REMEMBER TO VOTE!

"Lower voter participation is a silent threat to our democracy...It under-represents young people, the poor, the disabled, those with little education, minorities and you and me."
-Nancy Neuman

Don't throw away your hard earned right to do so.

1. Why Women Should Vote.

2. American Women Suffrage.

3. Selma to Montgomery (click on "gallery" for photos).

4. Take Stock (click on "Voting Rights more information" for a description of the photos).

Riddle Me This

What is blue and smells like red paint?
(Answer in comments.)

Ce-le-bra-tion!

Celebrate good times, come on!
-Celebration by Kool and the Gang

Seven years ago today I was on a train racing though the Spanish countryside after completing my walk across Spain. Life moves fast.

What I've Learned

Everything is political- life, death, sex, gender, age, race, land, work, food, water, health care, education, religion,..???

Who Are The People In Your Neighborhood?

Steven Colbert of The Colbert Report ( Both t's in the program title are silent) on the October 22, 2008 show.

They're Heeeere!

"When fascism comes to America, it'll be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross."
-Sinclair Lewis (American Author)

Palin Rally In Henderson, NV 10/25/08


A good article addressing this problem here.

TGIF

Sonny and Cher (1960's)


And the beat goes on:
1. Palin denies accepting $150K in designer clothes.

2.Media Probe 'Mutilation' of McCain Worker in Pittsburgh -- Doubts Raised .

3. Obama or McCain: Who Has Made The Biggest Flip-Flops During the Campaign?.

4.Opie Cunningham Backs Obama.

Not A Cough In A Carload

I found this wonderful website put up by the Standford School of Medicine containing hundreds of images of tobacco ads. Check it out.

Happiness is...The Taste Of Kent (1966)


After that go here for a "comprehensive collection of cigarette commercials and other types of tobacco videos." I distinctly remember this Kent ad since the lyrics were rewritten and became a hit for The Ray Conniff Singers around the same time.

Life: What I've Learned

Power does corrupt people:

1. Miss Teen Louisiana arrested

2. Sen. Ted Stevens' corruption trial goes to jury

3. S African court clears way for appeal in Zuma graft case

4. Ex-Chicago Cop Charged With Lying About Torture

5. Alaska funded Palin kids' travel

Look, I Bleed

Do you bleed?
-Katharine Ross as Joanna Eberhart in The Stepford Wives.

Trailer for The Stepford Wives (1975)


Turner Classic Movies showed the original version of The Stepford Wives last week and I just got around to watching it yesterday. It's a little slow but still a very creepy movie. Some of the chilling scenes include ( You may want to stop here if you have not seen the movie yet. Although I found it more nerve racking to watch because I already knew the plot.):

-Joanna's husband taking the family dog for a walk and "accidentally" running into his neighbor and then saying to him (about the neighbor's wife), "She cooks as good as she looks, Ted."

Then they both exchange knowing smiles, which doesn't make sense at the time since Joanna and he have only been in town a few hours at this point.

-The next day Joanna's two girls get onto a school bus filled with perfectly dressed children; boys in jackets and ties, girls in almost party dresses. That is a bit odd but the creepy thing is, all are sitting quietly in their seats with blank looks on their faces.

-Joanna's husband crying and telling Joanna that he does love her even though he knows he is going to have her killed and then replaced with a robot.

-Dale Coba (Great name. I have Paula Abdul's song Cold Hearted playing in my head right now. He's a cold-hearted snake, Look into his eyes, Oh ohhh, He's been tellin' lies), the man who has planned all this and is building the robots, saying to Joanna as she making coffee, " I like to watch women doing little domestic chores."

I bet you do, you sexist s.o.b.

-Joanna's robot double coming to kill her.

But the scene that sent an electrical shock through me was when Joanna, after realizing her best friend Bobbie is now a robot, stabs her to prove it. What is amazing about this scene is that right before Joanna stabs Bobbie she cuts her own finger and, while showing Bobbie the blood, says, "Look, I bleed. Do you bleed?"

Then she plunges the knife into Bobbie abdomen, right where her womb should be, proving that in no way are these robots real women and also showing the reason why all this is happening.

The men are afraid of losing control of their wives but underlying this fear, and taking advantage of it, is Dale Coba's own pathological fear and jealousy of women and their ability to give birth. In Cobra's mind the ability to give birth is the source of women's power. By building his own women he has shown he is just as, or even more powerful, than they are. His answer to Joanna, when she asks why the men are doing this is "Because we can" but what he really means is because "he" can. Once all the women are gone no one will be left to challenge that power.

Little Buddha

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike; each has their suffering. Some suffer too much, others too little.

Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.

(About the Little Buddha- I got the above photo and this e-mail from my sister: I made a Buddha with powdered sugar on the kitchen counter and then did a light powdered sugar around it. It looks like Buddha in the universe!)

TGIF

Watched both CSI and ER last night.

CSI (Ninth season) seems to be running out of steam. The episodes are not as well written as they used to be; I can pick out the murders the instant they walk into the scene. Last night they even used part of the plot from an old episode of Columbo. How lazy can you get?

ER (Fourteenth season) on the other hand was good. Abby was leaving and that gave her the chance to say anything she wanted without fear of any consequences. I forgot how good Maura Tierney is at delivering a snarky line.

R.I.P.

Edie Adams died at age eighty-one yesterday.

Edie On I Love Lucy


She was an underrated singer, actor, comedian, and early television star. As a child she and her husband Ernie Kovacs had one of my most favorite television shows, The Ernie Kovacs Show, and I grew up watching her Murial Cigars commercials. Sad news.

New York Times obit here.

Human Sacrifices

Driving up to the cemetery the other day my husband and I noticed something up in one of the electricity poles near the road. We stopped to look more closely. It looked like some kind of mammal but since we were not close enough to clearly see just what it was we got out the binoculars. My heart sank as I peered through the lenses and recognized the body of a Red Tail Hawk hanging upside down.

It looked as if the weight of the bird's body was being supported by its left leg. It also looked as if that leg had become trapped between the two wires leading from the insulator cap to the thicker electrical line. We suspected that the bird had somehow become tangled in the line and then electrocuted. Since there was nothing we could do at that point we continued on our way.

Yesterday, driving to the cemetery again, we noticed that the bird was no longer on the pole. It looked like the body was now lying on the ground. We again stopped but this time got out of the truck and climbed through the barbed wire fence to see if this was true. It was. The body lay on its back with the left wing spread over it. I reached down and grasped one of the large feathers and lifted the wing up to uncover the rest of the bird. I almost gasped at the sight of him. He was beautiful and looked asleep.

The body feathers were perfect and a sort of creamy white in color. He had been hanging by the left leg and the foot, below where the feathers and muscle started, was missing. There was a burn mark at the end of what remained of the leg. On the right leg, up where the meat is on a fried chicken leg, there was another large burn mark. The bird had definitely been electrocuted to death. My husband and I discussed burying the body but decided to leave it where it lay for the coyotes.

And speaking of coyotes, my husband does a lot of shopping at Cabela's (World's Foremost Outfitters) and also receives their catalog. Being on Cabela's list has also put him on the list of other outfitters and we receive many catalogs. Yesterday we got a catalog from a company called J. L. Powell (The sporting life). Powell sells high end clothing, hats, boots and other manly accessories. It is a very handsome catalog and I enjoyed flipping through it until I got to page eleven and found this, which is, as they say in the copy, "guaranteed to prompt conversation whenever it appears."

I will never buy a damn thing from these people.

Life: What I've Learned

Any recipe that has been described to you as being "interesting" has a 99.99% chance of tasting terrible when actually prepared.

Once A Lee Man

Always a Lee man.

TGIF

1. I know how this financial mess we are in got started. People treating money like it is just small pieces of paper or plastic. For God's sake, stop it!

2. In anticipation of the release of the Alaska state legislature's official report on Troopergate today, the McCain campaign released they own report clearing Palin of any wrong doing. (Sigh) I don't know which is more frustrating, the McCain campaign believing that Republican voters are idiots or the fact that most Republican voters are idiots.*

3.Colorado ballot issue, Amendment 48, asks the question "Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution defining the term 'person' to include any human being from the moment of fertilization as 'person' is used in those provisions of the Colorado constitution relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law?"

Yep, some people want to have fertilized human eggs declared people under Colorado state law. Sounds like a sneaky way to outlaw abortion to me. This is an example of anti-abortionists going beyond caring about "unborn babies" to trying to control the sexual behavior of other human beings. The fact that most do not approve of any kind of birth control, especially the morning after pill, proves my point. There has always been the stink of sexism to their stance, which boils down to having pregnancy be a punishment for having sex, even it cases of rape or incest.

*UPDATE (10/11/08): Alaska legislature report says Palin abused her power in Troopergate. They don't call her "Sarah Barracuda" for nothing.

Proof That Lenore Skenazy Is Not The Worst Parent In The World

On Tuesday I wrote about the flack Lenore Skenazy got for letting her nine-year-old son ride the New York subway alone. Today I would like to show you a photo of my husband at around five or six months old taken either in Yellowstone National Park here in the States or up in Canada.

BJ and the bear
Positive proof that Lenore Skenazy is not the worst mother in the world.

Second Presidential Candidates Debate

Same old same old. I did not learn anything new last night about either candidate's positions on the issues but I did figure out why I am not going to vote for McCain/Palin.

Throughout the debate he kept using the phrase "my friend" and he used it so many times I got sick of hearing it. It was annoying because it was fake. He knows that the majority of American voters are not on the same social or financial plane as him and never will be so trying to insinuate that we are, well, its insulting. I don't want or need a president who thinks that being my friend is more important than being president any more than a child wants or needs a parent who thinks being their child's friend is more important than being their child's parent.

Which boils down to this- I really don't want another president who is not presidential representing this country. I want person who doesn't glad hand other world leaders and then slap them on the back like some used-car salesman. (I'm talking about you Mr. Bush.) I want someone with dignity.

In last night's debate Obama came across as more presidential to me than McCain. Obama was cool and McCain hot. By the end McCain seemed to be having some trouble keeping his temper under control. He did it but the strain of doing so showed. In these dangerous times I would rather have someone cool than hot guiding the ship of state.

Anxiety Society

We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
-Franklin Roosevelt

I read this article yesterday about a women who let her nine-year-old child ride the New York subway alone. People flipped out calling her, at the least, irresponsible. Seems people are not allowing their child go to the end of the driveway to pick-up the mail, making them phone home after walking a block to their friends house, and seriously considering following their child's school bus during a field trip just to make sure that said child was safe these days.

As Lenore Skenazy, the so-called bad mother, wrote:

For some reason we live in a society that sees little difference between letting a child frolic in the front yard and letting a child frolic in front of a firing squad. It's impossible for people to calculate the difference between real and remote risks.

She blames television and so do I. Just watch the coverage of the financial bailout and the drop in the stock market. Yes, it is serious and, yes, we are heading for a recession but television news shows are now throwing around the word "Depression." Jim Cramer, host of the very popular CNBC show, Mad Money, is seen in a soundbite on CNN telling people who need cash for the next five years to get out of the stock market. A statement that will do nothing but panic people but what CNN doesn't tell you is that Cramer has been saying this for the last two months. Its part of his overall investment strategy not a "dump everything and get out of the market" statement but you would never know this by watching CNN.

The most sensible thing I have read about this financial mess was in the Denver Post this morning. University of Denver, Daniels College of Business, professor Maclyn I. Clouse answered a few questions about the stock market:

1. If you are invested in stocks, what should you do?

“If you’re in stocks right now, you should probably just sit tight. One of the best things to do is don’t look at the stocks everyday. Don’t get upset by the fact they’re going down. They may go down some more.”

2. What types of investors should sell-off their stocks?

“If you’re getting close to retirement, often times they say if you’re within five years. I think within five years we still have a chance for stocks to come back, so I wouldn’t put it at five. But it’s going to take awhile, so if you’re all of a sudden in a position where you’re going to have to use actual dollars out of your 401k in the next year or two, then you might want to think about moving some of those stock dollars into bonds or fixed securities.”

3. What types of investors should stay in the stock markets?

“The young people that still have time on their side. Time is the greatest asset you have in long-term investments because over time the market is going to come back.”

Not too sure about that "sit tight" advise but he is telling people to look at their own situation before panicking. The television news channels just seem to be fear mongering.

VP Debate

While on vacation I did managed to see the presidential debate and then I watched the vice-presidential debate when I got home. I saw the presidential debate at my father-in-law's house, something he was very anxious to see since he is a big McCain fan, and it turned into a bust. About 20 minutes into it my father fell asleep, about 30 minutes into I went to bed to read, and about 35 minutes into it my husband went into the kitchen to wash up the dinner dishes. Talk about boring- neither man had anything new to say. I did watch all of the vice-presidential debate. Why? Because it was more entertaining.

Saturday Night Life spoofed the debate and caught the foibles of both candidates.



You know, it's not Sarah Palin's goofy, folksy, unpolished style that bothers me; it's the things I read about her:

Sarah Palin and the Rape Kits

Poor Sarah

More Proof

The view from a friend's cabin near Walden, Colorado in North Park.

Proof We Had A Relaxing Vacation

At my father-in-law's cabin in Pagosa Springs, Colorado.

Laughter Is An Instant Vacation!

-Milton Berle

Two stories about my niece who lives in Denver.

Last week GreenPeace was on her college campus recruiting for their organization. Ok, they were really begging for money. Anyway, part of their pitch was to walk up to a person and make the following statement, "I bet you're for the environment!"

The third time someone walked up to her and said that my niece had come up with her own statement in reply:

GreenPeace-er: "I bet you're for the environment!"

My niece: "I bet I'm not!"

The fourth person she said this to was not deterred and asked, "Do you know what GreenPeace does?"

My niece: "Well, you kill thousands of indigenous people a year by turning their native hunting and agricultural grounds into conservation areas."

GreenPeace-er looked like he just got hit in the face with a snow shovel.

Now, my niece did not know if GreenPeace has really done what she had just said but it seems that this guy did not know either. The next thing he said was, "We save whales but we still let the Inuit hunt them."

How big of them.


This next story has to do with the Democratic Convention. She was on her way to work one day during the Convention when she passed an Anti-Abortion protest. She immediately send the following text messages to her mother (my sister).

Text one: I have just seen enough pictures of fetuses to last me a lifetime.

Text two: I will never eat baby back ribs again.


I love the irreverent sense of humor that most teenagers have, it makes them good bulldooky detectors.