A New Week

I have finally conceded defeat where the weather is concerned. I am wearing socks AND close toed shoes before Halloween for the first time in 10 years!!

Now watch it be 80 degrees and sunny when I head home today :P

Also, I know I've been ranting and raving in here for weeks now on a lot of issues. This is what happens when I don't have sex...so you're warned :)

However, one of my rants a few weeks ago was to whine about how the issues that are important to me are the ones no one ever comments on. I kicked myself almost as soon as I hit the post button.

I've been on the internet and in forums and online communities for too many years to be that petulant and to fall into the trap that is silence must equal no one is listening.

The sound of someone listening IS the sound of silence.

I also know I am the world's worst at listening nodding and then going on to the next listening post. I often mean to go back and make a comment--long winded or short, then forget, or get busy, or just feel superfluous when I read the number of comments they've already received...and so I am also the silent majority who reads and doesn't say anything.

In order to attempt to break that bad habit on my part, I have spent my coffee this morning reading as usual but also commenting...even if just to say "I'm here, I'm listening."

It helps me and hopefully it'll help them a bit too. I dunno. You tell me.

Meanwhile, week two of 10-12 hour days at work :) I'll be glad when my co-worker returns from her honeymoon. (Her wedding was actually Friday afternoon in Maui.) Still there is a sort of freedom of scheduling. I can field the phones, read LJ, organize my thoughts quietly over coffee, plan my day, make my posts, and still keep all the balls in the air.

I feel in charge and competent as I move through the long hours and it has been a while since I've been able to say that.

Peace out.

Fighting back with Humor

I encourage folks to pick up their favorite design and wear it proudly.






*Updated because I found a redundancy that is entirely my fumble-fingered fault.

All found at my favorite t-shirt humor site.

Some Good News tho of small impact.

FEMA director Brown resigns.

Discrimination in hurricane response?

(09-12) 12:04 PDT NEW ORLEANS, (AP) --

President Bush denied Monday there was any racial component to people being left behind after Hurricane Katrina, despite suggestions from some critics that the response would have been quicker if so many of the victims hadn't been poor and black.

"The storm didn't discriminate and neither will the recovery effort," Bush said. "The rescue efforts were comprehensive. The recovery will be comprehensive."

Similar articles to this one appear all over the news today.


This may come as as surprise to some of you but...I think that:

1. That is the best sound bite quote from Shrub in 7 years.

2. I believe him.

WHAT?!!

Hear me out. The response to Katrina, or lack thereof, throughout the Gulf States, not just New Orleans, is not due to a racial bias...it is due to an economic one. It is our National problem that the have-nots, which increase by leaps and bounds as our economic gap continues to widen, is dominated by one race, however, it is not exclusively Black Americans who reside in that lower tier of economically marginalized society of America.

Hello...

I do too, for one thing.

For another thing the fact that we do not take into account the severely limited resources and means of those folks as pie-in-the-sky city/state/federal planners create scenarios and draft unrealistic evacuation plans is a situation that has needed addressing for generations.

Read the history of the dustbowl devastation of the 1930s, or of the floods all over this country in the past century and the TVA project in Tennessee and Ohio valleys. The marginalized will always be further marginalized in natural and man-made crises where geography, land ownership, and homesteading is involved.

Playing the race card is all too easy in this case. ECONOMICS is the issue, Race is a factor...to me there's a big difference.

But that's just me.

Katrina may herald winds of change

This Associated Press article was posted in the New York Times which requires a free registration.

September 12, 2005
Newsview: Katrina May Change View of Gov't
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 6:50 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The fatally slow response to Hurricane Katrina unleashed a wave of anger that could transform people's expectations of government, the qualities they seek in political leaders and their views of America's class and racial divides.

It's a huge opportunity that neither party seems poised to exploit.

''This could be a moment that changes the political dialogue of the country,'' said Robert Putnam, the Harvard political scientist whose book, ''Bowling Alone,'' argued that Americans are participating less and less in civic life.

Nowhere is the public's apathy more apparent than in government and politics. From the late-1950s, when three-fourths of Americans said they trusted government most of the time, the public's confidence in their political system has collapsed.

Six of 10 Americans said they trusted government during the Vietnam War. It fell to three of 10 after Watergate, and just two of 10 during the early 1990s economic recession. The Sept. 11 strikes led to a spike in confidence levels that lasted six months.

In June 2005, a Gallup poll revealed that just 30 percent of respondents said they trusted government most of the time.

And then came Katrina.
( Read more )

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EDITOR'S NOTE -- AP Political Writer Ron Fournier has covered national politics for The Associated Press since 1993.

Home is becoming a Haven once again

My new pedestal bed arrived today!! I've had the memory foam mattress for two weeks now, but the bed pedestal it sits on arrived today! The good Doctor helped me get it home and in spite of longing on both our parts he headed home, leaving me with the DIY and domestic drudgery of putting shit together. I would have let it sit for a day or two, but tonight is trash/recycling and it was either strip everything out of the boxes and toss the flattened cardboard to the curb...or live with it piling up in my living room for another week! So...I got out the hammer, screw driver and chisel.

The bed is *mostly* put together. The pedestal base is, certainly, however, the flat platform along with the rail that sits on the edge will have to be finished tomorrow. I'm going to need to borrow a drill for that part :(

Still, I got the thing put together and it is sturdy enough to sleep on without collapsing under me in the middle of the night. Oh my goodness it feels odd to be sitting up HIGH again. I've basically been kipped out on a futon on the floor for three weeks now! Of course the animals had to approve. The dog climbed up and promptly rolled all over the bed, rubbing her nose, snorting and snuffing, then rolling back and forth on her back with her legs peddling the air. The cats were a bit more dignified but also seemed to settle upon it nicely.

I put an ad on Craig's list today to try to get rid of the bunk bed frames. Let's hope that brings some response, because it hasn't so far. I'd be nice to get that OUTTA here!! Pay day weekend this weekend and another trip to Ikea to order the love seat and pick up some linen shades for the windows in the bedroom. Soon, I'll be able to take some final pictures and post my little bordello cottage.

It was nearly 9pm when I realized I hadn't eaten since just before noon so I reheated some dinner. There is something comforting and wonderfully decadent about a warm meatloaf sandwich and a steaming bowl of roasted garlic, tomato, basil soup on a cold and foggy Bay-area night.

I'm going to sleep very well tonight...and dream about future play times on my new bed!