She's Back!

On Friday, when the packing material was removed from my nose (in a fascinating moment that I won't describe out of deference to the reader), I still looked very strange. The swelling hadn't gone down much at all by the end of the day. In fact, it had spread to my upper lip, so that I had not just an enormous beak but a mouth that looked like a cartoonist's interpretation of a feminine smile.

But the same ears, eyes, hairline and jaw I always carry around.

Saturday I was halfway back, and went into Attila the Hub's office to show off my nose—only somewhat oversized by then. "Wow," he told me. "I haven't seen you in a while." I hadn't, either.

On Sunday I looked like myself, which was delightful. At that point I admitted that I'd been afraid something might go terribly wrong, and I'd always look like the product of a funhouse mirror.

Now I still have to wear the bandage on my face, but I can take it off for as much as an hour at a time, and even breathe through The Organ In Question a little bit.

I can see people's eyes pivot to the bandage, and then away as they realize it isn't polite to stare. A woman went up to me to say hello today, and just as I was wondering whether I knew her, she explained "I've been there." Ah, yes. It was that gauze chic look I was sporting. We're sisters in facelessness.

"Deviated septum?" I asked.

"And other breathing problems," she told me.

"I get the stints taken out of my nose this coming Friday," I remarked.

"It'll be great then. That's when you can really start breathing out of it."

Good to know. Until then, I've instructed my husband to call me Mistress Mucus. He likes that. "I'm out to do errands, Mistress M. See you later," he'll call over his shoulder on his way out the door.

I'm just so lucky to have had the opportunity for a procedure like this. I'm grateful, and happy to be living in a time and place where these problems can be fixed.

And grateful to my husband, who took a crappy union job last year that got me back onto the Luxurious Health Plan long enough to take care of my dainty (but apparenly malformed) schnoz.

Now go eat something. Enjoy the whole set of flavors, including those you need a sense of smell to perceive.

I'll be there soon.

State of the Union

Nice work, overall. I enjoyed the shot the President took at Teddy Kennedy. (Oh, come on. Do you think that segment on the importance of civility in debate was random?)

Bush is trying so hard not to smirk, and it just isn't in his nature: that goofy grin keeps sneaking back onto his face.

I'm wondering if anyone out there who voted for John Kerry perceived this, or whether perhaps it's a sign of bias on my part, but I really felt that G.W. at least tried to act the part of a parent adjudicating a dispute between children when he spoke of current Republican-Democrat tensions. With the mood so tense in the Senate lately, I felt he was attempting to communicate a sense of "don't make me stop this car!"

Most of my GOP friends won't be happy with his approach to immigration, but I am. Malkin, for example, probably gagged when he spoke about the guest worker program.

Energy policy: the olive branch here was in his not uttering the phrase "drilling in ANWR," but I found the "green" segment of the speech less startling than many probably will. Some of these government subsidies will indeed turn into boondoggles, but the fact remains that we need to lessen our dependence on foreign oil, so there is a need for a multipronged approach. And it wasn't like Bush was out there wearing his metaphorical Birkenstocks, either: he emphasized the fact that nuclear energy has to be part of the new game plan.

Hamas and Iran: These were both compelling moments in the speech, and the only two times that W. looked directly into the camera. He sent the same message twice ("do not fuck around with us, because we're serious"). And he delivered it forcefully.

And it was a nice touch, saying a few lines to the Iranian people. It's critical that we make the distinction between unfree people and the governments that oppress them.

And watching Mrs. Clinton, who could barely keep from rolling her eyes as she usually does during these addresses, I began to think some of us have exaggerated the threat she supposedly poses to the GOP: this pose of being above it all is not one that wil endear her to the American people. Her conduct on these occasions makes it harder to believe she's learned anything from her indisputably brilliant husband.

She is not, at heart, a real politician. She just happened to marry well.

Scott Ott

The author of Scrappleface has lost his grandmother, who raised him and his three brothers. She sounds like a remarkable woman. It's decent and sweet of Scott to give us a glimpse into his family history—particularly while they are dealing with this enormous loss.

Please remember his grandmother—and the rest of his family—in your prayers. (Or send positive energy, for those of you who have difficulty anthropomorphizing God.)

(h/t: Cassandra.)

Steyn on the Cumulous Clouds of Hamas

. . . and their hammered sterling linings.

The Way I Figure It,

Teddy Kennedy and Samuel Alito are having a passionate affair. It's really the only explanation that makes sense.

(h/t: Goldstein, who as I understand it does not endorse my theory)

The Day You First Got This

. . . would be a bad day, indeed.

Just Heading Out to the Store.

Does anyone want some cheese or furniture while I'm out?

How about some beer? Or candy?

Alternatively, you know—I could get you some sort of breakfast pastry.

Laurence says we can stop now, but I happen to like breakfast pastry a lot.

Foster

. . . on the possibility that we're breaking through on solar power. (Yes; the subsidies will have to go, but go read: there may be some real potential there.)

Making Cindy Sheehan Your Paper Doll

. . . is almost as good as making her your punk. So, go.

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,

Oh, what a beautiful day:

John Lasseter, the creative chief of Pixar Animation Studios, has wasted no time asserting who is boss after Pixar's takeover by Walt Disney - by stopping production of Toy Story 3, the controversial sequel to the two wildly successful animated films.

The original Toy Story, completed in 1995, was the first major collaboration between Pixar and Disney. Thehighly lucrative partnership went on to produce the hits Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc and The Incredibles.

However, the joint venture became strained, partly because of personality clashes between the then Disney chief executive, Michael Eisner, and Pixar's chief executive, Steve Jobs, and partly because of Disney's desire to keep the Toy Story franchise running with a third and forth movie.

Mr Lasseter was deeply opposed to the idea but Disney went ahead, as it owns the intellectual property, putting 100 scriptwriters, animators and other creative staff to work on Toy Story 3 at its own Walt Disney Studios animation complex in Burbank, California.

On Wednesday, less than 24 hours after Mr Jobs and Disney's new chief executive, Bob Iger, unveiled the merger, Mr Lasseter went to Burbank with Pixar's president, Ed Catmull. He announced that Toy Story 3 would now be scrapped, without a word about the fate of the animation team.

According to talk in Hollywood, Disney was struggling with a script in which Buzz Lightyear, one of the two stars, developed a fault and had to be recalled to Taiwan for repairs.

According to regulatory filings in the US, the Disney-Pixar deal gives Mr Lasseter creative control over all of the two studios' animated film output, while still maintaining Pixar's independence.

Emphasis mine; the sun's coming up.

The Observer has this piece, which was obviously written by a business writer who doesn't get the often-ignored truth that entertainment is an industry unlike all others. (This is one of main reasons studios can be destroyed by freshly minted MBAs with no concept of how paramount storylines are to the telling, of, well, stories: in the words of my freakin' brilliant scriptwriter spouse, "for all they care, some of these executives could be making widgets. All 'product' is the same in their eyes.")

Disney's new chief executive, Bob Iger, has wasted no time restoring some lustre to the Magic Kingdom. The multi-billion-dollar acquisition of Pixar, the studio that inherited its reputation for making blockbuster, family-friendly films, is part of his plan to place animation back at the heart of the Disney empire. It also signals the end of a long battle between the two studios, in which Pixar's better use of new technology ultimately proved decisive.

No. Pixar's movies are not better than Disney's from the last decade because of technological superiority. After all, anyone can hire the best special-effects shops in town to produce whatever they want. Pixar's movies are superior because they are better written. And you can go back to the shorts they were making back in the 1980s—before Steve Jobs came aboard, and before they ever turned a profit—and see the commitment to quality productions. Not productions that look good as still cels lining the walls of high-end galleries in L.A., New York, and Santa Fe: quality productions with engaging characters and intriguing story arcs.

If Jobs and Lasseter may really create a "student rebellion" against the autocratic mullahs of Disney Animation, it will be a beautiful day indeed.

(h/t: K's Quest)

Rule Number One: Know When You're Fucked Up

It's not always so easy. When they woke me up Thursday a few minutes after the operation, I was fascinated by my surroundings: I wanted to know why the thingamabobs suspended from the ceilings had so many hooks in them. I wanted to know why I was in the bed to the left, rather than the bed to the right (this was because I was in the recovery room, which other than its lighting was a bit like the operating room: but I was in a different "slot" therein). I wanted to know the race of the man next to me, and why his moans sounded more like they came from pleasure than from pain.

But I didn't want to be much trouble. I did ask why I was now to the left of the room, and I enquired about the hooks. I figured out, however, that when I was too active I tended to alarm the nurses and attendents milling about. So once they took my oxygen mask off I kept trying until I could raise my head and shoulders a bit and look around. And as soon as the nurses turned their heads, I lay back down and returned to staring at the hooks in the ceiling, like a good patient.

I was taken back to my room, and there was a delay about informing my husband and my mother that I was out of surgery. So I asked another nurse about his shark tattoo, and requested cranberry juice, and tried to call my mother's and husband's cell phones, which weren't receiving very well in the hospital. Finally, my husband came looking for me, and we had a grand little reunion while I told them how absorbing all the equipment was, and how lucky a person I am.

And there were a lot of blessings in this experience, such as having a private room to recuperate in for a few hours after surgery. And the Latino nurses who provide "muscle," and specialize in moving patients from place to place. They had nice tattoos as well, and one of them was full of compliments, keeping me well supplied with warm blankets and telling me how beautiful I looked after the operation when I knew darned well I didn't. ("And why is that important?" I hear you ask. Because at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital there are a lot of aging actresses who have essentially been seduced and discarded by elements of the entertainment industry. If they are treated kindly and decently by their health-care providers—and flirted with just a little by the hospital staff—it's a humane and marvelous thing.)

I'd always been raised to aspire to stoicism, so when my husband asked me whether I was in pain I attributed my headache to being dehydrated and assured him it would be over soon. It wasn't, of course, as I'm sure he realized, as he stood over me, wiping the blood away from my eye, which was oozing a little. Another hour later a second wave of pain made me realize there was more going on than dehydration: getting the inside of your face carved up eventually makes your neurons hum fairly loudly.

Why now?I thought, and realized what would have been obvious to anyone blessed with a little common sense. "Oh, I must have been high as a fucking kite for the first two hours after I got out."

"Well," my husband conceded, "you were a little loopy when we arrived."

"What was the tipoff?—when I told you that I longed for my keyboard in the recovery room, so I could live-blog the experience of waking up from surgery?"

"Well, you know. Any time you have an operation and wake up really interested in your surroundings, the chances are that you're stoned out of your mind."

Attila the Hub, you'll note, has a healthy relationship with the practical world. I'm really glad that someone around here does.

Google Is Your Friend.

And, as with most friends, there's a point when you want to say, "fuck you."

I'm still mulling the whole thing over. I most certainly don't think the stance Google is taking here vis a vis the DOJ obligates them not to cooperate with the Chinese government: after all, privacy is a different issue from free speech. I think there's something to be said for Stephen Green's contention that this may not turn into a big deal in the long run. And of course there is the argument that the Chinese may be better off with half a Google versus none at all.

But the capitulation to "local standards and laws" leaves a very bad taste in my mouth, and makes me eager to try other search engines.

Goldstein has some thoughts, as does Esmay and his crew. And, of course, Malkin is furious in a fun way.

"Don't be evil," indeed. Try not being dickweeds, Boys.

Anyone know how to change the default search engine on Safari?

Tunnel of Love

Paging Michael Connelly.

Progress, of a Sort (Warning: Disgusting Post)

My nose is now producing more traditional fluids, in addition to those we might associate with emergencies.

And under the bandages I look a lot less like a corpse and a lot more like I'm just ugly.

I actually have two meetings on Sunday, though, so I'm hoping the swelling goes down and the biological material is less copius. Otherwise I'll have to show up sporting the bandaged look. Very chic.

On "Palestine."

Neo has some thoughts; the anti-Semites come out to play in her comments section. Also, keep scrolling: she's got a roundup of blogger reactions on her main page.

Yes.

Everything went well. I'm trying to take it easy on the Vicodan—a decision I'm almost certain to regret at some point.

I look extraordinarily ugly, of course, even if you discount the bits of dried blood under my nose and one eye. Attila the Hub got one frame off with his phone camera; I'll try to remember to post it over the next several days.

They tell me, however, that uninhibited nose-breathing can be utterly intoxicating.

Least Successful Singles Profile Blurbs

I suppose you think you’re better than me--just like the rest of them
Looking for someone to share the wonder of desperate, clawing loneliness
I have a really big heart! In the refrigerator
Could YOU be the one to help me forget my pain?
Have successfully completed three straight months of Pier One papasan chair payments
I want to end my parade of lies with someone special

Okay. Goodnight.

I'm going to bed, and I'll be gone/drugged-up most of tomorrow, getting reconstructive surgery done to the inside of my nose. Which means I will not live up to one of my life's ambitions: keeping sharp utensils away from my mucus membranes.

They'll put me completely under for this, so I'll probably be away from the keyboard most of the day. Hubris has some goodies here for you from his lovely, twisted mind, and Rightwing Sparkle will probably be by at some point to say hello.

Sweet dreams. See those knives? Get 'em away from your nose: I can still save you from my mistakes.

I Lost My Podcast Virginity

to Glenn and Dr. Helen, who were interviewing Norah Vincent, of Self-Made Man fame.

Vincent's story is fascinating; I want to read this book immediately, though there are a few ahead of it in the reading queue.

The Glenn and Helen Show couldn't be more homey; it's without pretense, as the Instapundit blog is. I was surprised at Dr. Helen's Southern accent, which was stupid of me. Dr. H, in particular, was extraordinarily down to earth: clearly, teaching has given Glenn an edge over some of us in speaking before (potentially) large groups.

My favorite line was Glenn's signoff: "we'll be back again when we feel like it." Nice.

This Sound Distinctly

. . . familiar. Probably because I've been having similar conversations for years.

The Berenstain Bears

... Learn About Funny Feelings

Time-Space Anomaly Determined To Be Point Of Jackass Singularity

It was located here.

An illustration of the anticipated effects:

(click)

The cool thing is, in the future someone standing on the edge of the jackassiverse will be able to see the light produced from someone getting their ass kicked billions of years in the past.

I Remember the Moment

. . . I realized that my consciousness wasn't a vast thing—that it was, in fact, limited to this person everyone called Joy. I was merely a single person, and not some kind of oversoul. I would forever be limited to a solitary point of view. I was about four years old. It was a tremendous disappointment.

Wherever this "Joy" person went, there I'd be. When she skinned her knees, it would preoccupy me. When her Mexican baby sitter put on a movie about a giant spider eating a city, I'd be watching the giant spider, too: I couldn't simply flit over to occupy some other body, and live that person's life when the fancy struck.

My perceptions would be a miniscule fraction of what I'd assumed they were going to be at the outset.

For some time I grieved, until years later, when I realized that blogging as an oversoul might be tougher, and I really would have to pick up my typing speed in that event. And in general, I think, there's just a lot more responsibility for an oversoul vs. a single consciousness: the hours are better this way.

It turned out fine in the end.

Though there is the occasional pang of regret. Inevitable, don't you think?

I Think If I Ever Received a Letter

. . . signed "your friend, Jeff," I might blow my brains out as a precaution.

Better safe than sorry.

The Palestinians Have Been Abandoned, All Right.

But not by the leaders of other groups; by their own "leaders," who make the poverty pimps of the U.S.A. look good.

Insty's Roundup on the Election

. . . includes the biggies: Steyn, McMillan. Go read. This is a massive shift, and we need to pay more attention to where Canada is headed.

What We Seem to Have Here . . .

Joy: Hello?

B: Aren't writers supposed to know their readers?

Joy: I assume all my readers are exactly like me, to avoid confusion.

B: Well, you don't have to work tomorrow.

Joy: Thanks, but how come I'm getting this confirmation at 10:00 at night? Isn't that a smidge late?

B: Because I didn't have your schedule, so I thought you probably weren't available this week anyway.

Joy: But I e-mailed it to you!

B: That gets us back to "know your reader." Or audience. You know I don't check my e-mail very often.

Joy: Sure. I know that. But surely you get to it once a day?

B: Once a day? I check it a couple of times a week. I'm not one of these obsessive blogger types, who check their mail all the time.

Joy: A couple times a week? Are you freaking kidding me? The average dog checks their e-mail more than that.

B: People know how to get hold of me.

Joy: [finally grasps the implication, and realizes that some people default to those little last-ditch emergency-only voice box thingies on their desks and belts when they need to communicate] Oh.

Joy: I have to go now. Goodnight. [pulls over to the side of the road; replaces phone on its holster with a shudder; slowly restarts the car, and drives up the hill, badly shaken]

You Know Whom I Hate?

Glad you asked. Dilettantes. They should all just die.

Oh, Fuck.

Just fuck.

In no way, shape or form can this be good. Unless the tail starts wagging the dog.

P.S. Fuck.

Shameless Ad Whorage

The Gold Adstrip (to the left; prime positioning) is now open. Put your money where your mouth is! Go through the eye of a needle on a camel! A stitch in time saves none!*

Practice makes perfect! You have to spend a buck to make a buck! Your candle is under a bushel basket, and wants to get out!

If you can't afford an ad, just send me the amount of money you would have spent on one directly, and you'll know very little of the dough is being wasted on administrative costs. Plus, you'll feel all warm and gooey inside.

* I stole this one from James Thurber.

This bleg is not applicable to people who are broke, or already link me a lot, or make my site more entertaining with their brilliant comments, or live in a state wherein e-panhandling is prohibited by law.

Girl on the Right

Is celebrating the win of Canada's conservatives. Apparently there are high hopes that this will begin a transformation for our neighbors to the North.

UPDATE: Not surprisingly, Captain's Quarters live-blogged history in the making.

It Turns Out I'm Not the Only One Who's Sustained Some Damage From Organized Religion

Josh is carrying some of the same baggage around. But with, I think, a bit more panache.

Michael Yon: Another Dispatch!

Just go to his new website, and it's there in the upper left (it alternates with the promo for Operation Iraqi Children; this one is called "Fighting on the Home Front").

Also: remember to update your blogrolls and bookmarks. I was always impressed by what Yon and his team were able to accomplish on Blogspot, but this new site really kicks it up to the next level.

Also: buy his books and pictures. (He's not saying that; I'm saying it. How much would we pay for a service like Yon's if we had to "subscribe"? We should support the guy who's telling us the truth.)

So. Christian Heavy Metal.

Bad idea? Good idea? Antinomian idea?

Discuss.

Back Online

Wind storms all night long: they make us nervous, since the first winter we lived in this house the wind blew three trees down, one of which landed right on our driveway, narrowly missing the garage and blocking the entire street for most of the day.

The power went out last night at around 10:00, and just came back on an hour ago. I've been sleeping a lot today: snuggling up seemed like the only way to stay warm: our gas heater is, of course, dependent on electricity. And our stove is electric.

I was under the weather anyway, so I haven't been able to do much about making food or eating: I've just been nibbling on whole wheat bread here and there. Soup would have been nice. Maybe I'll heat some up now.

I wish I could enjoy wind storms now the way I did ten years ago, before that first disasterous winter in this house. Maybe someday. Maybe when we're renting again.

This Is What Happens

. . . when the media is controlled by large corporations, beholden to the military, and in bed with a Republican Administration. From a David Boaz article posted to Reason Online:

Remember all those news stories in 1993 about how the nomination of former ACLU lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg to replace conservative Justice Byron White on the United States Supreme Court would "tilt the balance of the court to the left?"

Of course you don't. Because there weren't any.

In the past three months, the major media have repeatedly hammered away at the theme that Judge Samuel Alito Jr. would "shift the Supreme Court to the right" if he replaced retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

According to Lexis/Nexis, major newspapers have used the phrase "shift the court" 36 times in their Alito coverage. They have referred to the "balance of the court" 32 times and "the court's balance" another 15. "Shift to the right" accounted for another 18 mentions.

Major radio and television programs indexed by Lexis/Nexis have used those phrases 63 times. CNN told viewers that Alito would "tilt the balance of the court" twice on the day President Bush nominated him. NPR's first-day story on "Morning Edition" was headlined "Alito could move court dramatically to the right."

Now maybe all this is to be expected. Alito is a conservative, he's been nominated to replace a centrist justice, and he probably will move the Supreme Court somewhat to the right—which is probably what at least some voters had in mind when they elected a Republican president and 55 Republican senators.

But note the contrast to 1993, when President Bill Clinton nominated the liberal Ginsburg to replace conservative White. White had dissented from the landmark decisions on abortion rights in Roe v. Wade and on criminal procedure in the Miranda case, and he had written the majority opinion upholding sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick. Obviously his replacement by the former general counsel of the ACLU was going to "move the court dramatically to the left."

So did the media report Ginsburg's nomination that way? Not on your life.

Not a single major newspaper used the phrases "shift the court," "shift to the left," or "balance of the court" in the six weeks between Clinton's nomination and the Senate's ratification of Ginsburg. Only one story in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer mentioned the "court's balance," and that writer thought that Ginsburg would move a "far right" court "toward the center."

The only network broadcast to use any of those phrases was an NPR interview in which liberal law professor Paul Rothstein of Georgetown University said that Ginsburg might offer a "subtle change...a nuance" in "the balance of the court" because she would line up with Justice O'Connor in the center.

No one thought that some momentary balance on the Court had to be preserved when a justice retired or that it was inappropriate to shift the ideological makeup of the Court. And certainly no one had made that point during 60 years of mostly liberal appointees from Democratic presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson—even as they replaced more conservative justices who had died or retired. ut suddenly, we are told by senators, activists, and pundits that a nominee should not change the makeup of the Court.

h/t: Eugene Volokh

Inside the Third Reich

Neo has an amazing piece about the Goebbels' marriage. I just finished Part II, and will go back to read Part I (just scroll down; it's right there).

It's an inside look at human evil, and has a lot to say about the cult of personality that leads some to join cults and some to support murderous dictators.

I just want to weep for the human race. And never stop.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Propaganda

Steyn dissects Hollywood's drive to destroy itself, with special attention to Brokeback Mountain, Munich, and the fact that, four and a half years after 9/11, we have yet to see a major motion picture that envisions Middle Eastern Islamists as actual enemies.

Dreamworks has just been sold to Paramount. As The Daily Telegraph in London reported:

“Dreamworks, founded in 1994, has had a series of costly flops this year despite its early successes with blockbusters such as American Beauty and Saving Private Ryan.�

Hmm. Steven Spielberg’s studio is going out in style, with Munich—a film about the PLO’s murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. As the great director sees it, the problem is “intransigenceâ€� on both sides, which has led to a tragic “cycle of violenceâ€�. “A response to a response doesn’t really solve anything,â€� he says. “There’s been a quagmire of blood for blood for many decades in that region. Where does it end?â€�

Bye, bye, Steven. That’s why we have “culture wars�: Those who fancy themselves of an artistic bent recoil almost reflexively from the “simplistic�, and so they take refuge in a sophistry that is itself laughably simplistic. The average joe rightly recognizes this as a crock. In my experience Americans aren’t particularly pre-disposed toward Jews, but at a basic level they get the difference between the two sides – as Leon Wieseltier puts it, “the death of innocents was an Israeli mistake but a Palestinian objective�. So all the artful symmetries Spielberg and his screenwriter Tony Kushner find between the men who killed the athletes and the men who killed the athlete-killers ring false to most of the potential audience. After all, even as the film was opening, the President of Arafatistan, Abu Mazen, was signing off on a new law that rewards suicide bombers by providing a lifelong welfare check to their relicts. That’s the difference.

Likewise, there are millions of Americans who reckon Islamism is a psychotic death cult with nothing to commend it, least of all if you happen to be a woman or a gay or an “artist�, none of which liberal-approved groups prospered under Taliban rule.

If you’re making ten straight cowboy movies, a gay one’s neither here nor there. Similarly, if you’ve made ten movies in which Jake Gyllenhaal or Heath Ledger kick terrorist butt from here to Peshawar, there’s plenty of room for a contrarian take in which it turns out to be the stewardesses who pulled off 9/11. But, in a conflict that’s already lasted longer than America’s participation in World War Two, Hollywood still can’t bring itself to make a film in which America’s heroes whump America’s enemies. That’s just lousy business sense.

Which is one reason why Dreamworks flopped. Dreams may work, but hallucinations don’t. And so Spielberg’s no longer a mogul and his company is a subsidiary of Paramount – the non-brokeback mountain. Yet.

Read the whole thing (link here; it's the third article down).

Mr. and Mrs. Insty Present

. . . another his-and-hers podcast! This one focuses on Iranian politics and nuclear danger. Guests are Austin Bay and Strategy Page's Jim Dunnigan.

I can feel my resolve on the podcast front weakening.

But, you know: if I listen to podcasts, I might be tempted to create 'em myself, which means I'd be spending even more time messing around with computers and my house would be filthier, if that's even possible.

Micheal Yon Escapes Blogspot!

He's now settled into nicer, more spacious digs, so be sure to drop by, and bookmark the new location.

And his latest dispatch is in: this one focuses on Operation Iraqi Children, the first private charity Yon has fully endorsed since he started this important work.

Pour a fresh cup of coffee, and prepare to start feeling good about what private American citizens are accomplishing in Iraq, with the support of soldiers, Marines, and Coalition allies.

Disclosure: Most of you know that I'm a freelance copyeditor—not that it shows when you read the free-association contained in this blog.

/obligatory statement from the Bloggers' Ethical Code

Be a Man!

There's a fascinating book out by a woman named Norah Vincent, about her experience cross-living [dressing as a male, and taking on a male persona] for some months. It contains tremendous insight into some of the issues men cope with day after day.

Insty plucks out some of her observations on the heterosexual dating scene from "the other side," and receives e-mail from some tired veterans of the gender wars.

Male, female, gay, or straight—we've all just got to be nicer to each other.

Little Miss Attila

. . . has no comment to make at this time.

Eating with Mr. Linguistics

. . . can be interesting. Once in a while we'll be at a place that actually serves booze. So as I drink wine, I can watch him consuming vodka. He will keep up with me, even if I have a second glass of wine. I don't mean that he has a shot of vodka for each glass I drink. I mean that he can literally stay the course, ounce for ounce. Without slurring his words at the end of the meal. I mean, he's built like a football player, but it's still interesting to behold.

The last time it happened I remarked on it: that for each glass of wine I consumed, he'd had the equivalent amount of hard liquor.

"Oh, yes," he conceded. "But then, I'm much bigger than you are."

True enough. I saw a gleam in his eyes, however. The barest sort of enigmatic look. I read it as "you have no idea what I'm thinking about. It might be vodka, but it could even be something like sex." It was that amused, aloof look males like to assume.

And I know him better than anyone. He was thinking about vodka.

Every Once in a While,

I think, "you know? Beautiful Atrocities has a sort of jaundiced view of large segments of Islam."

Then I figure I'm just reading him wrong.

My Husband Gets to See Prozac in Action

We're discussing our upcoming travel plans: his trip to Chicago, my trip to D.C. and Maryland.

"I think I can make that party we were discussing," he remarks. "As long as I get an early flight on my way back."

I can't believe I'm hearing this. If he has extra time that day, he should be seeing his relatives in Chicago—not my friends in L.A. Sometimes he's so self-sacrificing, I just want to punch him.

"No," I reply. "That's stu . . . I wonder if it might be wiser to see these people at a different time, so you can rest up from your trip. You know: not go right from travel to a social engagement."

Marriage is all about compromise: he knows I'm trying to protect him from overreaching as he trains for his next athletic event. So he pretends not to notice that I almost called him "stupid," supposedly for his own good. I mean, I may be a shrew, but I'm a particularly well-meaning one.

I sometimes wonder if the entire male population of the planet got together and bribed Attila the Hub into marrying me, to keep them from falling into that trap.

That would be cool. It would mean we have money stashed away somewhere.

The Promise of Organization

. . . resides here.

I don't want to read websites about getting organized: I want to read books about it. Books on de-cluttering my home. Magazine articles discussing same.

I lounge around at the end of the day, surrounded by manuals on overcoming clutter. They make little piles around my reading chair. I'm safe within them.

As I absorb their helpful hints and suggestions I get a warm sort of glow. I realize my clutter problem is manageable, and it makes me drowsy in a happy fashion.

I go off to bed.

Every week I clear the piles from around the chair, stashing them among my crime books or political tomes, where they sort of glare at me with their beady little eyes. Hell hath no fury like that of a sorting sytem scorned.

* * *

Every several months I eat lunch with She Who Will Not Practice Law. There's a great little health food cafe in the valley that serves yummy vegetarian takes on traditional food from around the world: Spanikopita. Burritos. Spicy soup. Lasagne. We often split something, or sometimes SWWNPL has coupons so we can get a "two for one" deal. I usually order rice milk with lunch, because rice is The Best Food On The Entire Planet.

And we generally go shopping after lunch: at the nearby plant nursery, or in the thrift shop. Or at Costco. If time is short we just bum around in the health food store, looking at the organic cosmetics and expensive quasi-Eastern lifestyle stuff: the candles. The yoga mats. You know.

One such time she caught sight of Karen Kingston's book, Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui.

"I have that book," she remarked.

"So do I," I replied.

"But can you actually find it in your home?"

"Nope," I responded. "I might need to buy another copy."

How Come All My Friends

. . . are so freakin' weird?

Oh. Wait . . .

"No One Can Make the Threat of Nuclear War Funny."

Not so. One man can. He lives in the Rocky Mountains, by the way.

Still Planning My Trip to the East Coast.

I bought another knit hat today, and some gloves. But I'm still intimidated by the idea of going somewhere in the middle of February that has Real Weather.

My rational mind tries to point out that I lived in Maryland for a few years as a kid, and it wasn't bad at all. In fact as a little girl I wanted it to be colder, so I could experience the glamour of snow more than 2-3 days a year.

But I had to hurry into the mall today, due to the fact that I was wearing flip-flops. I don't usually wear flip-flops during the day, but the client I was working for is extremely stingy with the air conditioning, so I have to dress very lightly for that gig.

And I'm just intimidated as all get-out by a capital city that appears to have been placed where it is for the sole purpose of freezing my little feet right off of me.

Why isn't CPAC in Florida? I can do Florida: it's a bit damp, but manageable.

I'd better go. I'm giving myself a complex, as if I don't have enough of those.

It's Always Better

. . . to be over-challenged vs. under-challenged. At least, it is for me.

Out to see a client today, but I'll be extra-brilliant tonight to make up for it.

xxoo,

Joy

Those of You Who Are Looking for a Good Christian Porn Site

. . . are in luck.

As the Old Man Would Say,

"what an uppity gender."

So.

Should I be reading about the Singularity, or will it just make my head hurt?

I think I'll wait until someone puts out a graphic novel about it. That sounds less threatening.

You Know,

a lot of theological arguments appear to come down to, "is/was Jesus a prig, or not?"

I suspect it's clear where I stand on this issue.

Attention: Retired Military Personnel

Michael Yon is calling for volunteers to screen articles written by soldiers/Marines overseas (and presumably by airmen and sailors who have compelling stories that will not compromise operations in the telling).

The idea is to form a committee to fact-check this material, and verify that it's safe to share with Yon's massive readership.

As you know, the legacy media is not giving us a balanced view of our operations in Iraq (in particular), and in the past we've relied on the milbloggers for the real story. When Michael Yon began his online magazine, it filled the gap between unverified first-person stories and gloom/doom from the MSM.

If you have the background, and a little extra time, you can make a difference in this war by contributing to quality journalism that hasn't been filtered through the left-wing media.

The Varieties of Machismo

There are endless variations, really:

• Among my high-school crowd, it had to do with how many digits of Pi one had memorized;

• Within my evangelical crowd, it's a matter of how quickly one can come up with a chapter and verse from Scripture, given its content;

• When I'm with my husband's friends, the goal appears to be coming up with that one line of the evening that has a roomful of jaded people laughing out loud;

• Some men appear to think it has to do with how much money they make, and this is the dullest kind of macho out there;

• With my gay male friends it's often "who has the nicest home?" (And, please: do not tell me gay men aren't macho. That's an urban myth. It's just a bit subtler: men are men, whether they're gay or straight.)

• Among bloggers, it all comes down to 1) traffic, and 2) whether you've actually made a dollar or two off of this bad habit, or might be likely to.

Run, Condi, Run

Over at Althouse's digs, commenter Earnest writes, regarding the possibility of a Condi candidacy:

Mehlman is continuing his work reaching out to African-Americans. Steele is running in Maryland for Senator. Swann for Governor in Pennsylvania. The slightest shift in the African American vote in these and other must need states for the Democrats, like Michigan and Wisconsin, spell absolutely defeat for the Dems.Thanks to Alito and the tactics Kennedy took in his questioning the Italian Catholic vote on the Eastern seaboard is also prime for the splitting. Condi is the dramatic and final nail in the Dem's coffin. The best part of all this, is that the South will pull for Condi in a big way. The Dems won't know what hit them, and the fact that they consider the Republican party rabid racists and women-haters just gives the Republicans more time and space to spring the trap.

Yup. You got it.

Via this week's hero.

Finally.

Desert Cat says what we're all thinking.

Goodbye, Shelley Winters.

To me, you'll always be the feisty lady in The Poseidan Advanture, but I'll go back and see the movies you made as the Blonde Bombshell. Every single one of them.

WaPo has a nice bio here.

"The Most Important Issue of Our Day

. . . is being decided right now," he tells me. "And people are oblivious."

"What's the issue?" I ask.

"The limits of Executive Power. The relationship between Congress and the President. I care about that much more than I care about abortion."

This clarified things for me enormously, because I had thought the big issues of the day were things like:
1) whether/how Israel will survive;
2) whether parts of Asia or the Middle East were going to be annihilated in a nuclear war;
3) whether terrorists would succeed in taking out both the White House and the Capitol building at the same time, thereby effectively decapitating the government of the United States as the 9/11 terrorists attempted to do;
4) whether Europe would remain Western and liberal in its outlook, or whether it would instead be overtaken by the unenlightened segment of it growing Muslim populations, and
5) just how much bloodshed there would be in the growing conflict between Islamism and Western-style liberalism.

But, no. Apparently the issue is that Bush is packing the Supreme Court with justices who will give him a little bit of latitude in fighting this war, though he hasn't approached the liberties FDR took with the system—much less those Abraham Lincoln felt forced to take in keeping the Union together.

Wow. Are They Doing It On Purpose?

From the New York Times:

Few Democrats or analysts said they thought that Judge Alito's nomination could ever be blocked. "It may be a mistake to think that their failure demonstrates that they necessarily did something wrong," said Richard H. Fallon, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School. "As long as most of the pubic will settle for evasive or uninformative answers, maybe there was nothing that they could have done to get Alito to make a major error."

Amazing. Apparently, Ruth Bader Ginsberg just appeared on the Supreme Court one day, like Venus on the half-shell. Or Fallon had a dream in which she answered the sorts of questions Alito didn't.

Or, most likely: nominees appointed by Democrats should be rubber-stamped no matter how ideologically extreme they are, whereas Republicans' nominees must be grilled.

The "Ginsberg rule," in other words, only applies to nominees who are "within the judicial mainstream." And the mainstream is, of course, leftist.

Paging Alice in Wonderland . . .

The Best Way to Deprogram Yourself

. . . is never to join the cult in the first place. There is a Yahoo group set up specifically to answer questions people might have about the R.L. Hymers "church." It's even open to members of the cult who might wonder what they're getting into—or how to get out.

The former Hymerites' experience spans at least two decades of the cult's existence. (I should say, "the cults' existence," since Bob Hymers keeps changing the name of his group. His cults were/are, in order: Maranatha Chapel, The Open Door Community Churches, The Fundamentalist Army, and now the Baptist Tabernacle, aka "oh, a church near the Staples Center.")

Naturally, the Old Man Stopped by Today.

(No, I'm not in biker chick mode: I mean my father.)

He feels that the quality of my blogging has degenerated drasticallly since my Blogspot days, and that all this stuff about my uterus and whatever meds I'm on is not very interesting. He'd like me to 1) get back to writing about politics, and 2) be funny again.

I feel like Woody Allen, here.

Dad, thanks for your input. I'm afraid that I weigh the wishes of readers who stop in multiple times a week just a bit more heavily than parents who show up every few months whether they need to or not.

However, there is one dirty little secret in the world of media that you should probably know about: publishers generally outrank editors. In other words, the people who make business decisions have more clout than those who make creative decisions. This can create ruptures in the theoretical wall between advertising and editorial.

So at present, I'm doing what I like. Buy an ad or hit my tip jar, and your opinion will might become meaningful.

Might.

Sheesh. He is really one of the two Most Annoying People in the World.

Let's Say I Overheard This

Blogger: Hi, Dad. How are you?

Blogger's Father: Passive-aggressive.

Blogger: No; I meant, what's new?

Blog Business

1) Someone should pick up my left-hand premium slot ("Little Miss Attila Gold"). This particular position has been very successful in the past for clients such as Americans for Rice and Conservative Thinking.

2) I'm making arrangements for my trip to DC, so please "renew" your "subscription" by hitting my tip jar (the Paypal button at left). Your cash donations will help to pay for:

• a red-eye flight to the East Coast;

• peanut butter, jelly and bread, hidden away in my hotel room to keep me from wasting away in the nation's foremost Fat Metropolis;

• one overpriced gin and tonic at the hotel (I'm trying to make my budget realistic).

If you're conservative, I'm going to D.C. to help the cause. If you're a liberal, I'm going to "fight from the inside." Either way, the world will be a better place with me covering CPAC. Gas prices will be lower, birds will sing, and your spouse will be available for nearly nonstop sex.

Thanks.

Your Mouth Says Diplomacy,

but your eyes say military action.

What a Fascinating Notion.

Goldstein's covering the confirmation hearings, and he's on more drugs than usual.

It's not like my uterus has ever done me any good, other than garner strange praise from OB-GYNs, who get oddly enthusiastic about my reproductive organs, despite the fact that I've never truly exploited their potential.

So the uterus-as-accessory idea might be the way to go.

After Nearly Three Years

. . . this was rather lovely.

And it's early in the day.

Glenn was gentle; I think he knew it was my first time.

Robbo

. . . has some ideas for how to bring some depth and intelligence to the Alito confirmation hearings.

Visually Bitchin' Websites

What are your favorites? I've got someone putting together a bare-bones site for me—so Spartan, in fact, that we may make it a single page in the beginning.

This is strictly for Joy McCann, mild-mannered copyeditor and fact-checker, rather than Little Miss Attila. (And, yes: the business is staying under my own name for the time being. Long story.)

I'd like the final design to use a little gray, but also feature some saturated color. Any favorite sites that highlight interesting shades of orange, purple, green, or blue?

Because I like to demand the impossible, I want it to be as dignified as my business card, but a bit edgier (hence the polychromatic splashes).

As you know, the links in my comments section sometimes don't work, so you might want to place the full URL there--and/or give me a name, so I can Google the site or blog you're discussing.

Okay. I'm Officially Worried.

Volokh has weighed in on the "troll law."

Is It Possible

. . . that Boner of Zion is a self-hating Jew? Just askin'.

The extra IQ points and inch of penis . . . are nice, but overall—meh.

No freakin' ethnic pride.

Circa 1955, one of my mother's college-era boyfriends pointed out that she was "too smart not to be Jewish." She was flattered at the time, but the first time I heard about this I was OUTRAGED!*

Now I think it's freakin' hilarious.

* Has Goldstein copyrighted this? I should check.

Insty

. . . links to his/the InstaWife's podcast interview of Evan Coyne Maloney, the thinking teenybopper's heartthrob.

The topics? Maloney's masterwork, Brainwashing 101, which I've seen separate digests of for two consecutive years at The Liberty Film Festival, and Dead Meat, On the Fence Films' damning—and darkly hilarious—piece on Canadian health care. Stuart Browning took the lead on Dead Meat, upstaging Maloney for a change and proving that the talent at On the Fence is evenly distributed. (It was also shown at the Liberty Film Festival; please click the "On the Fence" link above to see portions of either movie.)

I'd listen to the podcast, but I'm a Luddite and afraid that technology will hurt me or bring space aliens to earth or something. Also, I'm boycotting Glenn until he links me.

UPDATE: See? He couldn't handle the pressure! I withheld my 400+ hits a day until he gave in.

(Thank you, Glenn.)

The Blessings Never Cease

1) Goldstein appears to have given up all those big words.

2) He's now writing about The Rockford Files, which was the best. Show. Ever.

Back in the Saddle Again

I spent yesterday at my blue-collar job—the home-renovation gig—applying artistic finishes to various surfaces and manipulating my boss into giving me advice about the colors I intend to use in my hall bathroom.

My breakfast-while-carpooling solution: 1) I finally shelled out a whole four dollars for a mult-compartment plastic vacuum bottle at my local supermarket. I make instant oatmeal in the bottom compartment, and use the small top compartment for "fruit compote" that consists of microwaved canned fruit cocktail. The thermos has no metal or glass in it, so I don't know how effective it would be for, say, soup. But it only has to keep the oatmeal warm for an hour or so, until I'm on the freeway with my friends. It's perfect, and it isn't even marketed as a "food thermos"; it thinks it's for coffee in the main compartment and oatmeal in the little one. But even the apparently-superfluous drinking cup part works; it serves as a clean place to set the bottom of the compote container while I eat oatmeal out of the main compartment.
2) A supermarket blueberry bagel, made into a cream-cheese sandwich and cut in half, is a nice little carb boost. I packed it along so I wouldn't be subject to the temptation to order from Noah Bagels when we got to Manhatten Beach. Half of it, I ate during my mid-morning break; the other half, I consumed on the way home to overcome the temptations of Starbucks Stop #2. (I am on-board with Starbucks Stop #1, but that's four dollars by the time I've put a tip in the jar. That's all I'm willing to spend these days.)

I made myself, through sheer force of will, attend my publishing group meeting last night because I said I'd give a short presentation and I wanted to honor that promise. Naturally, I heard the most interesting keynote presentation there that I've witnessed in my two years with these people, and I got the names of two hot prospects for my editing business.

That improved my mood enormously, and at the end of the day, after checking my e-mail, I curled up in my clothes to sleep in my computer nest here on the loveseat in by the dining room. When I woke up, I got into bed and crashed without so much as taking my bra off; I was tired.

I'm a pretty happy camper this morning. Sleep is the most fabulous invention in human history—so much better than the wheel, it isn't even funny.

So, on-duty here for a few hours with some computer tasks and housework, and then it's off to the doctor for a checkup. Client A at my editing business is up in the afternoon.

I'm that happy kind of busy.

I Wish You Guys Weren't So Obsessed

. . . with Robert L. Hymers; you're embarassing yourselves.

Here's a nice little meditative essay on a tract R.L. Hymers wrote regarding the dangers of Halloween.

"We're not laughing with death," the author declares. "We're laughing at it.

R.L. Hymers Update

For those who have been tracking the process as I explore my "cult" years, there's information at the livejournal of a gentleman named Doxa that may prove illuminating. It appears that Bob Hymers' group, the Baptist Tabernacle, has become even more twisted as time has gone by.

You might turn the volume down on your computer before you go, if you find—as I do—that music is hard to read to if it contains words. (Of course, it could be that I'm the only baby boomer who cannot cope with background music in that way. I can live with that.)

• Doxa on the Hymerites' clumsy "outreach"; we discover that cell phones are the work of the devil;

• A friend of Doxa's finds out that clothes make the woman;

• Doxa strategizes about how to politely make Ileana Hymers go away.

Virginia Woolf: "I thought about how unpleasant it was to be locked out. Then I thought about how much worse it was to be locked in."

[I'm paraphrasing, but I believe I'm awfully close. Anyone who wants to find the quotation in Room of One's Own should fact-check my ass, here. Thanks.]

Long Poems

The Rubaiyat kicked my ass; I could never remember what order the verses are in.

I had The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock at one time, but I'd have to study it again to get the various parts in their proper order and recite the whole thing.

The Highwayman was a standoff; I had it for all intents and purposes, but not quite at the recitation level; I'd always stumble a bit.

And, of course, I still have at least a couple of Shakepearean speeches; I can do Hamlet's soliliquy or Antony's oration from Julius Ceasar without sweating.

But Xanadu is mine until I die. I found out the other day when Attila the Hub was testing his new phone and told me to "talk, and keep talking."

He waited for me to take a breath after "ancestral voices prophesying war," and then broke in to joke about how much Kubla's men had accomplished that day. This was his way of telling me the phone worked, and he didn't need to hear the rest. So I hung up and finished the rest myself, under my breath.

Ask to hear it when I'm on my deathbed, and you'll get an earful.

But don't ask me for my friends' phone numbers, okay? Those are in the phone, where they belong.

Has Anyone Out There Ever Known

. . . a member of MENSA who was actually smart?

Just curious.

The Zen of Blonde Jokes

Jeff has a great one.

I Was Considering

. . . asking my doctor for a Wellbutrin prescription, to balance out the Prozac. But, you know—what was I thinking? I must have been on drugs. Jeff's idea is much better.

Gin-Blogging.

Wow. I've been away from Bombay Sapphire for a while now, just drinking plain Tanqueray. But Sapphire was on sale, so I bought a little. I was probably still drinking mini-dirty martinis last time I had Sapphire around, but its strong gin taste is a bit much for a gin and tonic. I deliberately make them pretty weak, with no more than an ounce of gin in each, and the Bombay has a rather uneasy truce going with the tonic and lime: it's as if it wants to be in a martini. I see why I was fond of it at one time: the juniper taste can knock you over if you let your guard down.

I need a lot of hydration these days, so I'm not too interested in martinis. Still, I should have one more while the Bombay is still in the house. The stuff just begs to be mixed up with a little vermouth and olive brine. Who am I to argue?

Traffic.

Pretty hot for a Saturday; thank you, Cold Fury. (Yes, this is the first time I've paid for an outside ad; they are awfully cost-effective over there. I decided to buy their inexpensive ads, so I can continue charging an arm and a leg for mine. You should buy one of mine, now. Or I won't have a happy 2006, and it'll be all your fault.)

"Look How Clever I Am,"

I remark gleefully to my mother. "I got a bleach stain on my favorite black cords. See here, where it used to be? And I filled it in with a black marker. You can't even tell."

"Yup," she agrees. "It looks fine. Sometimes I have to do that, too."

I put the pants back in the drawer. "You know, theoretically, one shouldn't ever buy clothes that aren't either white or black."

"Don't be silly," she replies. "You can buy clothes that are in any color at all, so long as you have a pen in that same color."

It's not often that I have such a pure appreciation for my mother's genius.

Well, This Kind of Freaks Me Out.

I live in the U.S., and I had the idea that there were certain last names that granted one a license to more or less unlimited drink and lechery, and automatically excuse any consequences related thereto.

Oh, Those Airheaded Brits.

Jeff of BA seems slightly irritated at the scandal that erupted when Britain's Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association suggested that Islam was homophobic, a statement I cannot see as anything but empirically true, but caused an outcry for its putative bigotry.

In a letter that starts, "Dear Stupid British Homos," he reminds us that

While you queens have been frauleining about gay marriage, homos under barmy Islam have been crushed, hung, stoned, & beheaded. I notice that 60% of British Muslims want Shariah law. Have you seen their birthrate compared to non-Muslim Brits? Maybe GLHA should start running more timely articles like Scaffold-Proof Hair Mousse & Fabulous Accessories from Neck to Toe!

George Bernard Shaw, that pacifist flaneur, said if the Nazis landed, he'd welcome them as tourists. New flash, sisters: the tourists are already in the house. Under Shariah, you'll really be giving head, & not in a good way.

And I could say the same for a lot of idiotic quasi-feminist chicks, who don't quite seem to realize it's hard to live up to your human potential when you're denied education, beaten, kept under house arrest, swaddled in a desert clime, and occasionally murdered for the crime of having been raped.

Dear Israel,

This would be the perfect time to bomb Iran back to the pre-nuclear age; they won't be expecting it just now.

Love,

Joy

Would everyone stop looking at me like that?

Well.

My mood swings were more violent than usual yesterday; I went from being giddily happy to cranky as hell, secretly hoping someone would cross me so I could eviscerate them.

Part of it probably comes from writing about some of my experiences as a teenager, and letting a few emotional genies out of that bottle. Some of the rest is probably the letdown I experience after spending time with my mother, since she often absorbs a lot of emotional energy.

And the rest, I must conclude, has to do with hormones. It usually makes me edgier when I realize that I'm edgy for female-specific biochemical reasons—and that's the reason I went back on the pill for a time—but I'm just not interested in taking any more drugs than I absolutely have to right now. Besides, I'd like to track my menopausal progress.

So I'll have to learn to surf this particular wave. Preferably without maiming any of my near and dear.

Other Survivors of the R.L. Hymers Cult

. . . seem to be concerned that he not take in any more innocent people with his warped execution of (otherwise conventional) Christianity.

And from the caption on the photo, it looks like they're, well, annoyed at him.

Wallpaper!

Professor Purkinje used to like to talk about how he was lied to when he was young: "all my life I was told that science was really, really hard, and getting a girl pregnant was really, really easy. It turns out that science is really, really easy, and getting my wife pregnant was really, really hard."

Ditto on the getting pregnant part. Sheesh.

But the other thing I've been lied to about is wallpaper. For years people have told me that getting wallpaper off of walls is really, really hard. And not only is it easy, it's also rather fun.

All this floral crap on my walls is toast.

I Know Everyone's Going to Get Bent Out of Shape,

but they shouldn't.

Just think of North Korea and Iran as very large aspirin factories.

Hat tip: one of my former comrades-in-cultism.

Defending the Legacy Media

An editorial by a friend of mine who leans leftward and might be regarded as a present-day conventional liberal (as opposed to those like Dean Esmay, Jeff Goldstein, and this author, who call themselves classical liberals).

Terrible news about the miners in West Virginia. I was awake, of course, and watching when CNN broke the news that initial stories of twelve survivors were wrong and, in fact, there was only one survivor. Over on MSNBC, they were running tape of an eariler press conference on the subject, and on FOX a panel of conservatives were assuring each other that the scandals surrounding the White House and Republican congressmen weren't really scandals and wouldn't affect the Administration or the Republican grip on Congress.

Only CNN was live. Only CNN had the story. An astonished Anderson Cooper broke the news of a single survivor after a women ran down from the Baptist Church where miner's families were gathered and blurted the distressing news to him.

The New York newspapers, which are put to bed before 3 a.m., when the news of the "miscommunication" broke, all ran headlines like "ALIVE" (the New York Daily News).

But again, experience and class tells. The New York Times ran the story saying that families had told them twelve miners were alive, but they (the Times) were unable to confirm it. It seems the other papers published the news as fact, whereas the Times did not.

CNN and The New York Times take it in the balls about every fifteen minutes on FOX and conservative talk radio, where they are called un-American, pro-terrorist and things even more vile. They are favorite targets of the Right wingnuts. It's all bullshit, of course.

Last night, CNN and the New York Times showed why they are the preeminent news sources, world-wide. They are the best at what they do, and the fact that they're not perfect detracts not one whit from that.

I'll remind everyone here that this friend of mine has been very kind to me in a lot of ways. So, sticking to the facts, how would you begin to quantify the degree of error in various news sources? If you accept the premise that we all want to believe what we want to believe—and would prefer to get our information from organs that share our respective slants—how would you cast doubt on either my friend's conviction about the New York Times, or my own?

How Fun.

I hate to admit it, but I love to watch the ever-changing Google graphics. As a matter of fact, that's one disadvantage to being a Mac user: being able to access Google directly from the browser means we sometimes miss the "illo du jour."

Today it was even funner than usual (copy editors may use words such as "funner"; civilians, of course, are forbidden to do so):

I must admit that it took me a moment to figure out what it was, but after I looked at the two o's, I knew. It's in honor of Louis Braille's birthday. Here's more.

UPDATE: In the comments section at the above link, one reader produced this braille key.

That's one of those things I'm happy to pay taxes for, by the way: services to the blind.

Jeff Percifield:

Fearless mythbuster.

The Things We Do for Drugs

More depressing news: a young actor, Lillo Brancato, Jr., took part in what he claims he thought was a small crime: breaking and entering. A gun battle ensued, and another man was killed. Says Brancato:

“If I would have known, I wouldn’t have allowed him in my car,� Brancato said. “Imagine, we get pulled over and I get caught with an armed felon in my car. Since I’ve been in the movies, it would have instantly drawn attention.�

Brancato said he might take the witness stand at trial to tell the jury “how horrible I feel about my stupidity.�

Stephen at Crime Blog wonders about Brancato's sincerity; I wonder how plausible it was that he attempted to burglarize an occupied apartment on the understanding that he and his accomplice were unarmed.

The motive? Apparently drug-related.

I know Jeff Harrell took a lot of grief for this impassioned post about the evils of addiction to drugs. I gave him some grief myself. And I'm still a libertarian who thinks a lot of the secondary evils of drug use will disappear if they are legalized. But the kernel of truth in Jeff's diatribe is this: no food junkie or television junkie or credit card junkie ever killed someone else by accident in pursuit of their chosen compulsion.

We cannot say the same about either alcohol or street drugs (though perhaps, accounting for crimes of passion, we can say it about sex and love addiction).

There is no cost-free public policy to be had, one way or the other.

Fear of Painting

I don't know what my problem is. I shouldn't have a hangup about house paint, but it does seem to trigger that weird hand-wringing behavior. This is the sort of thing I see in my mother: she can make the important decisions. But small choices drive her to distraction, because she's afraid of getting beaten up over having done The Wrong Thing. For good reason, because as soon as she does something she beats herself up for it.

Oddly, this leads to moments of paralysis.

When I was 15 or 16 I painted my bedroom, and it was great. It had always been an awful dark yellow color, and I found a nice off-white that had some yellow in it (no, I don't think it was Navajo white, but it was likely similar--it reflected the light in a room that generally received only filtered light).

Ordinarily I can chant The Mantra: if you don't like it, you can always change it. It can be painted over. Painted over. Painted over.

But in this house I have wallpaper in nearly every room. With two exceptions I despise the patterns, but I haven't quite had the courage to take it down. I've even considered trying to paint over the wallpaper, since a small fringe minority of home-improvement people claim it can be done. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and I eventually realized that the only path to nice walls went right through the valley of nasty solvents, weird tools, and tremendous amounts of elbow grease. After which I would have to climb Mount Decision, where the paint samples live, and get married to pick a color.

It's finally happening in the hall bathroom. There's a little seam that's been lifting a bit, so a corner has peeled up ever so slightly. It's near the floor, barely noticeable. But I've known it was there. It's been there for months.

Yesterday I took that corner and just started pulling. The top layer of the wallpaper peeled right up, leaving a material reminiscent of drywall. I'll be cleaning the rest of this up papery stuff up with solvent and a scraper.

Today I bought to small paint samples. I'll clean up a section on each of the walls and paint a few large patches. Then when my color consultant comes over to help me make the final pick, I'll have an idea where I'm going with this. I'm thinking of a sponging effect, or a combing effect. Or even the walls in my main color with my accent color as a stencil around the edges. I guess I'll have to get a third color for the molding in any event.

But in that first moment, when you take a corner of the horrid floral wallpaper and just tug, there's no deluding yourself that "if it doesn't work, I'll just do it over." After all, some poor soul was hired by the previous owners to accomplish something exquisitely that—to my mind—should never have been done in the first place. And I'm undoing all his/her work.

My first act of vandalism—the peeling, the tearing, the "no turning back"—horrified me at first, until I saw how much better the walls looked without that cluttered, annoying pattern on 'em.

"Time to murder and create." I'm ready.

I Wonder

. . . if I'm going through menopause. I'm definitely not pregnant, and I haven't taken the pill in 6-8 weeks or so.

Nothing. No hot flashes. No cramping. No achey boobs. Zip.

And I'm 43.

What if this is one of those strange areas of my life wherein I just experience dumb luck out of nowhere? To tell you the truth, I'm kind of ready for it.

UPDATE: Spoke too soon. My uterus is saying hello, so I've taken a few Tylenol and await the red tide tomorrow. I hate chicks who complain about this stuff, so I'll just point out that I got my first period at the age of 14, and over the past 29 years the novelty value has worn off. It turns out the whole thing is rather inconvenient.

And, no: a few free lunches/dinners haven't really made up the difference. Not as a practical matter.

(Hey, boyz: do I need to flag these posts? Should there be an "icky girl stuff" warning, as K uses? Please advise.)

Please Keep in Mind

. . . that when I say "fuck the Palestinians," I do not mean anything like "fuck every person who lives in 'Palestine.'" There are innocents there, being exploited by those who are determined to see Israel brought down.

So, fuck the Palestinians, and fuck every anti-Jewish asshole who is using the situation to serve his or her agenda.

Fuck those who use suffering of others to produce further bloodshed.

(By the way, I had a resolution going to clean up my language here, but I'm furious. And I hope to stay that way, because when I stop being angry sometimes I just want to sink to my knees and sob for the human race. So hard Anglo-Saxon syllables it is.)

Did You Fill Out My Reader Survey?

Please do so.

And for the question that has to do with "how did you first hear about Little Miss Attila," please do not reply:

• We shared a pitcher of Sangria at Bicyle Shop Cafe in the 80s; you were sooooo fucked up.

or

• I had a wild, yet longstanding affair with your husband before he was your husband.

or

• I lost my virginity to you.

Thank you for following these guildelines.

White-on-Black, Black-on-Black

It doesn't seem to matter: persecution of black Republicans continues. I had heard that my friend Ted Hayes was getting kicked off the land he's been using as a village for the homeless downtown, but I hadn't realized that it was because of his association with the Party of Lincoln until I went to Goldstein's site today.

Bigotry against Republicans is a tragedy in the world today. And I'm dead serious: I had to take the Bush bumper sticker off my car. Not because of the honking and getting flipped off in traffic; I can certainly handle that. The problem was, it was costing me jobs in "tolerant" Los Angeles.

The Ladies of the Cotillion

Are determined to make New Year's Day last all week long! Today, the North American Patriot hosts our special New Year's Cotillion Ball.

Drop on by and see what the smartest babes in the 'sphere think and feel about the issues of the day. (All but me: I'm shallowly asking for more participation in my Reader Survey, which will enable me to become the Blog Tycoon I was always meant to be. I mean, it's painfully clear that I'll end up as the William Randolph Hearst of New Media, so I'd best get started now. Hey--want to buy an ad? It's cheap!)

More on the R.L. Hymers Cult

Wow. I'm getting a lot of responses to my post on R.L. Hymers—some in the comments section, and some via e-mail.

If what I'm hearing is correct, Dr. Hymers' efforts to control the lives of young people has changed a little in its focus, but not at all in its intensity.

Apparently, these days Bob Hymers' church, the Baptist Tabernacle of Los Angeles, is using different techniques to indoctrinate people into his brand of Christianity. As I've said before, my argument with his approach is not a doctrinal/theological one; I will leave those types of arguments to people who are qualified. My concerns have to do with the methods he and his wife, Ileana Hymers, use to gain followers: methods which mirror those of cults so closely as to be indistinguishable, as a practical matter.

Have You Drilled ANWR Today?

Scary news from Europe. I suspect Russia will eventually accept the notion of phasing in market prices for natural gas in Ukraine, but we do well to remember the risks associated with excessive energy dependence.

I gotta go; I'm building a nuclear reactor in my backyard. I'd like to live-blog it, but it turns out I have to concentrate a bit. Also, there's no place to set down my gin & tonic, so I borrowed one of those "runner's water backpacks" from my husband: the G&T is in the main chamber of the pack, and a tube comes around to my mouth, so I can more or less keep rehydrating as I go. Very healthy.

Packing Lunches

I still don't know how many days a week I'll be doing my cool blue-collar job—or how long, overall, it will last—so I don't want to invest in it, but I'm looking for small things to make the days easier, such as:

1) A child's watch--one I don't mind getting paint on. Problem is, most of the little boys' watches that appeal to me cost $17 and I'm not willing to pay more that $5, or $10 at the outside. (I did see one $5 watch, but it was too big for my wrist. I suspect I'll be out at Wal-Mart this week, so I might see something there or at Target (which is a block away; how cool is that?).

2) Better breakfast and lunch equipment. I've been buying bagels on job-site mornings, but I can't afford those luscious poppy-seed bagel sandwiches from Noah's forever. I can get supermarket bagels (blueberry are the best), and put cream cheese on 'em myself, but I'm still not progressing up the health ladder that way. I'd like to get a small insulated food jar, and take oatmeal in that. I've seen recipes for making oatmeal overnight in the wide-mouth thermos itself, but I think that might be packed away with my Tightwad Gazette books. The other possibility is finally breaking down and getting a Crock-Pot. I can make overnight oatmeal in that; since I can put dried fruit in it, the husband might even like to have some of it for his breakfast. (Recipes for slow-cooker oatmeal are actually abundant.)

I really like the Bento "laptop" lunch box systems, but they would be far too expensive unless I were getting a good four days a week at the job site. I do carry a satchel to work, and I might be able to carry my cold lunch on one side, with my hot breakfast oatmeal/coffee (each in a vacuum bottle) on the other side, separated by a sweatshirt.

The idea on my blue-collar mornings is to get up, make tea (in the pot), drink some, throw on clothing, and pour the rest of the tea into my insulated "travel" mug. On those days I don't carry my purse, but put a few things into my tummy pack, and everything else into my bookbag (not the nice one; the one I don't mind getting paint splatters on).

I race out the door, and get to B's house in time to carpool to the job site with him and the others. So we usually eat breakfast in the car (for me, the rest of the tea and a few store-bought muffins) until we get to the place where Starbucks and Noah bagels are next to each other. There, I refill my drink container with Chai latte, and get the expensive bagel (the one I want to replace with something cheaper and healthier).

Actually, the perfect breakfast thermos for me would have two compartments in it: I could put the oatmeal in one, and an improvised fruit compote in the other (e.g., fruit cocktail microwaved to make it warm).

So I'll be looking at Target for some of this stuff as well, as well as the tiny Japanese department store on the Westside that carries some of the nicest mult-compartment food containers I've ever seen. And those aren't pricey at all.

Obviously, share with my any box-lunch or breakfast-on-the-go wisdom you may have.

Steyn on the West's Decline

This is a hard essay to read, despite the fact that it covered some material Steyn had discussed when he gave his speech at the Claremont Institute. I can argue all day long about his tossed-off allusion to "the gay agenda," a phrase that always bothers me when I hear it, but the main thrust of his piece seems very correct to me: the West is in trouble. Europe is in trouble. And within 20 years the modern world may well consist of China, India, South America, Australia, Southern Africa, and the United States. Europe stands a very good chance of living under Sharia law by then, given the demographic changes that are afoot.

The U.S. makes babies at just the replacement rate, and most Western Democracies fall well below that minimum level. The people who appear to be producing the next generation are largely Muslims, and many of them live either in countries that reject individuality, democracy and pluralism, or in communties within European cities that do the same thing.

Europe by the end of this century will be a continent after the neutron bomb: the grand buildings will still be standing but the people who built them will be gone. We are living through a remarkable period: the self-extinction of the races who, for good or ill, shaped the modern world.

What will Europe be like at the end of this process? Who knows? On the one hand, there’s something to be said for the notion that America will find an Islamified Europe more straightforward to deal with than Monsieur Chirac, Herr Schröder, and Co. On the other hand, given Europe’s track record, getting there could be very bloody. But either way this is the real battlefield. The al Qaeda nutters can never find enough suicidal pilots to fly enough planes into enough skyscrapers to topple America. But, unlike us, the Islamists think long-term, and, given their demographic advantage in Europe and the tone of the emerging Muslim lobby groups there, much of what they’re flying planes into buildings for they’re likely to wind up with just by waiting a few more years. The skyscrapers will be theirs; why knock ’em over?

A tough read, but an important one. Please go.

UPDATE: Goldstein quotes Steyn's essay at length, in particular relating his points about our civilization's priorities to the current flap over NSA "eavesdropping."

Via Mike Marinacci, who has a new book out. If you, like I, think Marinacci should revise and reissue Mysterious California, send me a note to that effect and I'll pass it along. That's grass-roots action, Kids. There's also a rumor that he's done some research for a book on strange phenomena in the entire Southwest, which I'd personally love to read.

A New Kind of Cat Blogging

And it doesn't involve picturesat all.

Who Knew the Terminator Lacked Backbone?

Steve Frank skewers the Governor's planned hike in California's minimum wage, providing a summary of the arguments against minimum wage laws, which Larry Elder likes to point out "hurt most those they purport to help."

Apparently the plan is to increase the minimum wage in two increments, ultimately by a full dollar an hour, landing us at $7.75 an hour. As usual, this will make it harder for unskilled people—and those who are the victims of prejudice—to find work.

We know about the failure of the California education system. Over 100,000 12th graders are in jeopardy due to their inability to pass a test, at the 10th grade level in order to graduate. These will be the first victims on the altar of the raise in minimum wage.

The lessons learned from the 40's, 50's, '60's, through the '90's was still true in 2005. If you want to harm those most in need, raise the minimum wage. Of course this helps the Democrats. They believe in government control over the individual. They want poor people, that is why their policy is to keep people poor, not allow them to become self sufficient. That is why this is not a compassionate act, the raising of minimum wage, it is a crass political act of power--power over people, their money, their jobs, their families their future under freedom.

This is what we know:

1. Those on welfare are 44% less able to get off welfare
2. teenage blacks lose even more opportunity for jobs
3. The poor have fewer chances for a job
4. Studies show that only 6% of those receiving minimum wage are actually the single financial support for a family.
5. Minimum wage folks also receive free health care, can receive vouchers for food and housing, and have other support systems.

But, there is an answer. I, too, want to raise the take home pay and spendable income of the poor and least among us. You don't mandate policies that cause them to lose jobs, instead you create incentives for business to grow and therefore create competition for jobs--which causes higher wages.

Cut taxes, on sales, on income, on corporations. If the private sector is more vibrant, more jobs will occur—that is the Milton Friedman answer. Kennedy, Reagan, Bush all saw this, now Arnold needs to go back and re-read "Capitalism and Freedom."

Frank backs his assertions up not just with Milton Friedman's work, but study results, and quotations from the likes of Alan Greenspan. So be sure to read the whole thing.

Life in the Blog Lane

I feel sorry for people who don't have any good websites to go to, and have to actually schlep out to parties, dodging drunk drivers on the way home. How horrible.

Maybe I'll head over to Dean's World to see if there's any action. Or possibly Protein Wisdom. Maybe I'll drop by Gail's online salon, Scribal Terror, the ultimate hangout for insomniacs with too much brainpower to possibly be used for any practical purpose. (Unless, of course, I'm projecting; it wouldn't be the first time.)

Ah, blogging households: I alway picture the Esmays in as having at least one computer per person. I figure Dean and the Queen probably blog simultaneously—something that Attila the Hub and I have only failed to do because we keep such different hours. So when he gets up in the morning, he reads what I wrote the previous night. And at the end of the day, as I wind down, I cruise over to see what was on his mind when he took breaks from the slugging along that his work requires most days.

Not that we don't also talk to each other. We do that as well. Though we're not above sending each other little reminders and notes via e-mail. I'm secretly afraid that we're the only couple that does this from within the same dwelling. If we are, please don't tell me.

At least I'm not, you know, posting my side of each argument we have, and inviting my readers to pick sides. Why don't I do this?—well, for one thing, it would be unethical. For another, a have a lot of male readers, and I'm not positive they won't be able to see through my bullshit be blinded by their gender's team spirit, and unable to see just how right I am. Always. Right.

Are you reading this, Honey? They agree with me. I'm right, and you're wrong. Not that there's anything wrong with being wrong. It only makes you . . . wrong.

[No, I haven't even gotten halfway through this gin and tonic. More like a few sips. I'm afraid that this is all me. Proceed with caution.]

Meet the New Year,

the same as the old year.

Well? I mean, everyone's going to get mad at me again, but so far 2006 seems just exactly like 2005. Color me unimpressed.

Oh, Shit.

You mean I was supposed to be drinking right now? Too late. But I'll get up in a few minutes, make myself a gin and tonic, and toast you all.

It blows me away that research that once took weeks can now be done in one evening. I call people from my car every day. An iPod Shuffle contains more computing power than a room-sized mainframe did when I was a teenager. And teenagers wear these devices around their necks.

And I actually have close friends I met . . . well, here. Which is to say, nowhere.

And everywhere.

Happy New Year.

[kisses to you, my readers]