Warning: Do Not Go To This Film

My Ho and I went to see “Babel” on Sunday, along with my sister Betsy.

I admit that it was me who wanted to see it. And the only reason I was interested was because it received the most Golden Globe nominations, and I felt a need to see it before the awards show broadcast last night. This, in spite of my aversion to all things Brad Pitt. I should have known better.

We left for the afternoon show right after the Bears won their playoff game, which is a good thing, because it meant that My Ho was in an exceptionally good mood right before I forced him to sit through over two and a half hours of pointless storylines loosely connected by long periods of excruciating boredom. And Sister Betsy nearly whoopsied from the herky-jerky handheld cinematography.

But don't just take MY word for it.

So you can imagine my astonishment when the film won the best picture Golden Globe last night. Although I suppose the fact that the cameras spent so much of the evening focused on Angelina Jolie's bony clavicles should have tipped me off that things were not going to go well. And, inexplicably, no sign of Isaac Mizrahi, either.

Betsy and I also saw "Little Children" on Sunday (my sister and I, we are the kind of hard-core movie fan freakshows who will pay to see two films, in the theater, in one day) and although the ending was just a smidge too precious, we both found that one ever so much more enjoyable. And decidedly less nausea-inducing. And also, 100% Brangelina free.

Three Gray Hairs

New ones. Right there on my right temple this morning. The tweezer is never far from my bathroom mirror these days.

I’ve promised the woman who cuts my hair that soon, very soon, I will visit her and ask her to do The Coloring. I have never done The Coloring before, ever. There are precious few aspects of my physical appearance that I genuinely kind of like, but the color of my hair is near the top of the list. I’d like it to stay the way it is.

My neighbor Leah has a lot of friends who live in lakeside homes in the more affluent Minneapolis suburbs, friends who sail competitively on the weekends, wear designer fashions, and have dazzlingly white teeth and perfect manicures. They’re all married and have small children, and are not (SO not) my usual crowd.

So last weekend at Leah's birthday party, I spent most of the night outside on the deck with the smokers and Tammy, who is also from our neighborhood. Tammy sails on the weekends, too, and she drives a BMW, but she, like me, is a single mom with older children, and after hearing about her Home Depot adventures, I knew she was one person at that party I could hang with.

Well into the evening, out on the deck, the topic of conversation turned to botox. One party guest confessed to getting regular injections around her eyes (“I get them every three months. They only cost about $300 each!). Another said she gets them in her chest (!). My favorite, though, was the woman who said she was going to have collagen put in her heels because her feet are ugly. Tammy and I exchanged a look before she said out loud what I had been thinking. “You pay someone $300 every three months to inject poison into your face? I really don’t get that.”

At first, didn’t get it, either. But then I remembered an evening a couple of weeks before, when Tammy had mentioned some kind of magic lotion that she’d picked up on a recent trip to New York. “It’s like botox in a lotion!” She had exclaimed, applying it to the skin around the corners of her eyes. “See? My face doesn’t even MOVE!” And then I remembered my own tweezers. I’m pretty sure that botox isn’t for me, not even in lotion form, but really, isn’t paying a colorist to hide my gray more or less the same thing? Aren’t we all, in our own way, dreading something, whether it’s the wrinkles or the ugly feet or the gray hairs? In the end, the unfortunate truth is that I’m no less superficial than any of those botox babes.

I haven’t decided yet how many gray hairs I will tolerate before I make the appointment for The Coloring. I guess it will be when I can no longer keep them at bay with the tweezers. Until this morning there were only four gray strands I was keeping a regular eye on. Every time one of them grew long enough to be visible, I’d yank it out again. But today there were three more, all at once. They, like the others, have been temporarily banished. And I know exactly where these new three came from:

#1—Parent orientation night. And probably the post-orientation heavy drinking.

#2—Two days’ worth of family drama involving my sisters, my sister-cousins, a couple of second cousins (one of whom is a convicted felon, and the other of whom is an overbearing ass) and the cabin that we all jointly own.

#3—Yesterday’s visit from the contractor and the insurance adjustor, who decided that the outside wall of my sunroom, the one with the water damage, will need to be completely knocked out and rebuilt. Look! Carpenter ants! Oh, and, by the way? Insurance isn’t going to pay for most of this. Sorry!

So at work this morning, fully tweezed but still teetering on the brink of completely losing my sh*t, I couldn’t help but be impressed by my own super-human powers of self control when the Marketing Deity plopped his generously-kissed seat down into the chair in my cubicle and tried to entice me into a wager on this weekend’s Twins/Yankees series.

I said to him, “Did you come here just to torment me? Because the Yankees are already in first place, Silva is pitching tonight, and I am in NO MOOD.”

He took me at my word.

I’d Invite You Over, But You’d Have to Park in Duluth

The street in front of my house has been torn up for a couple of weeks now. What used to be blacktop is now a wide muddy trough full of bulldozers and blinky hazard markers and large men in orange vests. The trough is a good three feet below where the street used to be, and the curbs and driveway aprons are completely gone, so a steep gravel ramp temporarily allows me to get in and out of my driveway. Assuming that an earth mover hasn’t parked in front of my house, that is.

The work is scheduled to continue through the summer, and the thought of that is exhausting, because I never know from one day to the next what I’ll find when I arrive at my street. Some days one end is open, some days that same end has a huge hole full of workers in the middle of it, and I have to circle the block and try the other end. Sometimes that end turns out to have a giant pile of gravel blocking the way, and I have to circle back around and try the other end again. A more evolved individual might find this recurring challenge exciting, but I am not a person who likes having my routine f*cked with. At the end of the day, I just want to get my sorry self home, I don’t want to have to strategize new ways to get into my own blessed driveway on a daily basis.

To make matters worse, the parking lot of the building where I work is also being re-surfaced. Half of the lot looks eerily like the street in front of my house, which means that the number of available parking spaces has been cut in half. Yeah. You do the math. I’ve been arriving early enough in the mornings to find a spot without too much trouble, but on the one day when I made the mistake of leaving for lunch, the only available parking space when I returned was next to a dumpster. In Winnipeg.

Last Friday, after dodging a steamroller and weaving my way through the orange cones, I arrived home from work to find a bright pink notice attached to my front door informing me that, due to some utility work, the water would be turned off for most of the day on Monday. The notice included instructions for filling the bathtub with water, which could then be used to keep the toilet tank flushing until the water was turned back on.

The DemiGoddesses are astonishingly capable young women, but I really didn’t want them to have to deal with that all day. Knowing that one of The Ex’s sisters was in town with her new baby and would be staying at The Ex’s parents’ house, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone, and called The Ex’s mother to see if the Demis could spend Sunday night and Monday at her house as well. That way they could visit with their aunt and the baby, and be away from our house until the water was back on.

It seemed like a reasonable plan, except that making the arrangements turned out to involve much more hemming and hawing, taking of votes and general drama than I had anticipated, for reasons that rest entirely on shoulders of The Ex and the Universally Hated Step Psycho. Though the details are highly entertaining and I would very much love to share them, it seems that The Ex has been reading this blog for some time now and has taken issue with a few of the things I have written here. In spite of that, relations of late have been cordial (sort of), and for the sake of the children and my own serenity, I am trying to play nice. So I’m not going to post the specifics of what transpired. If you want the dirt, you’ll have to e-mail me.

In the end, the Demis did spend the night at their grandparents’ house. They had some quality time with their aunt and the baby, and enjoyed a lovely day with their grandmother on Monday, including going out for lunch. So I was feeling pretty good about having handled that mini-crisis until I arrived home from work on Monday to find another notice on my door, informing me that the water was going to be turned off again on Tuesday.

Bargains Galore! One Day Only!

Next weekend my neighborhood is holding its annual garage sale. Much like childbirth and international travel, I’ve found it takes about two years to forget what a pain in the arse holding a garage sale is before I start thinking that it might be a good idea to give it a whirl again.

And yes, it was two summers ago that I hauled a carload of delightful bargain-priced treasures to my friend CombatGirl’s driveway for a garage sale at her house. In spite of a newspaper ad and strategically placed signs, the only thing that made that effort worthwhile was selling three children’s books to the Viva half of our local cable-access celebrity couple, Viva and Jerry (“Two bucks, two bucks!”).

My brush with fame made the day exciting, if not particularly lucrative. The few items I sold were mostly things that CombatGirl herself purchased, and the carload of crap came back to the basement, where it sat until last Saturday.

Amazing how easy it is to ignore the steady accumulation of junk in the backs of the closets and the darker corners of the basement. And amazing how, even after I’ve unearthed an overwhelming mountain of stuff, there doesn’t seem to be any less in those closets and basement corners. My storage spaces are like Strega Nona’s pasta pot.

This time around, our sale will include a large number of toys that the DemiGoddesses have outgrown. For most of the weekend, the three of us sorted through and priced a boatload of books, assembled puzzles and games, and tried to make the Barbies presentable. Yesterday afternoon I replaced the batteries in two Furbys, a Techno robot puppy, a WuvLuv, and two mechanical hamsters that twirl tiny plastic nunchucks and sing “Kung Fu Fighting.” I bought the batteries at the dollar store, so I figure if I can break even on those, I’ll still be ahead of the game.

We are not materialistic people. The Demis hardly ever received new toys outside of birthdays and Christmas. But the bounty of playthings those two have amassed over the years is nothing short of obscene. Three giant Rubbermaid tubs full of stuffed animals? IS TOO MANY. There are children starving in Africa, and my kids have enough freaking Beanie Babies to populate a small Asian country. How did this happen?

The point, of course, is to get rid of stuff. This time, when the garage sale is done, none of it is coming back into the house. Our local Goodwill has a drive-through for donations, and whatever is left at the end of the day is going, going, gone. I’m not expecting to be able to retire on Saturday’s garage sale income, but it would be nice if we could take in enough cash to catch a movie.

Or, maybe, take a trip to Italy…

Narrowed and Degraded

I had made up my mind not to watch or listen to any of Tuesday’s State of the Union address. My disgust with this administration has grown to the point where the mere sound of the president’s voice fills me with such rage that I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed to be capable of so much resentment. And I’m even more ashamed that my response to intolerance is intolerance. Which is why, in the end, I tuned in.

Confucius said, “It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get.”

I believe that’s true. Hating is easy. It’s easy to decide that people who don’t see the world the way you do are cowardly, unpatriotic, ignorant, and immoral. Especially when those people imply the very same thing about people like you, and they do it on live national television, moments after vowing to “act in a spirit of good will and respect for one another.”

It’s easy feel righteously indignant. It’s easy to be dismissive and angry.

But I also believe what Coretta Scott King said, that hate injures the hater more than it injures the hated. Buddha said it too, that holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else, because ultimately, you are the only one who gets burned.

I do believe that love is the only solution to hate, and that tolerance is the only correct response to intolerance. Dropping that coal is the only way for us to save ourselves. It’s right thing to do, and that’s exactly why it’s so damn difficult.

I wish I had the fortitude to be like Booker T. Washington, and permit no president to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

But as of right now, I still don’t have it.

Life, the Universe, and “Project Jay”

Part of the reason for the piranhas is that lately my job has required that I actually work, and has not left a lot of time for my usual soul-restoring activities like blogging and shopping for handbags on eBay.

I can’t help but attribute the present state of things to the Kate Spade Georgetown Carlyle bag that I scored last week. Although I acquired it for an astonishingly good price, it wasn’t exactly in the budget, so there’s been anxiety and there’s been guilt, and karmic forces must be causing my high-end accessory remorse to draw this work craziness to me. Fortunately, the handbag is exceptionally delicious, so it and Wednesday night’s Lost/Project Runway lineup continue to make my life worth living.

The only thing is, after last night’s Lost episode, all through Project Runway I kept hearing Claire’s voice in my head screeching for her baby. Of course, in Australian, that sounds more like “Moy Buy-Bee! Somebody saaaaave Moy Buy-Beeeeee!” She may be a tiny, helpless blonde who has survived a plane crash and childbirth in the jungle and yet manages to look perpetually angelic, but enough with the high-pitched hysteria, already.

And speaking of universal justice, the ever-abrasive, model-stealing Zulema got hers in the end, didn’t she? I also found it highly gratifying to see Santino finally humbled into submission (An also-ran behind Austin Scarlett! Oh, the humanity!).

But I’m thinking that Mr. Jay McCarroll has drunk just a smidge too much of his own Kool Aid since last season’s Project Runway win. Karma may be a bee-yatch, but the new Jay-Who’s-Getting-His-Very-Own-Special seems to have become a even bigger one…

Six Degrees of Jittaun R. Townsend

After my mistaken-identity post the other day, a friend did some digging and unearthed an address and phone number for the in-default and most-definitely-not-me Jittaun. Feeling victorious, I called the student loan holder’s customer service department to bestow this bit of information upon them. I was quickly shot down, however, when the phone representative informed me that they already had that address and phone number, and neither was valid any more. Gar.

Then my friend, who is apparently very good at digging up information, and who should perhaps look into a secondary career as a private investigator, came up with some more for me.

Mr. Jittaun R. Townsend, it seems, is actually a Ms. The R. stands for Renee, and Ms. Townsend appears to have shared a couple of different addresses with an Otha E. Townsend, which might explain why she's been so difficult to locate lately.

Otha E. Townsend’s most recent place of residence, you see, is Stillwater State Prison. He is there serving a life sentence for shooting two women in the face. One of them died.

Neither of the victims was Jittaun, but there it is. Whether she was the wife or some kind of relative to Otha E., one can hardly blame Ms. Townsend for changing her name and not leaving a forwarding address.

Jittaun, honey, I hope you’re okay and managing to build a new, safe life for yourself. But girlfriend, please. You GOTTA pay that student loan.

In the Name of All That is Holy, Jittaun R. Townsend, Please Pay Your Freaking Student Loan

Several months ago, I began receiving mail that was addressed to a Jittaun R. Townsend. Whenever I receive mail that is not addressed to ME—as in, me by my current name, which is not the name I had when I was married, because anyone who does not know that five years after my divorce is probably not anyone I want to be hearing from anyway—I throw it away. So that’s what I did. For a while.

Around the fifth or sixth item that arrived in my mailbox for Mr. Townsend, however, I began to suspect that the bank that was listed on the return address, which also happens to be a bank I have accounts with, seemed determined to reach him. And since he and I share a last name and first initial, and since he apparently has been living at my address without my knowledge, I thought it prudent to make an effort to contact the bank and let them know that I am not Jittaun and I don’t know him.

It seems that Mr. Townsend is very, very far behind in paying his student loans. I am not. After I explained the situation, the bank’s customer service representative verified that my account numbers matched my name, address and phone number, and determined that there had been a mistake. He apologized for the confusion, and said, “this actually happens quite often.” Super.

A few weeks later, the collection agency began calling. Six. Times. A. Day. Twice I called the number left on my voicemail and was connected with the collection agency’s voicemail, into which I explained the situation, spelling my name AND Jittaun’s. The calls continued. Twice, I spoke to actual human beings, and two times more, I explained. I am not Jittaun R. Townsend. I do not know Jittaun R. Townsend. PLEASE STOP CALLING ME SIX TIMES A DAY.

Then, the calls stopped, and I thought it was over.

Until last night when I received a voicemail from the bank explaining to Mr. Townsend that he would be reported to the IRS if he did not call back before 8:55 p.m.

“Okay, let’s see if we can get this cleared up,” the very friendly phone representative said. I gave her my name, address and phone number. “What is the name of the person the voicemail was for?” I told her. “Can you spell that?” Hell yeah, I can freaking spell it. “J-I-T-T-A-U-N. Last name same as mine.”

“Oh yes, here he is,” she said. “Wow, you got that on the first try.” A-bloody-stonishing.

“Okay, I’ve found the name of the person who contacted you and I’ll be sending him an e-mail right now. We apologize for the confusion, and you won’t be receiving any more calls.”

Promises, promises.

If anyone out there knows this Jittaun R. Townsend, please let me know. I have a very important message that I'd LOOOOOOOOVE to deliver to him personally.

Another Moral Dilemma

First of all, please accept my apologies for yesterday’s holiday downer. It’s true, I’m having a hard time getting into the holiday spirit, but really, it’s not THAT bad.

The single bit of Christmas that I have genuinely been enjoying is the wreath my dad brought back for me from Upper Michigan. A neighbor who lives across the road from our cabin makes them every year out of branches she gathers from the trees in the woods up there. She uses a variety of cedar and pine boughs, so the wreaths she makes are lush, fragrant, and a gorgeous mix of textures and shades of green. Every time I see mine on my front door, I think of the woods and my lake in the snow, and that fills me with the joy of the season in a way that Beyonce’s whole bootylicious family opening their Wal-Mart bounty on TV never will.

I haven’t baked any cookies yet, but I did sign up for a cookie exchange at work, which means that I am now obligated in writing to produce seven dozen of something by next Friday. And, probably, I’ll get a tree this weekend. Mr. Crosby still has not hit the CD player, but I have been making and acquiring gifts.

Which brings me back to the subject of Wal-Mart, and my moral dilemma du jour. I am a loyal Target shopper, and can count on one hand the number of times I have set foot in a Wal-Mart store. My children have been so thoroughly propagandized by their former-union-steward father that they will gladly spout the myriad reasons why Wal-Mart is the devil. They would harass me without mercy if they knew I had given money to the Walton family.

So what is a budget-conscious Goddess to do when she finds that the Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture DVD game that Demigoddess the Younger really, REALLY wants for Christmas is priced $15 less at Wal-Mart than anywhere else?

On the one hand, I understand that this is how they get you. They entice the ethical shopper with their nefariously low prices, and the righteous ease their guilt by telling themselves that it’s just… this… ONCE…

...then the next thing they know they’re dragging around the weight of a thousand child-labor sweatshop souls and the misery of legions of underpaid and uninsured workers, and that smiling yellow crack-pushing demon haunts them in their tormented dreams.

But, on the other hand, $15 is, like, five gallons of milk.

Six if I buy them at Costco.

Nope. Can’t Do It.

It seems that there is a limit to the things I will do for my children.

While I understand that their father has encouraged their participation for the past five years, and while I empathize with their disappointment that this year, for some reason, he won’t take them… I’m afraid I’m going to have to play the mean mom card on this one.

I will pick pestilence out of their hair with my bare hands. I will put back the items of clothing I chose for myself in favor of buying Demigoddess the Elder a suit to wear to her debate tournaments. I will, as requested, put honey in Demigoddess the Younger’s tea in the morning so that her voice will be in top form for her school musical audition eight hours later.

But I will not. WILL NOT take them to compete in a White Castle eating contest.

So don't even look at me like that.

Today’s Friday haiku is dedicated to Demigoddess the Elder:

I don’t know why you
Want to compete again when
last year, you threw up.

Fucking Chickenshit Weak–Ass Bastard

What do you do with a guy who doesn’t want to spend time with his kids?

(In what universe does that question even make sense?)

What do you do when, after spending less than 24 hours with her dad (the only time she has seen him in a month) your 14-year-old child comes home, walks directly into your arms and says, “I’m glad to be home. I like it better here.”

I suppose that’s an improvement over the times she has come home crying, but it doesn’t seem like much of a victory.

Last week she told me she’d discovered that one of her best new junior high friends is in a similar situation. Her friend’s dad moved cross-country after marrying another version of the Universally Hated Step Psycho. She seemed so relieved to have found a friend who understands how it feels to have been significantly demoted on her dad’s list of priorities.

He pushes them away, and then makes the time they do spend with him a misery and a chore, so he can turn around and tell me that they don't want to be with him anyway. That they're better off with me. That he's being a good dad by removing himself from their lives.

I want to rage. I want to condemn. I want to pound on him until he feels every ounce of their heartbreak times ten. I want to shake him until he GETS IT. I want him to suffer and suffer and suffer because I am so, so angry.

But in the end, all I can do is hug her back and say, “I’m sorry, baby.”

Well, Well, Well.

The party’s over. The Sox won it all. I can be a grownup and offer them congratulations, even if I’m screaming on the inside.

I experienced a severe moral dilemma during this series. For months, I have been pulling for whatever team was playing against Chicago. One after another, first the Twins, then Cleveland, then Boston, and finally the Angels, they all failed me. So, until Tuesday night, in spite of my suspicions regarding anything that comes out of Texas, I was totally rooting for the Astros…

...until I saw George and Barbara Bush in the stands in Houston. I spent the rest of Tuesday night’s game trying to decide who I hold more animosity in my heart toward—the White Sox or the Republicans. In the end, I decided that, as much as I loathe the Sox, I cannot root for any team that the Bush family is behind. So there you go. Go Sox. I very much underestimated you, and I’m a big enough Goddess to admit it. (Bleh.)

In addition to which, watching the Astros put men on base with no outs, and then squander every opportunity to score… well, that was all too familiar a heartbreak, as any Twins fan will tell you. (Double bleh.)

Appropriately, My Ho and I watched the last out together, just as we watched the first pitch of the 2005 season together. I couldn’t help feeling a little sad, partly because it’s going to be another long winter before pitchers and catchers report to spring training again, and partly because watching My Ho keep score during games used to be very exciting for me. But then Fox showed Barbara Bush marking her scorecard during the game last night, and that pretty much ruined that.

Damn Republicans.

Again With The Politics

While out driving yesterday, I found myself behind an SUV (betcha they're having fun keeping that puppy gassed up these days...) with a bumper sticker that said,

“Bush won. Deal with it.”

Right. You mean deal with it like the former residents of New Orleans are dealing with it?

I intentionally ignored our fine president’s press conference last week, in which he admitted that the federal government had failed the people of New Orleans. I ignored it because I am still angry. Because, as I said before...

No fucking shit, Sherlock. Thanks for noticing.

The following was delivered yesterday at Brown University in Providence, R.I., by Sen. John Kerry.

You know, that guy who didn’t win.

“…Katrina stripped away any image of competence and exposed to all the true heart and nature of this administration. The truth is that for four and a half years, real-life choices have been replaced by ideological agenda, substance replaced by spin, governance second place always to politics.…

…I know the President went on national television last week and accepted responsibility for Washington's poor response to Katrina. That's admirable. And it's a first. As they say, the first step toward recovery is to get out of denial. But don't hold your breath hoping acceptance of responsibility will become a habit for this administration. On the other hand, if they are up to another ‘accountability moment’ they ought to start by admitting one or two of the countless mistakes in conceiving, ‘selling,’ planning and executing their war of choice in Iraq.

I obviously don't expect that to happen. And indeed, there's every reason to believe the President finally acted on Katrina and admitted a mistake only because he was held accountable by the press, cornered by events, and compelled by the outrage of the American people, who with their own eyes could see a failure of leadership and its consequences.

Natural and human calamity stripped away the spin machine, creating a rare accountability moment, not just for the Bush administration, but for all of us to take stock of the direction of our country and do what we can to reverse it. That's our job—to turn this moment from a frenzied expression of guilt into a national reversal of direction. Some try to minimize the moment by labeling it a ‘blame game,’ but as I've said, this is no game and what is at stake is much larger than the incompetent and negligent response to Katrina.

This is about the broader pattern of incompetence and negligence that Katrina exposed, and beyond that, a truly systemic effort to distort and disable the people's government, and devote it to the interests of the privileged and the powerful. It is about the betrayal of trust and abuse of power. And in all the often horrible and sometimes ennobling sights and sounds we've all witnessed over the last two weeks, there's another sound just under the surface: the steady clucking of Administration chickens coming home to roost.

We wouldn't be hearing that sound if the people in Washington running our government had cared to listen in the past…

…The bottom line is simple: The ‘we'll do whatever it takes’ administration doesn't have what it takes to get the job done.

It has consistently squandered time, tax dollars, political capital, and even risked American lives on sideshow adventures: A war of choice in Iraq against someone who had nothing to do with 9/11; a full-scale presidential assault on Social Security when everyone knows the real crisis is in health care—Medicare and Medicaid. And that's before you get to willful denial on global warming; avoidance on competitiveness; complicity in the loss and refusal of healthcare to millions….

…Katrina is the background of a new picture we must paint of America. For five years our nation's leaders have painted a picture of America where ignoring the poor has no consequences; no nations are catching up to us; and no pensions are destroyed. Every criticism is rendered unpatriotic. And if you say ‘War on Terror’ enough times, Katrina never happens.

Well, Katrina did happen, and it washed away that coat of paint and revealed the true canvas of America with all its imperfections. Now, we must stop this Administration from again whitewashing the true state of our challenges. We have to paint our own picture—an honest picture with all the optimism we deserve—one that gives people a vision where no one is excluded or ignored. Where leaders are honest about the challenges we face as a nation, and never reserve compassion only for disasters.

Rarely has there been a moment more urgent for Americans to step up and define ourselves again. On the line is a fundamental choice. A choice between a view that says ‘you're on your own,’ ‘go it alone,’ or ‘every man for himself.’ Or a different view, a different philosophy, a different conviction of governance—a belief that says our great American challenge is one of shared endeavor and shared sacrifice….

…I still believe America's destiny is to become a living testament to what free human beings can accomplish by acting in unity. That's easy to dismiss by those who seem to have forgotten we can do more together than just waging war…

…They didn't listen to the Army Corps of Engineers when they insisted the levees be reinforced.

They didn't listen to the countless experts who warned this exact disaster scenario would happen.

They didn't listen to years of urgent pleading by Louisianans about the consequences of wetlands erosion in the region, which exposed New Orleans and surrounding parishes to ever-greater wind damage and flooding in a hurricane.

They didn't listen when a disaster simulation just last year showed that hundreds of thousands of people would be trapped and have no way to evacuate New Orleans.

They didn't listen to those of us who have long argued that our insane dependence on oil as our principle energy source, and our refusal to invest in more efficient engines, left us one big supply disruption away from skyrocketing gas prices that would ravage family pocketbooks, stall our economy, bankrupt airlines, and leave us even more dependent on foreign countries with deep pockets of petroleum.

They didn't listen when Katrina approached the Gulf and every newspaper in America warned this could be "The Big One" that Louisianans had long dreaded. They didn't even abandon their vacations…

…It comes down to the fact that the job of government is to prepare for your future—not ignore it. It should prepare to solve problems—not create them.

This Administration and the Republicans who control Congress give in to special interests and rob future generations. Real leadership stands up to special interests and sets the course for future generations. And the fact is we do face serious challenges as a nation, and if we don't address them now, we handicap your future. My generation risks failing its obligation of assuring you inherit a safer, stronger America. To turn this around, the greatest challenges must be the starting point. I hope Katrina gives us the courage to face them and the sense of urgency to beat them.

That's why the next few months are such a critical time. You'll read about the Katrina investigations and fact-finding missions. You'll get constant updates on the progress rebuilding New Orleans and new funding for FEMA. Washington becomes a very efficient town once voters start paying attention…

...Today, every American knows the name Katrina—and once again we know our government was undeniably unprepared, even as Americans have shown their willingness to sacrifice to make up for it. But in these uncertain weeks of Katrina's aftermath, we must ask ourselves not just whether a great country can be made greater—the sacrifice and generosity of Americans these last weeks answered that question with a resounding yes.

No, our challenge is greater—it's to speak out so loudly that Washington has no choice but to make choices worthy of this great country—choices worthy of the sacrifice of our neighbors in the Gulf Coast and our troops all around the world.

What's in it for all of us? Nothing less than the character of our country—and your future.”

You can read the whole thing here.

Thank God...

...SOMEONE is doing SOMETHING.

I'm sure there are lots more stories like this out there. Thank God for you and people like you.

Not Acceptable

BUSH TERMS RELIEF EFFORTS 'NOT ACCEPTABLE'
Associated Press
September 2, 2005 KAT0903.BUSH
WASHINGTON — President Bush, facing blistering criticism for his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, said Friday "the results are not acceptable.''

No fucking shit, Sherlock.

Up until last night, I intentionally did not watch any coverage of the Katrina aftermath, not out of denial, but out of self-preservation. I knew it would simultaneously break my heart and whip me into a rage of epic proportions. Last night’s "Prime Time" special on NBC proved me right.

There have been many occasions on which I have wanted to choke the Texas accent out of our fine president with my bare hands, but every one of them pales in comparison to this.

Because this:

is what happens when you cut infrastructure funding.

This:

is what happens when a disaster strikes while the NATIONAL guard has been sent half a world away to fucking IRAQ.

This:

is what happens when you allow corporate greed to destroy the environment’s natural protections.

And this:

Is what happens when you try to run the country while on vacation in goddam Texas.

People are really and truly dying of dehydration on the streets of 21st-century America. What exactly is it going to take for this administration to get its head out of its collective ass?

Fair Warning for the Boy Toys

It’s not that you guys aren’t super cute and everything. I mean, I appreciate a little eye candy as much as the next Goddess. And I’m sure your Lexus and BMW and Acura and Cadillac would do wonders for my house’s curb appeal, if not for the beer cans and cigarette butts and golf balls that keep finding their way into my yard. But the thing is, I really did not move to the suburbs so that I could live next door to a frat house.

Your midnight barbecues sound like heaps of fun, and as entertaining as it is to watch your little girlfriends skank out of the house in the mornings, here’s a little heads up for y’all: If you wake me up at 3:00 a.m. again, I am going to turn your deck into a flaming inferno.

Oh, and I’ll be very careful to make it look like an alcohol-related barbecue accident, which means you totally won’t get your damage deposit back, so why don’t you go ahead and save me a match and some lighter fluid and CUT IT THE F*CK OUT, ‘kay?

Thanks.

And You Thought I Forgot

Yesterday, during a rerun of that creepy Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes interview, which I so made a point of watching since everyone has been talking about how bizarre it was, and I missed it the first time and I HATE it when everyone is talking about something that I haven’t seen, Oprah said something to Tom that I found quite profound.

She said, “…you can tell a man’s character by the kind of woman who is with him.”

Interesting.

If that’s true, then my ex is an immature, emotionally unstable psycho with bad skin who blames me for every evil in the known universe.

That Oprah. She is SO wise.

(You didn't really think a day was going to go by without some venom for my ex, did you?)

A Thought for My 6:30 A.M. Elevator Ride Companion

Dear Jackie O:

You were Miss South Dakota, like, 20 years ago. Seriously, honey. Let it go. Makeup was never intended to be applied with a spackling knife. Go easy on the hairspray. Trust me on this one.

Cute shoes, though.

--ESG