"speak your mind, even if your voice shakes."
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." -- Dwight David Eisenhower, April 16, 1953.
okay, tonight at wiscon was the haiku earring party, where you pick a pair of earrings, elise gives you a title for them, you write a haiku, and then the earrings are yours.
and it's friday, and i am at wiscon, and i am wearing my girly nutbar t-shirt. i had breakfast with jane and joan and justine, and then there was talking about the database, and i have been banished to go take a nap but i don't wannnnna so i am on the computer instead.
if anyone, anyone at all, has ever thought that patience was my strong point, i would like to disillusion them. with a stick, if necessary.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): The time a rodeo cowboy has to stay on a bucking bronco to qualify: eight seconds. The time a lion tamer holds his head in a lion's mouth: seven seconds. The time it takes for a skydiver's parachute to open: six seconds. The time it takes for thunder to travel a mile: five seconds. The time it will take, sometime in the coming week, for divine intervention to reveal a galvanizing vision of your possible future: 10 seconds. The time it may take for you to fully understand the meaning of the vision: four months.
i am going to wiscon this weekend. i am gleefully looking forward to wiscon not only because it is one of the few places in the world where i can wear my "i deeply resent the way this administration makes me feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist" t-shirt *and* my "i'm not gay but my girlfriend is" t-shirt and not only not get looked at oddly but have people ask where i got them because they want some, not only because it's the yearly meeting of my chapter of the secret feminist cabal, not only because of staying up all night laughing and drinking and talking with people who if they think i'm a big weirdo have acceptable reasons to do so and it's not because i'm smart, fat, feminist, mouthy, poly, bisexual, kinky (ever have one of those posts where you hope that this isn't the week your parents check out your blog to see what you're up to?), liberal, and i occasionally dye my hair wacky colors.
i have unknowingly propagated a false piece of information into the world. woe!
i want, she says plaintively, my flying car.
The Independent Weekly: With trembling fingers:
Nothing and no one can stop these people except you and me, and the other 100 million or so American citizens who may vote in the November election. This isn't your conventional election, the usual dim-witted, media-managed Mister America contest where candidates vie for charm and style points and hire image coaches to help them act more confident and presidential. This is a referendum on what is arguably the most dismal performance by any incumbent president--and inarguably the biggest mistake. This is a referendum on George W. Bush, arguably the worst thing that has happened to the United States of America since the invention of the cathode ray tube.
One problem with this referendum is that the case against George Bush is much too strong. Just to spell it out is to sound like a bitter partisan. I sit here on the 67th birthday of Saddam Hussein facing a haystack of incriminating evidence that comes almost to my armpit. What matters most, what signifies? Journalists used to look for the smoking gun, but this time we have the cannons of Waterloo, we have Gettysburg and Sevastopol, we have enough gun smoke to cause asthma in heaven. I'm overwhelmed.
Take the quiz: 'Which Random Irish Gaelic Phrase Are You? '
The New York Times > Business > Some Critics of Wal-Mart Joining Forces to Change It:
She said that while critics say 40 percent of Wal-Mart's workers do not have company health insurance, 90 percent of its employees have health benefits through some plan - perhaps a spouse's or through state Medicaid.
dear ssh: why do you hate me so? you work fine for me at work, but at home, not so much with the working. please work so that i can publish.
my hip hurts. also, i hate people. i mean, not everyone, but sooooo close, right now.
we got a new squeaky hedgehog for the dogs. even though pirate's title as squeaky hedgehog bane still stands, i think that josie will like squeaky hedgehogs, if pirate ever lets her play with it. (currently, they're wrestling for it.)
this is a link to a picture of my sister. what a fine sister she is. if she likes you, she will make that face when you ask. if she doesn't like you, she will make that face at you all the time, but hardly ever when you're looking.
yay! now i get comment fields! we'll see if i like them or not. i may turn them back off.
okay, what if the method that works best for me for language learning is mindless repetition? huh? what then?
Morning After:
How is it possible that the morning after pill would promote promiscuity anyway? It would promote ease in dealing with an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy. Unplanned pregnancy does not equal promiscuity. All we are doing by making the morning after pill readily available over the counter is providing women with an alternative to having children they did not mean to have, preventing abortions, giving more choice to women in need of more choices.
So then, are we to assume that the prevailing attitude about women's sexuality is that if left unchecked, without the consequence of the possibility of pregnancy, women will fuck willy nilly until everyone is left waiting for their dinners and their rides home from school and their au pairs because a vagina without restraint is just as good as a vagina gone wild at Spring Break? Have we no faith in prudence, common sense, reserve, education, social mores, parenting, when women are left to themselves?
i read peg's lj entry about a billboard and her daughters, and you should, too.
100 Mistakes for the President to Choose From - Center for American Progress:
During a prime time press conference on April 13, President Bush was asked to name a mistake that he has made since taking office and what he has learned from it. Bush, who was unable to answer the question, admitted 'maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with [a mistake].' But weeks later, Bush still hasn't answered the question. In the interest of assisting the President with this surprisingly difficult task we've compiled this list of 100 mistakes he has made since taking office:
