quidditchgrrl

A few random thoughts:

1. I've had two dreams about my old job (I actually have nightmares about that place, believe it or not), and I've decided to let some sleeping dogs lie rather than give Evil a possible upper hand. Yeeebooool.

2. Today I turned NPR off several times. Hearing about people squirting out tax deductions armies for "Christianity" and how the people involved with credit default swaps are the "real heroes" of the financial crisis - oh that we could all be so insightful! *stabbity*

3. I'm quasi-listening to American Idol. That's me, on the PULSE of popular culture.

4. Next week at this time, I will be in the presence of greatness! <3 Mozza

5. There is a HUGE sale going on this weekend, and I am broke as a joke. No fun. *pouts*

6. However, there will be food again, for which I (and the dog) are truly grateful! (Just kidding. Sort of.)

7. I'd planned to go to bed eeeearly tonight. Oops.

8. Hope you all will have better weekends, your kids' heads will heal properly, and that Spring will spring soon!

Yeah, well.  Not deleting/changing my interests. 

Innocent until proven guilty, and all that.

I was looking at alumni profiles of people from my high school when I found a slide show titled "All I need to know about Islam I learned on 9/11", complete with burning towers.

Glad to know that no matter where you go, some people will never get the dirt from under their fingernails.  You can take the boy out of the trailer park...oh, you know how it goes.

I almost sent a message, but ignorance like that can only be countered by a large conflagration that I do not personally believe in.

Oh, and thanks ever so much, dudes, for making Saddam Hussein that much more of a martyr by mocking and baiting him at his execution, in earshot of cameras taping it for mass consumption.  Way to go.

Fark.com:  Fark won't be linking to the Saddam execution video. We realize CNN and Fox have it, if they want to run snuff films and call it news that's their business  <--FTW!

I have no problem looking at post-mortem pictures (I don't have a screename at rotten.com for nothing), but watching someone be killed isn't my thing.

All I need to know about "faith-based initiatives" I learned from Dubya mocking Karla Faye Tucker as she pleaded for her life and as he intended to deny her clemency.  The Decider, indeed.

It's the little things, I tells ya. Lost was actually...not bad! I might be able to get into the whole Locke/Eko thing, minus the WTFPOLARBEAR.

And - Stephen has regrown the hair on his hands! Manly hands, very nice. I can excuse the LOTR obsession for that. ;)

Plus, that wry smile last night after they showed his scruffy college pic - *melty*

OH OH OH - one of my co-workers (the Lothario I mentioned in my last post) has promised me a ticket for a second Daily Show/Jon Stewart event that is happening on the night of the reading! *does crazy dance of joy* That just rules.

This also rules - the septemberfund.org's commercial.

I feel much better today than I did yesterday. Keith Olbermann eases the pain. I'm sure he'll be one of the first to go.

My fondest wish: headline for January 21, 2009: "Former President Bush II Arrested for Crimes Against Humanity, Cheney Already In Custody". A girl can dream, can't she?

Proof again that Wil Wheaton is my hero:

Torture is not an American value. Torture is a totalitarian, sadistic value. Suspending access to courts and the right to face your accuser is not what Americans do. It is what tyrannical dictators and despots do, not a democratic republic like the one I was brought up in and love. Time and again, torture has proved unreliable to prevent or solve crimes, and it reduces our country to the level of the very terrorists we are supposedly fighting.

I've been avoiding the news today, for good reason, yeah? We also got the news that my brother-in-law needs hernia surgery. He has a new job, no insurance yet. They want 5K up front for a routine, outpatient procedure. nmalfoy, I know you can relate to that. Fuckers.

The average Joe can work a full-time job and not have health insurance or a wage that gives a hope of saving for the future. The government can pick and choose its "combatants" and detain them for as long as they want without laying charges.

I refuse to accept this as the America I live in. There IS enough for everyone, every person has a RIGHT to humane treatment, and it is the RESPONSIBILITY of the people to step in and say, NO MORE.

With freedom comes responsibility. Exercise both in whatever capacity you can. Your life depends on it.

Let America Be America Again

By Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's,
Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's
lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

Note to self: Have AC unit conditioned before the last week of May, because the high temperature WILL go from the mid-50s to mid-80s. It is Ohio, after all.

In order to escape the fiery pit of hell our stuffy apartment, we took the hottest part of the day and went to see Thank You For Smoking.

I love it when media can make fun of itself, both liberal and conservative, and make it completely unpreachy.

The Libertarian corner of my brain was giggling with glee, and my anarchist sympathies were massaged.

You know there are fuckers like Naylor, Finistirre, and BR out there. The American Cancer Society, too.

The strangest thing crossed my mind, though. I actually felt a desire? or an interest in having a kid while this movie was finishing up. God, if I could only be assured that any issue from my loins would be a skeptical inquirer instead of a TV-addicted sheep, I might actually consider it.

Or not.

I have my interview Monday morning. Yay!

I typed out my notes and my questions. Um. Is six pages & 10+ questions too much (and I limited myself to whatever I could think of in 20 minutes)? The interview is expected to last about two hours, anyway.

Hopefully most of my questions will be answered during the main part of the interview, or we may be there all day. O.O

Again, positive thoughts are most welcome.




Awesome quote of the day, from Bill Maher via the Moby LJ Feed:

http://www.moby.com/node/7371

Apr 07, 2006 - new york city

That totally made my day. Bill Maher is love.

Immigration? Let us consult the Constitution.

So long as profit prevails over decent wages and lazy-ass Americans refuse to do the "dirty jobs", there has to be a steady stream of SOMEONE to clean toilets and pick strawberries. (Some blowhard on NPR claimed that immigration hurts low-skilled American workers, especially those without high school diplomas. Hello! Lazy, not low-skilled!)

So long as they aren't criminals, and they pay taxes (and if the company they work for isn't breaking the law, they DO pay taxes), I'll take that over paying $10 a quart for strawberries.

I caught a little bit from Mind of Mencia that sums it up pretty nicely: Carlos Mencia said, "yeah, let's kick ALL the immigrants out. Everybody out. Because nothing would be sweeter to my ears in the morning than hearing [knocking] [Texas accent] 'Hey, housekeeping, y'all.'"

Also, Wal-Mart to offer organic produce? Isn't the whole point of organic the small, replenishable, profitable domestic farm? That article is scary. If there was ever a reason for us to buy a home, it's the advantage of growing our own vegetables. Eek.

This is why I should not listen to NPR. I hate fair and balanced asshattery. :|

Last night's The Colbert Report totally rocked. He totally pwned Mike Brown. What a whiny, blame-deflecting asshat (Mike Brown, not Stephen).

So what do you all think?

Oh God, is Alan Dershowitz actually saying we should pre-emptively strike against Iran?

Yes, that worked out SO WELL last time we did that. -.-

ETA: James Woollsey, you are a liar, sir.