This is for iconeater:

This is serious.

I want what we have to keep on and expand and evolve.

You changed everything.

I can't take it ANYMORE.

Someone PLEASE put Tom-fucking-Cruise and Katie-goddamn-Holmes into SEPARATE BOXES and bury them far apart from each other.

Also?  Media?  Please just stop it.  It doesn't matter, nobody cares.  This is just pathetic.

I can't see War of the Worlds, I can't see Batman Begins...  Because of this....

I love Christian Bale and Liam Neeson.  I love that they shot part of Batman Begins in my own hometown of Chicago.  I love Batman.  I HATE that stupid, stupid little dumb brainwashed Katie (FREE KATIE!) has ruined it for me.  HATE.

And I love Spielberg movies.  But I can't see War of the Worlds without thinking what a nutter Tommy-boy is.  Seriously. 

It's too bad that he (and now she--Miss Scientologist-in-Training ) don't believe in medication for mental illness.  Because clearly, they BOTH require medication.  For mental illness(es).  Badly.

Send Prozac.

Or maybe Thorazine.

Ok.  Done.  I'm wiping the hard drive.  I have no more time, energy or room in my head for these two ridiculous assholes.

Right.  So the deal is, apparently, that I need to get out of my own head.  Because I can mindfuck myself so completely that I have no idea which way is up and then just decide that I can go ahead, curl up and die because I am a stupid, fat, ugly piece of crap.

GOD.

Anyway.  It's been way, way, way too hot here in Chicago.  It was nice and then it was horrible and now it's supposed to get nice again.  Soon, I suppose, it will get horrible again.  I prefer cold to hot.  I can always put more clothes on, people.  I can only get so naked.

And don't tell me you didn't know Michael Jackson was going to get off.  You knew it.  My friend iconeater thinks Jackson will wind up living most of the time in Europe and get his hand caught in the cookie jar over there.  Perhaps.  On cnn.com his lawyer is saying that Michael is going to be more careful.  That so doesn't make me feel any better.

Also-Tom Cruise?  Off the list.  I recommend you all get the FREE KATIE gear available on www.cafepress.com  I simply cannot watch him in another movie.  I'm done.  Too bad because I was looking forward to "War of the Worlds."  Jackass.  Vitamins will cure post partum depression... ooooooooooookkkkaaaayyyyy y.  What. EV. er.

So I'm looking to change jobs.  I'm interviewing, etc.  Interviewing is just brutal.  It's so hard to meet with 6 different people in 3 or 4 hours and try to convince them to hire you.  After awhile, you just kind of give up.

Go Arsenal!  Go Spurs!

Ok.  I'm done.  I'm going to sit quietly and try to STOP THINKING.

I'm thinking about a boy and I'm going to think myself really sorry if I don't quit it.

I am still in my media blackout.  I decided last Wednesday that I would avoid all 'hard' news for two weeks so that my soul could start healing after the horrible events of Nov 2.

I have to say, I'm kind of liking this.  I don't have to frantically change channels whenever Bush or another of his ilk grace my television screen.  I'm not swearing under my breath while I read the newspaper, and I'm not quite so angry.  This must be what it's like to be a Red Stater.  No information is penetrating.  It's a very insulated, ignorant and blissful existence.  I do my thing and am not feeling angry/embarrassed/humilia ted/sad or any of those other horrid emotions in which this administration usually drowns me. 

I almost dread my return to consciousness and the search for truth. 

It's brutally apparent that I live among a shrinking and increasingly rare group of citizens who don't vote their pocketbooks, don't want to live in a theocracy, and eschew the temptation--and I'm telling you, it is a temptation--to ignore reality and fact in favor of this blissful ignorance.   Outside my family, I know FOUR PEOPLE who voted for that guy.  FOUR.  Wait--yeah, that's it.  FOUR.  I know OF a few others, but that's through others.  Everyone has that story.  It goes  like this:

"And then s/he said 'oh I voted for Bush,' and I was all 'WHAAAAT?!' I mean, who knew s/he was like THAT?"

What in hell is going on in the Red States?  Seriously.  What. Is. Going. On.  There are all sorts of little graphics going around showing things like the Red States were the slave states before the Civil War, that the avg. IQ in the Red States is, um, quite low, etc.

I'm not sure about the IQ assertion, but the geography doesn't lie.  We should cut the Red States and their apartheid leanings loose.  They'd be a bit screwed...no access to the Pacific.  No manufacturing facilities.  No tech sector--CA is a Blue State.  No foreign allies.  That's it.  Just cut 'em loose and let them live their narrow bigoted lives.

I'm just saying.

See, this is why I have to stay off the news.  It's so partisan and so awful and so...so...so...  Well, just eeew.  Eeeew.  I get very upset even thinking about it.  I will wean myself back onto news by reading London papers.  Those papers, at least, give me an idea about the WORLD.  Not just this joint. 

*sigh*

Ok.  Right.  Moving on....

I confess I've ca ught a bit of news.  I know that the Scott Peterson jury is having problems and may hang.  Surprise.  I've only sporadically followed that case and I predicted the jury would hang.  The prosecution's case isn't all that great, and now that the jury actually experimented with the boat, if he's convicted, there are pretty solid grounds for appeal.  I think Peterson's a dick.  I think he's probably a selfish, petty, wormy little pisser.  But that doesn't make him a murderer.  It doesn't prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt except that he's a wormy little shit.  That's not illegal.  It's not nice, but it's not a crime.

I also saw that Howard Dean might go after the chairmanship of the DNC.  To which I say BRAVO!!  Let's shake it UP people!

I admit to following the Arafat Death Watch.  According to Google news, he's dead.  Well, maybe he's dead.  He's not entirely alive, but it's too soon to call whether he's actually dead.  So we'll leave him in the mostly dead, but not totally column.

Did you know that YOU could buy Oprah's castoffs?  She's throwing stuff out and YOU could be the lucky one to OWN OPRAH'S TRASH!!!!  WHeee!

I'm going to go see "The Incredibles."  I need a laugh.

Keep the faith everyone--I mean, keep it to yourself and all, but keep it, ok?

The most bizarre fallout from this election season was-- and apparently is going to remain-- the destruction of relationships.  Massive, total destruction of personal relationships.  In my family and among my friends. 

Serious.  I am not now, and don't think I will soon be, speaking with 5 or 6 people I had considered friends.  

Since this election, we realized that we are too far apart on important issues to be friends.  We're just kind of done.  We have nothing to say to each other anymore.  Overnight, we have nothing to say.  And we gape at each other with perverse, almost slack-jawed, alarm.  None of us is who the other thought s/he knew.

I can't talk about events current, political or religious with a very dear family member because we will curse each other and never speak again.  I know we love each other dearly, but our initial reactions to each other on this crap are identical:  What is WRONG with you?

Here's the crux:  the people who voted for Bush think people who voted for Kerry are immoral, godless heathens who've turned on the troops, and want France to run the show.   I and other Kerry voters find myself thinking of Bush voters as unenlightened, bigot ed, knee-jerk religious wingnuts with an overdeveloped sense of knowing what's good for everyone else topped with a big dollop of fear and loathing.

That, my friends, is a divide of an almost insurmountable natur e.  Why? 

Well, when someone consciously or even subconsciously thinks another person is immoral or otherwise spiritually and socially stunted, there's no respect for the person or the positions.  None.  Easily discounted and ignored.  Just flies to be swatted.

When someone consciously or subconsciously thinks another person is bigoted, unenlightened and overly religious and intrusive, there's no respect for the person or the positions.

So here we are.  We're supposed to just pick up and move on and 'support the president.' 

And I can't.  

He and all of his ilk turn my stomach.  I don't respect him or his positions--same as he and his followers don't respect me or mine.  They think I am misguided and just don't get it.  And by "not getting it" they mean Jesus.  You can't buy into the Bush Doctrine(s) without Jesus.  You just can't.  Because he's a 'values' guy, a 'morals' guy.'

If the Bushies are the values and the morals of the US of A...well, I'm just sorry for them, for me, for the rest of the world.  Because the values and morals Bush and co. front are bigotry, fear, hatred, selfishness, an undeserved sense of superiority and oppression.

Bush is not my president.  He does not have my respect, and frankly, if I found myself in a position where I would have to encounter him, I would turn my back on him.  I am repulsed by everything he represents, and am thus repulsed by 51% of all Americans.

I dread the destructive swath that he will plow across the hearts and minds of this country.  I dread the division that he sows while pretending to be a 'uniter.'  Unity is the true anti-Bush.  Unity and education.

I am disturbed that over the next 4 years, the gap between rich and poor will grow further, that Social Security will turn into a windfall for the mega banks at the expense of my generation. 

I am sick because the level of ignorance and stupidity will only increase as these education mandates of his succeed in doing what the neo-cons have long desired--bring about an end to public education and place it squarely in the hands of opportunistic businesses. 

That's coming. 

Because of the underfunding, No Child Left Behind, more and more schools will fail and be closed.  School boards will be painted as incompetent, when in truth they are hogtied and gagged by this legislation.  Then, the 'saviour'--the free market, the almighty dollar, profits--will be shoved down our throats until suddenly, people WANT their children's education to be subject to an aggressive business model designed to generate profits and produce measurable, quantifiable results.

Of course, results are measured in dollars. 

How to you measure learning in dollars?  If it turns out to be a losing proposition, do you just quit doing it and suddenly kids are without an education?

Although, an uninformed, poorly educated electorate is exactly what the neo-cons need to maintain power.  And for some reason, the Red Staters like to be uninformed and are wholly resistant to information.  As with Bush himself, reality, facts, information simply have no place in a Red Stater's world. 

Ignorance is bliss.  How I wish I could just turn off my brain.  I wish I could.  I wish I could not care, and go about my daily routine without the slightest interest in reality.  Not have all these unanswered questions.  Not care about anything outside my narrow existence.  It must be marvelous, really.  Marvelous. 

I guess when you leave it up to Jesus, then you don't have to give a shit.  Poor Jesus.  Man, that guy is seriously overburdened.  He's doing all the work and the folks who call themselves Christians get to be smug, self-righteous, repressive, judgmental and sail on through life at the expense of others. 

Not very Christian of them.

When you live in Jesusland, though, why would that occur to you?  It's people like me--misguided, immoral, non-Jesus-loving, not really God-fearing, baby killing, education-valuing, question-asking, answer-demanding, America-hating, liberal spawn of Satan-- that mess up your good life. 

Thankfully, I'm not living in Jesusland.  I live in reality.  When facts to match the story, I ask the story-teller.  I don't hand it off to Jesus. 

In the end, I don't care what people think, or how they go about their daily lives, how they raise their kids, who they sleep with, or how much or how little a part religion plays in their lives.

I care about the Morality Police atmosphere, this Armageddon, apocalyptic version of religion being brandished in my face.  It's unAmerican to do this.  It is.  I get to be how I want to be.  I get to say what I want to say.  I get to have God, gods, goddesses or not and I'm not going to lose my job or break any laws.

I cannot abide the movement afoot to legislate morality according to a narrowminded, bigoted, fearful view of the world and life.

C'mon people--2006 isn't too far away!  Let's get the morals and values back in houses of worship where they belong!  Do what you want at home, at church, at temple, whatever.  But keep it the hell off the law books.

Morals and values...recipe for destruction.

I am very upset.  I'm sad. 

I am having trouble coming to terms with the obvious--I live in the United States of Fear and Hatred.

Fear and hatred.  Fear of war, famine, death, disease, terrorism, gay people, rabid dogs and independent thought.  Hatred of all that does not fear the preceding as well as questions, audacity, expression and the refusal to accept Jesus as my saviour.

Yeah.  I'm not going to put any more on poor Jesus's shoulders. 

Plus, I'm not a Christian.

Plus, I often doubt there is a God.  This is one of those times.

I would point out to those who seek a faith-full, religious country governed with an eye toward a religious text that such a country already exists.

It's called Iran. 

Better DEAD than RED

--I'm so, so, so glad that I live in the land the free, home of the brave, the Great BLUE State of Illinois--

I am jittering around these days like I've got a wide open caffiene drip attached to my arm.  I am trying not to watch any news, 'news' or info-tainment about this election.  I can't stand it.  I actually fantasize about Kerry winning the thing.

I can't decide whether to go to a party or to take a big tranquilizer and go to bed.  I'm afraid I will jinx it if I stay up and watch.  I also don't really believe it'll be over on Tues. night.

I think Weds. morning will bring lawsuits, not a president. 

I think it's likely that the voting will be so fucked we'll have a do-over.  It's possible, people.  A do-over.  Hunh.  How weird would that be?  Really, really weird, that's how weird.

I'm leaning toward the big tranquilizer.  I'll probably be so jacked up that it'll only take the edge off.

Lord, I simply abhor Bush.  I am often surprised at how much he and his ilk make me feel like puking.  There are so many, many reasons to hate his policies here and around the world.  It's difficult to decide what the main reasons are, because in this case, the whole is so overwhelmingly awful, that breaking it down into its component parts becomes even MORE overwhelmingly awful.  Makes me want to curl up in a fetal position and die.

I can, however, for all 2 of you who might read this, at least try.

Here is MY biggest reason to get rid of Bush:

WOMEN'S RIGHTS. 

The backlash I usually get on this topic flows from some twisted idea that now that women are 'allowed' to be doctors, lawyers, executives, etc., there is equality and are treated the same as men. 

Well, all you women who believe that shit are doing exactly what the neo-cons want--you're easing up.  You're getting complacent.  You're not paying attention to what's going on right in front of your face. 

The late-term abortion ban is just the most obvious brick in the wall going up around us.  Yeah, I'm pro-choice.  And that's it--pro-CHOICE.  If you don't want an abortion, don't have one.  Get it?  GET IT?!?  You have a CHOICE to NOT have one.  That's all there is to it.  You don't want your daughter having an abortion?  Then teach her how to avoid getting pregnant in the first place until she's good and ready to be a mother.   There's some seriously fucked up, naive, stupid notion that outlawing abortion will stop unwanted pregnancies and/or premarital sex.  That is just so obviously wrong and pathetically naive on its face I can't even stand it.  People who think that are stupid.  STUPID. 

Yeah, I said it--if you think outlawing abortion will stop unwanted pregnancies and/or premarital sex, you are STUPID.

The abortion battle raging in this country is NOT about the fetus.  It's not.  It's about a woman's right to control what happens to her body.  Look.  Bush and those of his ilk are using this issue to erode MY right to make medical decisions about my body with my doctor.  This is not a problem for men.  Neo-cons and anti-choice folks aren't lining up to interfere with your penis or your sperm.  They're lining up to interfere with my ovaries and my uterus.

This crusade to take over women's bodies is one of the crudest, most offensive, repressive, and vile movements in the history of American life.  It is NOT about children.  How can I say that?  Here's how:  because none of the anti-choice groups, and none of the Bushies give a flying fuck about the kid after it's born.  Especially if it's not a white kid with a high probability of growing up to be a neo-con, anti-choice white man.

The anti-choice brigade is only concerned about the fetus while it's inside the woman.  It is not concerned with the mother's mental or physical health.  There is NO EXCEPTION in this law for the mother's health.  NONE.  That's right.  If your pregnancy is endangering your life, and you are likely to die, you are NOT ALLOWED TO LIVE.  It would be illegal for you to survive.

Second, the procedure is so poorly defined doctors can't really tell if they would break the law in any given situation.  It's becoming more and more common that women who miscarry late in pregnancy are forced to give birth to a dead baby because a doctor might find himself in jail for sparing her the mental anguish and physical dangers associated with laboring to deliver a dead baby.  So if you find yourself in the tragic position of miscarrying your late-term child, you're going to give birth to it.  Period.  Even if it kills you.

This president and his anti-choice cronies want to hijack our bodies and enslave us to pregnancy, period.  You WILL HAVE THAT BABY. 

Even if it kills you.

What's next? 

I actually asking--what's next?   If Bush and the neo-cons aren't tossed out on their ample asses, it's going to be very, very hard to arrest that kind of momentum. Bush and rest of those selfish assholes are restricting access to birth control information all over the world.  And, because women's overall health is so tied to our reproductive health, funds that provided disadvantaged women with basic reproductive health care not associated with pregnancy at ALL are being cut off.

We will die--one way or the other--for this 'cause.'

I would note that the administration's decisions to cut off family planning aid here and around the world because abortion is discussed as an option has actually caused abortion rates to rise because women can't get birth control.  Nice. Really nice.

So now that this group of manaical control freaks are violating my human and civil rights with their plot to take over my body--what's next?   Well, I expect they will start trying to restict birth control options and continue to return women to the dark ages.  They don't want women to know or embrace our sexuality or even understand our biology. 

Sex is dirty.  Sex is bad.  If you get pregnant, it's because you're bad. 

We're being marginalized and enslaved.

Read The Handmaid's Tale.

So THAT'S why Bush has got to go.  I don't see the purity, the beauty, or the necessity to trade in my rights so that they can have their 'culture of life' with respect to my womb.

Some fucking culture of life, though, yeah?

*thousands dead in Iraq
*millions without the ability to see a doctor in the United States--

Oh, that reminds me--did you know that there are federal rules making fetuses eligible for free/low cost prenatal care, but THE WOMAN CARRYING THE FETUS IS EXCLUDED? What the fuck, people.  What the fuck.

*hundreds of wrongly convicted men and women have been sprung from death rows around the US.  How many innocent people has our country murdered?  How many did Bush murder as gov. of Texas?  Nice culture of life.
*millions children in the US receive substandard educatio ns in this country, and Bush underfunds his own mandate.

This 'culture of life' is a load of bullshit.  Horseshit.  Dogshit.

Lies.  Manipulations. Fallacies.  Smoke and mirrors.

They want us in 'our place,' ladies.  Seen, not heard.  Chattel.  It's just easier for them all that way.  Good, evil.  Black, white.  Man, woman.

A place for everything and everything in its place.

I'll find my own place, thank you.  I don't need your help, and I won't be your property, your pawn or your devil.

YAY!  Red Sox win!  If the Sox can beat the Curse of the Bambino, then ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!!

That's all I got time for today.

Over and out.

Front page, above the fold, big picture of Ariel Sharon--the Knesset approved the plan to pull settlers out of Gaza!  Yay!

Disclosure--I am Jewish, I have a vested interest in Israel and its survival, and I wholeheartedly support the withdrawal from Gaza, and I hope there will be at least some redistribution on the West Bank.  It's the right thing to do.

I know there are people who will think that this is bowing to terrorism and showing the 'evildoers' that terrorism works.  You go ahead and think that.  You're wrong.  And this should have happened long ago.  It might have if some extremist settler nutjob hadn't murdered Rabin in '95.

I think this move is going to help Israel in the eyes of the world, and perhaps generate some moral authority as well.  We'll see.

In the meantime, Dubya and his crew somehow lost 380 tons of explosives in Iraq.  The excuses are pathetic--"we were ahead of schedule," "it might not even have been there."  I notice that these excuses they're tossing around are rather similar to the reasons the anti-war/pro-diplomacy gave--and continue to give--for holding off on the war in the first place.

Convenient.

Have you noticed that Dick Cheney looks like Lex Luthor?  Dubya is kind of like that creepy dumb scarecrow thing--LeGree?  Was that his name in the cartoons?  I think it might have been.  Of course, that's so perfect because Simon LeGree was the horrible slave owner in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'  Thpppt on Dubya.  That's what.

So, basically, this election boils down to this:

Do you want the Legion of Doom running the joint or would you prefer the Justice League?

I'm going for the Justice League. 

5 days to go!

On the bad news side, there are huuuuuuuge problems with the voting in Florida.  Surprise!  Yeah, that's a shocker.  Not.

Anyway, the Chicago Tribune had a great article about it today, noting the following disturbing facts:

1.  Lines are so slow at these new touch-screen machines that "only six votes per hour are being cast in parts of South Florida."
2.  Perhaps as many as 60,000 absentee ballots in Broward County, Fla. are unaccounted for.
3.  Reporters from the Miami Herald monitored the pace of the lines at 14 of these touch screen voiting machines in 3 separate South Florida counties.  According to their calculations, the things are so slow that in 12 hours, only 71 votes could be cast.

**All of the above AND MORE appear in Jeff Zelany's article "Early Voting in Florida Gives Cause for Concern," Chicago Tribune, Oct. 27, 2004.  You can find the entire article at the Tribune's website by clicking here--> http://www.chicagotribune.com" title="http://www.chicagotribune.com" target="_blank"http://www.chicagotribune.com....  It's free, but you have to register.

The absolute BEST, BEST part of the article--and this is a direct quote:

"Gov. Jeb Bush ordered election supervisors to "preserve order at the polls" after episodes of voter harassment arose and some workers threatened to abandon their posts when an aide was nearly choked by an angry partisan who grabbed the identification badge around her neck." Id., emphasis, mine.

Holy crap!  That is so awesome!  I think that's just awesome.  I wanna VOTE goddammit, and you, poll worker, are screwing this all up!  C'mere!  I'll give you a hanging chad you &^#$(@**#&$^& !!!

Right on.

Like I said--5 days to go.

Then the litigation begins!  Whee!