

He Said It First

Oh My God!!

Not for the faint-of-heart. Or for those who detest the "C" word.

Although, come to think of it, I hate the "C" word with a passion and I found this hysterical.

And telling.

Very very telling.

"If they die, you're doing it wrong"

While I'm waxing political - two more Republican administration tidbits to chew on:

From CNN.COM

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former terrorist suspects detained by the United States were tortured, according to medical examinations detailed in a report released Wednesday by a human rights group.

The Massachusetts-based Physicians for Human Rights reached that conclusion after two-day clinical evaluations of 11 former detainees, who had been held at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan.

The detainees were never charged with crimes.

"We found clear physical and psychological evidence of torture and abuse, often causing lasting suffering," said Dr. Allen Keller, a medical evaluator for the study.

In a 121-page report, the doctors' group said that it uncovered medical evidence of torture, including beatings, electric shock, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, sodomy and scores of other abuses.

The report is prefaced by retired U.S. Major Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the Army's investigation into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in 2003.

and, nicely timed, from MSN.COM:


A senior CIA lawyer advised Pentagon officials about the use of harsh interrogation techniques on detainees at Guantanamo Bay in a meeting in late 2002, defending waterboarding and other methods as permissible despite U.S. and international laws banning torture, according to documents released yesterday by congressional investigators.

Torture "is basically subject to perception," CIA counterterrorism lawyer Jonathan Fredman told a group of military and intelligence officials gathered at the U.S.-run detention camp in Cuba on Oct. 2, 2002, according to minutes of the meeting. "If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong."

(Both articles can, and should, be clicked on and read in their entirety.)

Interestingly enough,
some Pentagon officials acknowledged that the proposed methods faced opposition at the time from experts in military and international law. Among them was Mark Fallon, deputy commander of the Defense Department's Criminal Investigation Task Force. He warned in an October 2002 e-mail to Pentagon colleagues that the techniques under discussion would "shock the conscience of any legal body" that might review how the interrogations were conducted.

"This looks like the kind of stuff Congressional hearings are made of," Fallon wrote. He added: "Someone needs to be considering how history will look back at this."

Consider this - it's 6 years later and, hopefully, we can close this page in history as soon as possible. And look back in shame and sorrow on what was done while vowing to never again allow a president or a party to command so much and give back so little.

Bush + Katrina = Happy Birthday To John McCain

John McCain has recently critized President Bush for his handling of Hurricane Katrina - in fact, he's vowed, "Never again!" Quite commendable.

Until you realize that this picture was taken Monday, August 29, 2005 -



Several hours after Katrina hit New Orleans at 6AM.

Several days after we all knew something really bad was going to happen.

Apparently the emperor didn't fiddle alone while Rome burned.

Letter To Mom

Dear Mom,

About that interloping rat -
the one you're passing off as cat -
She's teeny-tiny-creepy small,
and we don't think she's cat at all.

She's commandeered the catnip mouse -
the bed, the couch - the whole damn house.
What once was ours she treats as hers.
She steals with sycophantic purrs.

She wrecks our litter, eats our food.
We're not amused - she's just plain rude.
She chews our tails. She takes our toys.
How could you, Mom? We were your boys.

How dare you bring this creature home -
this nearly hairless little gnome?
Don't call her " Kitty," she's not that -
she's naught but crawling wingless bat.

Quick, take her back! She's such a fake!
Admit you made a dumb mistake.
We're mighty tigers, hear us roar.
Show that rat-bat-brat the door.

Don't let her scare us any more.


Love,

Your Big Boys,
ADD & OCD

PMS With A Rope

Beauty: In the Eyes of the Beheld

One of these beauties is a friend of mine.

A close enough friend that I've even got a cameo appearance in the film itsef.

If you ever get to see the entire film - and you're looking for me - I'll be the one backstage at the strip club - helping the stripper decide which clothes to take off.

(Ha! You laugh - but it's not as easy as you think. There's a lot of planning before disrobing that most of us never even consider.)

Who knows, if I can't make it in the poetry business perhaps there'll be a film career in my future.