This is just outrageous. OUTRAGEOUS

I don't care that Franken introduced the legislation. It is what is RIGHT. As in 'correct', and 'just'. The ammendment which he introduced... may be eliminated... don't like the word 'stripped' from the bill due to yet another asshole who has his nose and tongue up Halliburton's arse, to get a reward, because the US government gave those companies carte blanche. Which is never a good idea, but such slime actually help to hurt people, whatever the motive was... there should be accountability.

I'm gonna have to take a blood pressure pill. Some people stop at absolutely nothing, just to line their pockets. But this is audacious, and disgusting.

Link here.

And I thought Jon Stewart shamed them last week....

It was on the Hufington Post, and I saw it the day after the broadcast, and it was gooood.

He explained it all, so go here.

And then tell me why this arsehole is justified in even thinking about 'stripping' it from the bill.

And that on the day the Matthew Shepard act finally made it out of the House and Senate, after over a decade...

Disgusting. And oh wow... the White House opposes it? Does Obama think it is ok to rape women, and have it in the contract to pay them 'hush money'? Well, now THAT is a really bad call.

Their shit doesn't stink, in other words. I do not get this at all.

If I had a daughter of nineteen, and she gets a job, probably lucrative, but the atmosphere is so bad, she gets gang-raped, and then locked in a shipping container after she complains, has to get a congressman to get her the fuck out of there, and then is denied access to sue the company.... because it was in the contract, and you do arbitration, like settling out of court.... what the fuck is this world, and what has it become?

Ok, I didn't procreate, never will. But I can imagine it... And if that had happened to a child of mine... I would go fuckin' Charles Bronson on anyone who would stop justice.

Billionaires for Wealthcare....

This has to be seen to be believed. God bless the activists, and they even sing well. It is nice to wake up and see something so wonderfully funny.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#33456098

A World-Wide 'conspiracy'....

Something nefarious is going on. And it has to do with banks....

I know, I know... we all tend to think of Wall Street, and the mortgage bust in the US, and so on and so on... but it really is world-wide, seemingly....

I had to take Peter to the bank today. His 'Minister of Finance' is a very likeable person. I get such a kick out of his first name, I have been known to break out into a Hawaian song wheeling him over there, thanks to Bette Midler...

But this isn't a 'fun' post.

He is a very nice, earnest 'young' man... mid thirties, I would guess... married, wanted to build a house... like so many other people here. And earlier this year, the crisis hit. He was having a house built, and his contractor went bankrupt just at about the time he was supposed to move into it, and it never got finished.

So for the better part of a year, he and his wife are holed up in an 'appartment' that is 23 square meters big. Well, as my 'bio-mom' used to say... 'Let ME tell YOU...' that will either cement you, or it will kill your relationship.

Having lived in a space of 17 square meters alone... with bath and wc shared outside with four other parties.... just the idea gives me the horrors.

Somehow, he is holding up ok, it seems, which is all to the good. Whatever... he is a bit morose, which is not to be wondered at.

So he asked his employers for a loan in order to get over what was a horrible situation. And the request was denied, hey... just like that. So he and his wife have been scrimping, and he has a social net of family who help, and can move into the finished house in January.

Oooo, nice month to move, hey...

At least he has a date where he knows his agony will be at an end...

No thanks to his employers....

Over the past months, there are so many things I have read about greedy banks 'recovering', but dealing out billions in bonuses for the top tier. Seems to me it is a world-wide problem, and am mystified as to what the hell they are thinking, if they can think at all....

So... no loans to 'small' people. Nope. But'cha better move your fucking ass on the job, friend, or you are OUT.

I was with that institute ages ago, and got treated so badly, I moved to another. Yes, that was possible then.

So here is a person on the middle level, and his own bank, whom he fucking WORKS for, won't give him a loan....

I do not wish to know how they screw other people who do not work for them.

And that is shameful.

This is moving...

It's about the Maine referendum next week.

Kabuki.... there are so many steps to the dance...

Just to get real health care reform. I was crossing the square this afternoon, and there was this American, pushing a bike, with his approximately eight year old son behind me, and the kid was going ON. Wound up from school, I guess, and too high a sugar level...

And he was going on about health care! I was astounded. 'But doesn't that mean we could all die???'

They were way faster than me, I sort of drag these days... so I do not know what they talk about at the dinner table, but it must be sorta kinda interesting...

The Snowe blower finally showed her hand like it was a poker game yesterday. Nice. Not.

And in so doing, made herself a bit player where she belongs.

Except she acheived what her 'massa's' wanted. Delay, obfuscate, and sow great uncertainty. Brava, 'Lympi'... well done.

In further news, Faux News really went off the charts, because left-wing journalists were invited to the White House, and they weren't.

She rightly pointed out that the people on the left under Booosh got shut out, but that Obama met with the right-wing mouth pieces privately, and listened.

Faux is just so crazy, you end up not being able to think straight. I got inflicted with them for six months in 2001, and was so happy when they got pulled from our programming...

Otherwise.... it isn't a good day for me, so will just shut up.

I do not know why.....

But sometimes you befriend someone, and you lose sight of them, and all of a sudden they are in your mind.

Maybe being a pensioner has something to do with it.

Pensioners are always 'busy', but that is a crock.

And one of my friends got lost somewhere along the line... Peter set agendas, things got so screwed up I couldn't find one minute's peace to be the friend I used to be... It was saddening.

So I called.

I think it was the nicest call I have conducted in a very long time.

The warmth and niceness floored me.

It is always nice to know that you are liked....

And we talked about God and the World, so to speak, as we used to when we were young.

I owe this person and his family SO much...

And they have always remained kind.

K. you know whom I am speaking of...

Ok, the Germans are the pits... really....

I have been getting e-mails from people wondering why the fuck hell I would send them an invitation to participate in a german language face-book thing, and some of them were angry.

Except I DIDN'T.

I haven't been there in over two years, and now I'm gonna do a Mark Sanford, ok, so get yourselves your panties so you can twist them!

Netlog.de went rogue, seemingly....

I can't figure out another reason for that....

The background?

About three or four years ago, I had sex. Yeah, shudder...

It wasn't so remarkable that I can pinpoint the date, you know? It was boring, and he didn't know about deoderant yet...

And a couple of weeks later... I got this invite, to join that site. And I shrugged.... he was nice enough and interesting... and asked me to join this site, you see, and I thought, 'Ok, maybe he wants to talk.' Except it never happened and I forgot about it.

And all of a sudden, this website is sending 'invitations' to my mail lists, and it freaked me out.

I deleted my account there this evening, and will send a screed to them.

The F'acebook thing was bad enough, but Netlog????

I can't find words bad enough... So I didn't do it. I have enough troubles.

I have been holding back on this, because it is hurtful

Queens. No, not cross-dressers, the place in New Yawk....

There is a place there called College Point. Really, I have seen it.

It was the first place I ever got to outside my white-bread, insulated town.

It was so exciting. I packed for a two day visit as if I were going abroad for three months.

I was fifteen. I read a lot, you see, and thought that New Yawkers changed three times a day, so I packed accordingly... and my cousin's mother said, 'what the hell is he thinking????!!!!'

I always wanted to fit in...

Is all....

Yup... College Point, and am still so thankful. It was beautiful. And my cousins spoiled me? You can't imagine. It was surburbia... but oh boy, they took me to Manhattan! I was spitless....

Well, time passes, things run down, and you get left speechless in other ways.

There was this video that went viral...



And a lot of other things.... There was a rally in College Point. There was a counter rally, which is asking for 'understanding' for the people who did what they did in the video. The father of the perpetrator is on YouTube for Chrissakes!

Have read a lot of negative things about College Point, and it is upsetting for me....

It was the first place I ever got to fly out of the nest, so to speak.

The World Fair was about to be held there, and I was so hoping I could go, saved my coca-cola caps to see it....

In the hope I would win a trip.... I was very naive...

So what the fuck happened?

Everything about the story saddens me.

Did the wash machine and dishwasher emancipate women?

John Aravosis at Americablog put that question up for discussion, after some pundit contended that.

The discussion is actually interesting. You can find the link HERE, with the comments.

After a cursory view of them, and just sort of scanned them....

Well, I guess he has a lot of readers my age. Who remember the old washers with ringers, for instance. We had one... And when it gave up the ghost, I got to go to the laundrymat every week, which was sort of a pain. I remember having an ice box in Portland Maine. And the guy would deliver a big block of ice in a horse-drawn carriage, break of a piece the right size, and deliver it upstairs. But the milk would go sour anyway....

I really do not think that women's emancipation was helped or promoted in any way by the invention of 'machines'. That is sort of silly... In the Fifties, if you were of a certain class, your parents worked, and you were expected to help out and ease the burden. So you got taught to iron, for example, and that was one of your 'chores'. Just as a for instance.

So I guess it is a silly supposition... but interesting to see how one looks back on that now.

Found it!

NSFW I was referring to this post. And this one here...



Sick Puppies

This is classic....

This litttle boy says it all, and he shows promise...



I'd react the same way to the media.

And now for some levity... Germans...

trying to say 'Massachusetts'... I'd love to hear them go at 'Winnepesaukee'.. Just saying....



It's a political ad from SE Germany, and sort of weird.

Update: ok, now I get it. The institute of technology in Karlsruhe is trying to get people to enroll in their institute of Technology, and MIT is 'the best'. So yes, clever advertising....

I have been thinking a lot lately....

About the futility of just spouting off about health care reform in the US...

Yes, I just do. That is how I am, I care...

But I get fucking discouraged. I can go Dickensian for 'outrage'.

Yup. Just happens... can't do anything about it, and go for anger.

Now, I don't know what the term 'Kabuki Theater' means. But you can find it here.

And it seems to me... the people who called it that, well, they were correct.

My former 'couch critter', W. used to criticise me for watching the developments there, and he knew why I cared so much, used to start lamming into me. 'It's show business! Haven't you understood that yet? Show business!'

Now, I can be one stubborn bastard when it comes to what I believe.

And it hurts right to the bone, when I have to say 'I was wrong, you are right.' Oooo that hurts....

It is Kabuki.

If we take the events of the past week into account... First the health insurance people and big pharma think they are gonna get a HUGE increase in income, and then there is a feint move from Harry Reid, 'we are gonna penalise you.'

But they won't....

It is a sylised 'dance' they all do, and I don't want to go into the corrupt assholes who promote all that shit.

So yes, it is Kabuki... a stylised arcane dance that makes everybody miserable in the end. I feel so sorry at the moment.

When an insurance company decides to cancel ALL policies because they have one person on it who is costing them too much... which I saw this morning on the net...
Keith Olberman... HERE

it disgusts me.

I do not know if everyone saw what KO did last week. It was remarkable.

So....

What are Murkin's gonna do, the troglodyte, knuckle-dragging Neandertals sucking at the teat of government till they go dry, and use the energy to be able to give billions to their little turd offspring?

Seems like we have a new species here...

That is NOT the country I grew up in. Those are NOT the values I was taught. And I just watch what happens in horror.

Because that isn't what I was taught.

Where is the empathy, where is caring for your fellow neighbor even if you don't agree with his views, but he is in trouble, Where the fuck did that country go?

This whole thing upsets me to the max.

And it makes me sad...

Kabuki Theater.... going through theatrical motions...

But in the end... it really does seem to be show...

How come a four month old baby...

gets denied health care, because he is to 'fat'.

Seems to me that the health care people there expect you to pop out Twiggy in both sexes, and maybe they will cover you...

What the fuck is WRONG with those people?

Oh yes, they love making money..... uh-huh.... right. Disgusting.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/ Or the first segment of Colbert.... Now where are my low carbs

http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=252661

Oooo... I have heating in my apt. praise whomever...

The last nights were so cold, my digs were chilly, and I got out my second blankie...

And now my house witch turned it on...

I'd like to torture her for cruel and unusual punishment.

The last nights were cold, and I turned up the thermostats, but nada. And got out my second duvet. A duvet is a thermo-blanket that can save your life, believe me. They are wonderful.

Now I have 21 degrees, as i like it...

So it works, and was pretty sure it wouldn't.

Yay!

Can I go throw up now?

Of all that went on in DC----

This speech really spoke to me.

F0r those of you who were sleeping or otherwise engaged... there was a march on Washington....

Of people who want their rights too.

And the President presented the usual placebos.

And the people who were promised the same rights everyone else has got told to 'wait'.

Even though the solutions aren't so difficult.

Oh, they'll throw you a bone if you don't shut up. They always do, and that isn't very 'funny'. It was Clinton, after all, who invented don't ask don't tell. And the fucking Defense of Marriage Act. (Who the fuck is threatening the breeders, please tell? Oh, he was really, really good on social issues...)

To come out and present a hate crime decision after THIRTEEN years, is a feather in their cap... they think.... I am pretty sure the Shepards have a different opinion... Their son got crucified on a fence in Montana, and died.

What in the world parallel universe do these people live on? And Barney Frank wanting no march because 'all it is going to acheive is crushing their lawn????' I didn't hear him saying that when the tea-baggers ran all over Washington, so what is in it for him? HUD? Some people are speculating......

I always thought that if lifting up your voice and make it loud, that would help.

It seems, they got you coming and going. President Obama gave a 'rousing' speech to a lot of white affluent men in Washington who will give a lot of money to the Democratic party two nights ago, and yesterday a 'source' dissed the commutity, dissing the 'bloggers', the people who gave lots of money to his election campaign, comparing them to teenagers in pajamas in their parent's basements, stained with Cheetos, saying they should get dressed and go out and do something, so to speak.

And THAT is just unacceptable.

I think it time to stand up, and put an end to the nonsense. And believe me, I do so, in my own way, and I sign petitions, and I do make calls.

Not because I have such an affinity to my former country. But because I want people to be considered equal there. And because NO ONE ever EVER hurt me personally because of my sexual orientation here and saw me as a complete person. I want that for all those people.

David Mixner... I had never heard of him before. The other activists were shrill. But he moved me very much. Because he is of my generation, and went through the horrors I went through, and his speech is excellent, and speaks to my heart.

Please listen

While looking for what I really wanted to find...

I ran across this clip which makes me laugh out loud every time I have seen it.

I love when she lovingly integrates the reactions of her family into her act, and brings her mother into it. It is an old clip, but after all the anger and activism in Washington D.C. ths past weekend, and you probably haven't seen the wonderful speeches so far on your 'normal' news, it is something that is good.

Have fun, and I hope you can laugh....

Ok, it is ick week, and the full moon is just beginning to wane... and I shit my pants, yup...

And I just had the most humiliating thing happen...

ok, I tripped on a throw rug on Saturday, nearly knocked myself out, got a slight concussion, which the horsepital confirmed, and had to stay in bed two days. WTF, it was the weekend, so that was ok...

And today... I ventured out.

Now the last time this happened, my father was visiting me and we went to Vienna. And usually I have a good nose for good restaurants, and took him to a polish specialty place. I wanted him to see the diversity of all the cuisines in Central Europe, more or less.

And I made the mistake of ordering a dish that had a side-dish of Sauerkraut. Which doesn't agree with me. In other words, it goes through my body like shit through a goose, as they say.

Afterward, we meandered over toward the famous Prater park, where the giant ferris wheel is. It is only a twenty minute walk.... And there is a huge circular intersection, with underground passages to get to the other side. And half-way through, I thought I had to let out some 'air'.... and shit my pants. Not much, but it was enough to be fully embarrassing.

And he found that hilarious and was curious as to what I would do.

Well, there are WC's down there, so I went to the men's room, got rid of the gook, cleaned myself up, threw my undies away, and came back out CHAGRINED, I tell you, CHAGRINED....

I think it still throws him into spasms of full hilarity, to this day....

But he shouldn't get uppity, his flatulence can be legendary.

Whatever... today I was coming home and chattered too long with shop people, and realised, 'Ooo, I have to GO...' And RAN to my house, not far away, and missed the pot by three seconds!

I'd feel bad if it wasn't for the comedienne Mararet Cho. She always said there is a 20 minute 'window of opportunity'.

So I cleaned up, and the clothes are in the wash, and my father will probably have some hilarity for this....

I can't find the clip I wanted to add to this, but will do so after shopping around YouTube. It was very funny. Driving along the freeways in Hell-A, and needing to go, and not finding an exit ramp.

Yup, that is how I felt today...

Sheesh...

Alan Grayson has some platinum balls.....

This guy is super. In one interview, he told the public about how he was sickly as a youngster, and being afraid that his parent's insurance would somehow not cover him after some time.

I love this guy's guts. Anthony Weiner is also an interesting voice. But Grayson is a firebrand, and I think we are seeing a real firebrand here. Well done.

This is what it is about... and what bad health insurance

does to everyday people, with their horrible decisions. The story upset me at the time...

I am so glad that they aren't giving up, and fighting.

This clip is heart-breaking to me.

Well, this was to be expected....



Wingnuts... you just can't get around them....

Have I ever told you how MUCH I hate throw rugs???

Well, after just cleaning up a lot of blood, let me just say I do. Very much.

For the second time in my life, I got a renegade one. They decide to curl up or something, and attack you if you don't pick up your feet, you see.... So I was about to turn in for the night, and came back in intending to turn off the pc and get some sleep, as I was very tired.

And I am very stubborn when it comes to turning on a light. I hardly ever do. Unless I'm having a bad cataract night blindness day. I just sleep-walk about...

My nicest one decided to trip me up last night. I tried to catch myself, disrupting the telephone, knocking my modem onto the floor, tripped over my stool in front of the pc and hit the hard-wood floor face first, whereupon there was a sickening 'crunch' sound, and blood started coming out of my nose onto my freshly washed floor. (I really don't know which bothered me more.) I guess I was K.O. for a few moments....

I did manage to get myself back to the bed, and slept a little. And now, at midnight, just cleaned up the fucking mess.

I only have one mirror in the house, in the WC, so went to do damage assessment. Well, the honker is swollen, but so far it doesn't look like I'm going to be a racoon for a few days... But that is always iffy...

The same thing happened a few decades ago... was hurrying to the window on a very hot summer's day, as the place I was living in was unbearably hot, slid on a throw rug, got ko'd and broke my nose.

This time, am just glad nothing else got broken. And they don't call them throw rugs for nothing.

They'll throw you, all right... for a loop. I never wanted any of the four I have. Peter more or less forced me to take them when I moved. Accursed things... think twice before you decide to get any.

Today....


I walked into Peter's apt, dumped the groceries started the soup, and decided to turn on the tee-vee. Because it was time for Larry King from yesterday, and he fucking hates Larry King....

Except!!! as so often, the show was pre-empted for 'breaking news' over here on the european version. Which is usually so lame, you could barf. It is always, 'well, there is this story, and something happened, and we don't know exactly what yet, but stay tuned because this might be big.'

Note to CNN: either you know what is happening or you shut the fuck up. Till you know. And deliver facts. I know it is difficult running a 24 hour news channel, but keeping people salivating, and then delivering no facts is so bloody lame, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

I had a course on journalism in school. I got an A+. I would give CNN a D-.

Today was a little different. The 'breaking news' was that President Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize.

And I said, 'WHAAAA???'

Not that am envious or anything, but my first thought was 'what did he DO?'

I really couldn't wrap my head around the reasoning for it. And went into shock.

I always thought it was for acheivements, not good intentions....

Which called Bertha von Suttner to mind. Yeah, I know, her name won't ring a bell with you... but she was an interesting woman.

She was one of the first women to ever receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1904. She wrote a tract to abolish weapons. She was a suffragette, and many other things. And fought for world peace. She was the fifth recipient of that recognition.

She died of cancer shortly before the outbreak of WWI in 1914. And on our 'old' money, the Schilling, she was on our one thousand Schilling note. Everyone knew who she was, and what she had acheived.

So... upon thinking it over... maybe it wasn't such a bad call.. if someone can reach out, and get people to be civil, and begin a discourse... that IS an acheivement, and I hope he can keep it on that level.

Obviously, the level of discourse over the eight years before January riled and sowed hatred among many countries in this world, if they decided to award Obama such an honour. So whatever has gone on behind the scenes must have been right so far.

In other words, after the initial shock... ok, can understand... she was awarded because she was a moral compass, and influenced some people's thinking. I think that is what is at work here.... And oh yes, she was Austrian.

And in other news...

This is important. You can sign a petition. It is about health care. Go read. Here. Tell Harry Reid how you really feel.

Ya know, democracy isn't just about sitting back with some popcorn and watching what all the players are doing like in a football game. It is about voting, participating, and putting the pressure on when you see people going in the wrong direction.

I HATE german films.... and I hate German men who are cowardly

The end credits are just rolling up, and I am.... pissed off.

It is 'Der Vorleser'. It is about someone who reads to someone because she can't read or write.

So ok, this fifteen year old kid falls in love with an older woman. In the Fifties in Germany, which was even more stifling than in the US, and NO ONE at that time would ever admit having been a part of anything political in the decade before.

That was subtly, but nicely done.

And the production values were top-notch without coming to the fore, which was what USED to be the thing behind the quality, and not the thing itself. So far so good.

So... it is this mysterious woman who seduces a young kid, and has sex with him, but only after he reads to her. Because she can't. Lovely, lyric, gritty, and so on.

(No, it really was pretty... and yes, full nudity, which doesn't frighten the horses here... it propelled the story and wasn't gratuitous.)

Whatever, one day the woman disappears, the young man goes into law school later...

And HERE is where my boxer shorts started getting in a twist. Her former lover... who never got over her...is in law school. Attending a seminar, a very exclusive one. And gets to see his former lover accused of being a witch in the concentration camps.

Except she probably wasn't and gets made the scapegoat of the guards at Auschwitz.

And I started becoming really, really angry.

Because the young guy turned into 'tormented' Ralph Fiennes, looking back, and his younger self is at the trial, and knows that the woman charged couldn't ever have done what her co-accused said she did, because... she couldn't read or write.

And the younger version doesn't make one peep in protest, so she goes to jail for twenty years.

No THAT is typical German male behaviour. Cowardly. So skeered that they won't advance on the food chain.

By then my boxers looked like a thong.

Whatever, the guy's life is totally fucked, he never gets over it, and after this woman gets out of prison after 20 years, he is the only one who can take resposibility for her because he sent her tapes, reading books to her, but was too cowardly to see her personally.

And the day that is supposed to happen, she hangs herself.

It was not a satisfying experience, in other words.

Now, I know... the theme is very touchy, especially here.

But this was so fucked up, I didn't know where the fuck I was supposed to be thinking.

Who is 'to blame'? Who just gets caught up in things? Where does the guilt lie?

Important questions.

I have known someone who really did such a number on his wife that I will never ever forgive him.

Germans can really be cowards, believe me....

obviously, the film riled me up. It is a good film, and Kate Blanchett was wonderful, and deserved that Oscar nomination.

But on the whole?

Well, it is a good film for a rainy day if you want to get depressed.

just when you think something got buried for good...

It comes baaack!

Ok, ok, I have an allergy, or am algerian against this piece. It keeps coming back to haunt me over and over and over again..l. The music is lovely. Really. Some of it is such kitsch, you could retch. And now they are putting it on at the local opera house, and I am pissed off!

Now there are several reasons why I really get a bee in my bonnet about this. My godmother took me to see it when I was nine, and evening performance... ooo, that was cool. And we came away feeling cheered up and singing some songs from it. But that was at NINE...

That piece of treacle ran en suite for six months in a town of one hundred thousand people. It was cult.

Eventually, I forgot about it, of course. Till I arrived in Salzburg to find a place to stay in the Fall to study. Arrived in pouring rain, drenched to the skin at two in the a.m. with luggage for a year, and a receptionist took pity on me and gave me a room at the Hotel Pitter.

Next morning, I called my friend Susan to arrange a meeting, and fix a room for the Fall. My inner clock was so fucked up, my body didn't know where it was, but that is another story.

And btw... Salzburg gets an average of 265 days of rain a year. You can imagine what it does to the dispositions of the average citizen there. Sour....

BUT.... it was a lovely day after, and you could even see the mountains. Glorious view. So I followed instructions and headed across the park across the street, the Mirabelle Gardens... And was struck nearly blind with dejĂ  vu. 'I've been here before', I thought...

There was a hill with a beautiful fortress on it, and the park before me, and I thought, 'why in the world does this look so familiar????' And then I went a little further, and I saw it... Two naked guys with their arms outstretched, pointing to one another over the exit. (Yeah, even subliminally, it caught my attention when I was NINE.)

And I thought, 'Oh shit, 'The Sound of Music. This is where I landed?'

I will not torture you with the nonsense I had to face every day in that city when it came to the 'true believers', and fanatics who were crazy about that film.

But it got weirder. I had a roommate who was very quiet. And one day in the Fall he asked me to go to dinner with him where his family used to work. He was a quiet, unpreposessing young man, we worked in Munich together, but he never talked about his past, you see.

So I just said 'ok..', was curious... and we bussed out to behind the hill with the fortress, and the place where he used to live... was the Palace of Leopoldskron, set on a small lake. The US took it over after the war, and held seminars for the brightest students in Europe on the most diverse topics.

His parents used to run those seminars. We had lunch on the terrace, overlooking the lake, with those horses just like in the fucking movie? And looked left and there was the glass summer house? Gawwd. Color me speechless.... Turns out his parents had run the program during the filming, and he knew Julie Andrews, and played ping-pong with the kids in it. At which point I was spitless. And THEN he showed me the sneakret door that led from the library to the then archbishop's bedroom.

It was a bit much to take in, believe me.

When I got back from my year abroad, what was the first thing I had to do at my work in a cinema? Being on duty inside the theater. And what was playing? 'The (Fucking) Sound of Music!) It was a curse, somehow...

Over the decades, I have had to deal with groupies who really truly believe that the song 'EdelweiĂź' from that is our national anthem. It is NOT. Ours is from Haydn.

And... 'The Sound of Music' flopped badly in Austria...just so you know... People still wrinkle their nose if you mention it. And Salzburg named a tiny street in Aigen after the von Trapp family... begrudgingly.

So... I cannot figure out why the local opera would want to put this on now, I really can't.

I am half-tempted to get a standing-room ticket and watch them burst into flames and crash.... And I still think the flash-mob version in Atwerp Begium was brilliant, and I know, I have posted it before, but it is a joy to watch.

It might even be worth it.


This is must-see tee-vee

I usually start my morning by watching Countdown. He developed one segment over the past year giving special comments.

Yesterday his entire show was on health insurance, and his on-going experiences in the system, as his father is in the hospital.

This is must-see. You can click here to see it all. or over at Daily Kos here.

Riveting stuff.

You have to be of a certain age....

to really appreciate this monologue by comedian Lewis Black. It certainly mirrors my experience in grade school, so I guess we are the same age. But it is so 'true'... Enjoy an aspect of every day stuff in those schools at the height of the nuclear threat in the Fifties. Cracked me up. The other boogey man thing was the repub teachers telling you that the Russians are coming. But I already explained that.



you know how you get at a cross-roads, and aren't sure

what path to take next?

That is where I am at at the moment.

Had a horrendous 'moment' with what seems to be a nice lady today at Peter's place.

Just after I had an asthma attack and threw up.

He can really make me so upset....

But the aggrievance on the others' parts is really understandable, and totally upsetting, but that has upset me for a long time now.

It has to do with personal hygiene, and the fact that his bladder leaks all over the place.

And oh yes, I was cleaning it all up. Till the other week when he let me call the police unnecessarily.. And he 'thinks' she is going to come down and clean up after him, and I went negative.

It had nothing at all to do with feeling 'slighted'. He is so going into Alzi-land, and I am so not going with him.

His latest folly? Buying a pc and internet connection so that he can see the dvd's he'd bought per telephone, so he can watch them.... instead of a new dvd player. That is so fucked up, I do not know where to begin.

It wouldn't have cost a tenth of what he paid for the new set-up.

And he has no idea how to do a pc, and isn't interested.

He just wants to see his dvd's....

But cleaning up after himself? Don't ask...

I had an asthma attack this morning and threw up.

And then had to face a neighbour, going out. She is friendly, and ok. She isn't angry, she was concerned. And wanted to warn me. Others in the house are complaining that it stinks of urine when they go out. Because he doesn't make it to the toilet on time at night, and doesn't clean it up. If I go in it gags me.

Well, all I can say, is let the house people come and check up on what he has done, and stick him in a home, hey. I know that sounds very crass, but you can only take so much.

And you can only DO so much, and then you get worn down.

And I can't take that any more.

And I can't take all the stress any more, and thought that the Serbian bitch would come down and do the cleaning, because I have enough to do at my place. He said that was part of the 'deal'.

You'd think....

So... am just going to let everything take its' course.

That sounds very hard of me, I know... but have been the 'protector' for too long, have put up with the whole shit for so long, have paid for his idiocy for way too long.

I'm not going to lift a finger.

I risked too much, lost too much, got hurt too much.... and really don't know what I should do any more, I really don't.

So... you see?

You can fall in lurv... And then you aren't really yourself. Till one day you wake up and find you spent way too much time, and got fucked over in every way possible. You can tell yourself that you meant well, you can tell yourself that things would become better, and hope... but you can also end up being the idjit.

Because you just loved....

And that isn't just because he became ill. I did so much.... I saved his life more than once.. But if I was ill, he treated that as if it were treason on my part. And my ideas weren't reasonable or me being accountable.

Everyone is accountable for themselves. Period.

Relationships....

People just end up hurting people. And the party who cares gets cut to ribbons with psychical razor blades.

Just don't come at me with gay marriage, or marriage of any sort.

I haven't seen ONE that was something to attain to.

Oh.. it's Bush's fault?

That Chicago lost the Olympics bid?

Hmmm.... now, I have heard low rumbling murmurs over here for quite some time now, about how no one is all too eager to travel to the US. Only if they 'had' to, and then they weren't happy about it.

I did know about the fingerprinting and the photos, but missed the thing about paying $130.00 extra for a visa just to enter. Expensive club, hey. If we did that here, we'd have hopping off-the-charts angry tourists telling us we were facsists. And given the 'quality' of some of the ones who do come here, the 'new Romans', as I call them, with their breathtaking arrogance, it would be more than justified.

And then the stating the 'intent' to leave after proposed visit, now that is just idiocy... Who would want to stay there? Talk about overestimating oneself....

Entry being 'harrowing'? Well, have been on both sides of that fence, and can truly say... the authorities treat everyone equally badly on entering the country. From being intimidated on re-entry after a year abroad in 1973 by an agent who printed out a computer list and recited everything I did while gone and studying for a year, to entering as a 'ferner' to visit my father, and being harrassed about it to get a visa to get in in Boston. Now, that latter was really 'fun'. Not.

The official put me on tenterhooks, studying my nearly pristine passport. It had two stamps in it... from Slovenia. How very spooky for him. I live an hours' drive from the border, and used to join some friends to go to the town of Maribor and visit their fine fish restaurants. Fun times...

So I drily said, 'I have a return ticket'.

'Oh, we KNOW that...'

Till I said the magic words... 'Listen, I'm just here to visit my family, and then I have to return and go back to work.'

He drew out the suspense, and then stamped my pass with a visa. And I don't even want to BEGIN with describing the customs people.

And all that was way before 9/11. I do not even want to imagine what it is like now. Not to misunderstand, please. Once in, everyone was nice. But entering? Jeebus H. Christ on a crutch, hey.

For comparison, every time I entered then Yugoslavia, and later Slovenia, there was always an uproar when they found my US passport in the pile of Austrian ones. It annoyed my friends for the ten minute delay at the border, and sent the guards into high activity.

'An American! What are you doing here?' 'Errrm, going to a restaurant with some friends...' And they would run my data through their computers three times in their little toll booth sort of huts, muttering and shaking their heads.

Good times, hey... We came to expect that little show. After all, it was a )))communist country((( ... oooo. Shudder... But at least they were correct, and never impolite.

Entering the US was far more frightening.

And the rudeness was far worse.

So maybe the person quoted in this article was correct.

And I guess I am not alone... read the last part of this article.

I have no experience to quash that theory... Click on the link.

You have never lived...

Till you get molested by a parrot.

I have always said I love Rachel Maddow.

She shows unexpected things.

And to see THIS at five thirty in the morning, and watch her fall apart for hilarity and hardly catch herself to be serious.....

Well, sometimes we like to be just caught off guard, and look at something amusing....

Remind me not to go to New Zealand. It would fuck up my head. Have fun with this...

So... Chi-town lost the bid to hold the Olympics....

I nearly wished they would win just for creating jobs there... and there would be a mess of jobs, believe me.

What I don't understand is the cheering and jeering on the right. How patriotic are they when they gloat? And think that is a fine thing? What sort of 'patriosim' is that? It would have generated a mess of jobs and sparked the economy.

So if Obama hadn't gone overseas to plug it, and it lost, it would have been his fault. He did go over, and Chicago didn't get it, so of course it is his fault.

How sick is that?

Well, now we know what else Vicks Vapo rub is good for...

I have always said I do not like clowns...

And another 'spy' on Sitemeter

Everything 'unknown', but a German-language pc system...

And hit on my health-care posts...

Now that s fairly odd....

(Shrug)

But what the hell, I have other things to worry about right now.

Like finding out what happened to Giselle, for instance. Or Peter brightly telling me Horst will be home on the weekend, and he can ask him, whereupon my blood froze in my veins... and I said, 'What?' Horst died months ago, he is dead!' 'Oh yeah, I forgot...'

Uh-huh....

And oh boy... This will not be fun.

Hmmm... did I hit a nerve? I would really REALLY like to know....

There is some activity going on on my Site Meter. And no, am not a media whore, just curious as to the few people who tune in...

After working long and hard on being Johnny One Note when it comes to health care.... why in the world would someone from Blue Cross Blue Shield in Ohio decide to check out what I am doing????

Did I finally get something 'too' right?

Sheesh, now I KNOW I can't go for a visit, if they targeted me. That is as good as getting a badge of honour for something or other...

Take a look...

Underground Facades
By Location > Visit Detail
Visit 3,027
[<<] [>>]
Domain Name (Unknown)
IP Address 162.95.159.# (Community Mutual Blue Cross & Blue Shield)
ISP Community Mutual Blue Cross & Blue Shield
Location
Continent : North America
Country : United States (Facts)
State : Ohio
City : Cincinnati
Lat/Long : 39.1271, -84.4809 (Map)
Distance : 4,712 miles
Language English (U.S.)
en-us
Operating System Microsoft WinXP
Browser Internet Explorer 6.0
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1; MS-RTC LM 8; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
Javascript version 1.3
Monitor
Resolution : 1024 x 768
Color Depth : 32 bits
Time of Visit Sep 30 2009 7:44:06 am
Last Page View Sep 30 2009 7:44:06 am
Visit Length 0 seconds
Page Views 1
Referring URL
http://anntichristsc...9_03_01_archive.html
Visit Entry Page http://just-when-you...-fucking-enough.html
Visit Exit Page http://just-when-you...-fucking-enough.html
Out Click
Time Zone UTC-8:00
Visitor's Time Sep 29 2009 10:44:06 pm
Visit Number 3,027
Of course they found it on Annit's site... but still... only a matter of time till this stuff gets in the bull's eye, I spout off about health care enough....

Shucks, (shuffles feet), I feel so proud... really...

Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck....

No one can find Giselle. No one.

Giselle is a family friend. She is the one who only had one child, a son, who recently, like a few months ago, fell over dead at breakfast one day. I wrote about that...

Giselle is unbelievably nice, and has so many quirks, she could be hilarious. For many years, she came to all our dinners at the high holidays, and there were only two rules. She would only eat fowl. And the corfee had better be heart-stopping strong, or else.

I once mentioned the fowl thing to a cousin of mine, saying, 'she will eat anything that flies', and got back the question, 'even a Boeing 747?' Cracked me up.

People in my family can be so flip.

And she was always a fixture at Christmas. She loved her some pretty trees, believe me.

She always played one-upmanship with Peter's aunt. 'Well YOU weren't here when...' and so on and so on. It was like schoolgirl rivalry. 'And he made you FISH for the first course, but he made ME a chicken salad!' (So there... so to speak...) I usually had to run to the kitchen and just fall apart laughing. Deadly duels, they were... and hilarious.

Whatever, when I left Peter's house... she had become ill, and has more or less been bed ridden for the last 8 years, her son took care of her, and he died, and he was somewhat younger than me.

Peter and his aunt have always been in contact with her, and she always, ALWAYS sends me her greetings and admonitions to take care of myself, and cares.

I was astounded that when her son died, she did not call Peter or Charlotte. She called me. I had to be brave on that call, and not burst into tears for her. I did that afterward.

And all of a sudden, hey... she can't get to the phone. Which is just outside the room she occupies. She has people from social services who see to her every day. So first I thought, 'ok, she's back in the eye clinic, because her retinas get detached, and they keep trying to fix it.' Her son used to inform us, and we would know all was as ok as it could be... but he is no longer among us.

So Charlotte mailed me today, and told me how worried she was that she couldn't reach 'Gisi', as she calls her. (Her real first name is Gisela, and Peter's mother used to call her Giselle, thus the confusion here. For me, she was Giselle.)

So I assumed she was in the eye clinic again. And got the info at the state hospital, and asked if she were a patient there, explaining that a nearly ninety year old lady couldn't be reached, and we were wondering if she had been put into the hospital. And no. There is no patient of that name anywhere on their records.

That sort of fucks my mind.

So... tomorrow morning, I am going to bus out to her hilly area, and try to find out what has happened.

As optimistic pessimist... oh, I don't want to go there.

But hoping that at best, she couldn't cope any more, and is in a home... at worst? I do not want to go there.

I DO know that I will go there with fear in my heart.

People who are kind should live forever, you know?

I hope it is a false alarm.

Ok, here we go again....health care, single payer style...

There was a good video up on Daily Kos today, highlighting an octegenarian doctor who made a keynote speech at a meeting of something called, 'Mad as Hell Doctors'.

While everyone is fighting about a public option, this man is for single payer, which is the only form which makes any financial sense and would help people to the max. You can read the intro here.

I got privately criticised...

for commenting on the breaking Polanski story. It wasn't my intention to take anyone into excuses for whatever happened, and that we cannot know. It wasn't really about that.

I think it is way about something else.

And it always comes down to money.

And I do not wish to say anything more, but am convinced that something else is going on there, and it isn't savoury.

Am just tired..

But...

am emancipating myself, if slowly...

We will see. Am off for two days... I have to do something with my appartment.

Oh, it is gonna ge fun... not....

Holy Fucking Christ Almighty and the fucking donkey he rode in on !

I just learned that Roman Polanski got arrested in Switzerland, and is being flown to be persecuted in the fucking US of A.

Here.

Ok...

No, not 'prosecuted'. Persecuted. What the fuck hell is this supposed to be, I ask you?

This case goes back to 1978. The so-called 'victim' has long since called for them to cease and desist, and it wasn't the way it was portrayed in the press at the time.

Cui bono? Who profits?

Hell A was the sleaze capital of the world at the time. He was still not over the murder of his wife, and the senseless killing of his child who was in utero. People took advantage, I would guess. And blackened his name forever.

A man who survived the ghetto in Warsaw, whose parents and family were killed, he has seen horrors no one can imagine. I do not want to know what goes on in his mind...

So he has worked abroad since.

Two of my favorite people were with me in Vienna to see 'The Fearless Vampire Killers' as musical, and it was stunning. The man is an artist. That it failed on Broadway had a lot to do with the witch-hunt animosity against him, and several fatal artistic decisions. It was a terrific show.

They didn't tell me, 'Oh, no, we can't see that... he is a criminal.'

But there you go...

What gets my boxer shorts in a twist is that Switzerland is the culprit, sending him for trial in the US, although the supposed 'victim' has formally asked them not to try him.

And if that is the case... I want... any country to detain and arrest Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, the DOJ assholes who made torture 'legal', and all their minions put on lists, get arrested, and put on trial in the World Court at the Hague. Since what they did exceeds anything any of us can even thnk of in our wildest nightmares.

That is not to say I take anything thrown at Polanski lightly, I do not.

But there is something political going on here, and it gives me a bad taste in my mouf.

Switzerland gets immediately crossed of my 'to visit' list. Was that a quid pro quo for not opening their sneakret accounts?

Anything is possible...

Shit.

I am not so sure who is visiting from Canada...

But leave a message or e-mail me. I never bite.

Yesterday was the 70th (!!) anniversary...

Of the release of Warner's 'The Wizard of Oz'

That film is so iconic. The story is so unbeatable for being the 'best of all time'.....

(And yes, somehow it is very very gay.... but more on that in a minute...)

Yesterday, the Empire State Building was supposed to be lit green at the spire. (Emerald City, don'tcha know...) But got lit red, because of Iranians who were protesting Ach-my-gawwd-jamima whoever the fuck he is... I guess they were thinking of ruby slippers. At least that is Rachel Maddow's guess, she was all hopped up for it....

Rachel is half my age.

But I will bet you that if all Americans and people world-wide have one thing in common, it was seeing 'The Wizard of Oz' as a child.

Am not being snarky about this, really not. I can't remember how many years we had special showings at the cinema I worked in. Two weekend matinees, and we sold out 1400 seats on those weekends. And I and my friends would work overtime to put up over one thousand boxes of fresh popcorn for each one beforehand, it was a nightmare. But it was also a lovely experience to see a new generation see the film, if we had duty inside the cinema. Watching all the children's faces react to great story-telling, and being enrapt with pure magic on a big, big screen. I loved it when they went into wonderment, when the film went from black-and-white to technicolor and a whole new world opened up to them. And the terror, when the flying monkeys got led loose, and the joy when the wicked witch melted toward the end. Story-telling at its' very best, hey.

The gay references only surfaced much later. In the Fifties, one would ask, 'are you a friend of Dorothy's?', for instance. I never understood that, nor heard that one personally, by the way. For me it was the perfect fairy tale...

And to this day, I can't put my finger on what it was that made that film a gay icon. I guess they just seemed to embrace it, and what it was they identified with eludes me... wanting to be 'somewhere else'? 'I have a feeling we're not in Kansas any more.' Being bored and whisked off to a world of adventures you never imagined?' It has never made sense to me. Just Judy Garland? Pfft. I loved Bert Lahr.... just sayin'.

But whatever it was, it was the perfect children's film. I have a copy in my dvd collection, and believe it was the 60th anniversary of the film's release, with some amazing extras on it.

So I guess I will have to pull it out soon, and take another look at that masterpiece soon. Haven't been up for looking at anything lately. But it always cheers me up.

If you have a copy, take another look. Movie magic.

I wanted to find a good video of Garland telling about the wayward 'Munchkins', but came up with nothing. But this as good as it gets... And now I think I know why it hit something with the GLBT people. Not feeling you fit in, and wanting to be somewhere else....

Soap Operas... can make me laugh...



YouTube made me interested....

The parents were the worst acting in a soap opera I have ever seen, the idiocy of discussion didn't surprise me... but otherwise... One Life To Live just makes me cackle with hilarity.

Ok, my triggers for hilarity aren't very loose these days... Talk about drama queens... shee-it. But there is something in the dialogue that makes me think...

Well, as former being in the closet and having fears, some kid it going to just be who he or she is without the fear.

And some people are going to scream, 'Indocrination'. Except it won't be.

Hmmm... sonic weapons used on civilians.... the new taser???

While watching the usual uproar surrounding a G20 summit, and seeing young people run from tear gas and pepper spray, one thing caught my attention. A big truck or ambulance-looking vehicle, with a sound I had never heard before.

Seemingly, it was a so-called sonic weapon. I've read some scattered reports on this over the past few years. Mostly coupled with sonic devices used by the navy which drives whales to become disoriented, and beach themselves, and a 'super-sonic' device which maybe caused the undersea earthquake which caused the deadly tsunamis in Thailand.... Which theory I shrugged off at the time, as it seemed sort of 'Star Wars' in its' craziness. But I never ruled out that some sort of super-sonar signals would disorient whales and dolphins, or parasites, the waste being poured into the oceans considered. Was open minded about it, but was a cause of concern.... (In the Seventies I was delighted to see a school of dolphins following the ship I was on in the Mediterranean. The last time... I didn't see a single one....)

Whatever that vehicle was... some are saying that it was a sonic device. And at even that level can cause disorientation, or deafness, even.

I don't know WHAT the hell that sound was on CNN before the pepper spray or tear gas flew, but even hearing it on the PC was very disagreeable, without knowing what it might have been.

Now, it is a GIVEN, that when the G20 summits take place, it attracts a mess of people who are very angry with globalisation, and they take to the streets, and a minority act inappropriately, and there are usually riots.

And passionate, young people get out of hand, damage gets done, but the powers that be don't seem to care and shove their agenda in your faces. And the police come in, and there is tear gas, and rubber bullets, and violence. We've had enough of that shit in Europe over the past years.

But something was different this time. Tja, Pittsburgh... There weren't so many people as elsewhere the past years. But they started running off, most of them....

And then CNN comes up with a report that sonic weapons were used for the first time... on Americans. And then there was this report. Click HERE.

Now if we take tasers as an example, which are seemingly given into the hands of incompetent scared police who would rather use them than do their jobs, and the reports on that are myriad...

What is going to happen if there really is such a new weapon for 'crowd control'?

In a crowd peacefully demonstrating?

Would they amp it up till they have a street full of dead people dying of brain hemmorhage, and problem solved? Or is it another scare tactic?

This is all hypothetical, and nothing is proven.

And we all get to be the sheeple...

There have been so many lies, and so much scariness in what has been going on the past months... I don't believe very much of what I see on what passes for 'news' or the 'tee-vee' or anything else for that matter.

After reading many things over many decades, I do not know what to believe any more.

But I DO know... I never heard a sound like that before.

And find it unsettling.

Values Voters...

are sorta crazy. To underscore what I asserted below... pornography will make you gay, and that has to be one of the weirdest things I have EVER heard. We're talking about Playboy or Hustler type pornography here, btw. So... you tell your eleven year old sons, grandsons, great-grandsons that if they ever ever look at any of those... it will turn them gay. I don't know where that guy went to school, but am spitless when it comes to his illogical conclusions. And the other stuff wasn't much more logical Were these people all home schooled?

Because I do not get it. And how did they get where they are? A close friend of mine used to say, 'Who did he/she have to FUCK to get THAT job???' Always a valid question....

And for those who don't believe Jimmy Carter... that 'joke' at the beginning... is so racist, I would like to get out some eye bleach, but the audience loved it. I know, I know... Obama has so much on his plate, he doesn't need to add that to his plate. But am not so sure that is a sure-fire recipe for quelling what is becoming the flames.

I like Michaelangelo Signorile... I do...

Anyone who gets up on a pedestal in a New York Church in the 80's and calls the then cardinal and now Pope the Anntichrist, has my respect. (It was the AIDS crisis, and he was an activist... and the then Cardinal's remarks were unspeakable.)

But to understand the 'crazy' going on in the US, this interview is amazing. WHY are people so misinformed? Sure, this lady truck driver is going nuts because her mother is dying, and you would THINK that it would make HER think... somehow. Raging fear, or something... And seemingly busting her ass to pay the bills.

And that is where the discussion gets de-railed. If there is that much rage... you cannot have a civil discourse. And that is the problem.

Civility is something a lot of Americans lost a long time ago. But it escalated into screaming.

If this is something people hear every day on the radio, boy howdy, it is a bleak picture of what US 'culture' has become. Listen closely...

Fractured Fairy Tales....

Give your child a copy of Playboy at age eleven, and then tell him it will make him )))gay(((. As happened at the so-called 'Values Voters' convention in Washington D.C. this past weekend. Now how fucked up is THAT?

Link here.

This is going around on the net, and is enlightening...

Except I can remember my grandfather listening to the McCarthy hearings on the radio, and even though I was very young, I hated those people on the HUAC. It was just instinctive. Well, what goes around comes around.... Take a listen and watch. It is even better than radio.... And the original is still up at Crooks and Liars... oh well, it was... It's been pulled from all over the place.

It was a very very powerful juxtaposition of what was then and what is now. I hope a lot of people saw it. But take some aspirin first, it will give you a head-ache....



I want to see THIS movie... scary....



It almost looks 'real', after seeing all the values voter blatherers over the last weekend. In fact, it's like the Fifties.... but I didn't like the ending. /snark

Ok, everyone is talking about Obama...

Even moslim people across my court.

They scare me at the moment....

I do not understnd the language, so I do not know what they are talking about. It could be innocent. It could be incendiary. I do not know. The tone was very agitated.

If you do not know a language, you're sunk. You just hear the tone.

Obama is going to the Middle East this week.

And I really don't know what those people were talking about, but his name fell.

And that made me afraid,

I do not GET it.

There are days when I think he wants to be a martyr.

And that is so sick, ..... I just can't go there.

What the fuck does he think he is DOING???

/snark

And in more silliness... The Russians are Coming!

This film was so funny, I nearly shit my pants.

I grew up to be so afraid of Russians, I was petrified as a child. I got lectures in fifth class about how they were gonna come and take my parents away to re-education camps, thanks to Reader's Digest, and we would be indoctrinated, and be little robots who would do whatever 'dear leader' wanted. And we would get our parents as zombies back, once they were finished with them.

Hard times, my friends.... Scary times....

Indoctrination.

We kinda liked this ranting Repub idjit teaching us, because if a subject was boring, someone would get her on this rant, and it was amazing. Because, kids love a good scary tale.

I do not know how I got through grade school and be half-way intelligent, I swear.

Unlike the movie... I never saw anyone from Russia till I began working in Europe. And we got a group of 'tourists' (right) come in on a tour of visiting our agricultural set-ups, and to 'learn'.

It freaked me the fuck out beforehand.

I was gonna SEE the people who had been so demonised, and put my folks in prison and re-educate them, it was very upsetting.

And then they arrived. For a 'distinguished' group, they were really dressed down. And I thought, 'Fuck! They look like Americans!'

Something in my world changed that day. And that is why I love this film.

And since the US defused what Boosh wanted to do, appropriate.

Enjoy.

This is the thrd time I have seen this silliness....

it is 'Talk Like a Pirate Day'. ARRRRH... Yes it is... And I finally found out where that bit of insanity came from. So pay attention, learn your lesson, rehearse it all year so that next September 19th you can convince everyone around you that you have gone overboard and are nutters. Arrrrh! and then some. But ye'd better be good at it by then, because owerwise, it's down to Davy Jones' locker wif ya, and that right quick.... /idiocy....

Yes, ring the fucking BELL! Sound an alarm, hey...

Aretha.

When White-bread Nancy Pelosi gets up and gets 'emotional', because the national discourse has become so coarse, it is nearly unbearable to watch any more..... You KNOW you are in big trouble. Asking people to turn down the tone of daily discussion.

I think there was so much more behind that.

The opposition hates that woman so much... someone must have scared her totally.

Rachel Maddow was sorta off the charts for, WhAAA? yesterday... That she referred to assassinations in San Francisco in '78, and got emotional, Pelosi was THERE. There were murders.

And the opposition doesn't fucking care, because they want to tear down everything that exists.

I would like to bitch-slap some ot them, but no way I would ever go there.

Nor want to.

Some people are playing with fire, and probably still in diapers like fucking David Vitter.

With all the shit that is going on.... I have the feeling the US is gonna explode, big time.

And who set the long fuses? O'Reilly, Beck especially, Dan Savage, aka Wiener, and whoever is out there just setting people off to protect corporations.

So... If I had a hammer....

When people are ALLOWED to carry guns to a place where the president is going to speak...

I freak.

What are the authorities thinking, what the fuck are those crazies thinking????

I do not get it.

There are still SOME of us still alive who are old enough to remember very horrible things.

We put people on pedestals, true.

But they helped normal people.

NOW????

I would like to take all the selfish, horrible people who control the media, and send them to oblivion.... wherever that is...


This comes two days late, but wish to place my

feeling of sadness on-line. Mary Travers died. Yes, She of Peter, Paul, and Mary. For anyone who thinks that Obama was gonna indoctrinise people... She and her friends did more than even he would have dreamed of. They were elegant... for that time. Their lyrics were eloquent, and thought-provoking, and outright provocative.

I believe that they were the first music group who really hit me in the gut with their music. They made Dylan 'salon-fähig', acceptable, and gave credibility to things that were against the Viet Nam war, which came later.

They played live in a theater in the little town I grew up in, and I SO wanted to go. I did extra errands, so as to earn the money to go and see them. So I was a little groupie, before that term got coined. My plan got nixed by my 'rents. Because the concert was at night, you see....

They wouldn't let me go out nights. Which isn't any wonder to me nowadays, but at the time was crushing. I WANTED to see Peter, Paul and Mary perform. But there was a problem. I was somewhere between eight and ten years old. And in my family at that age... bed time was eight p.m. Period.

So I had to miss it. And never caught up with them ever again.

But they influenced me greatly. Obama? Pfft. Indocrination? Pshaw, get outta here! That group did more to raise my political conciousness than anything I can think of.

Now Mary Travers has passed on. I still so wish I could have seen her and her trio perform in my little burgh.

All that gets left is on YouTube. Their message wasn't strident. They sounded absolutely wonderful. And we get the loss. RIP.



I was trying to explain everything to someone...

and turned it into a fairy tale, a fracutred one.


Once upon a time... there was this guy who was handsome and athletic, and lovely. And he had a fairy godmother who was incredibly scurile , and adopted him, and left him all her kingdom, including a long neglected house. The 'prince' was ecstatic, and turned it into a mansion, selling off valuable land to make it 'perfect'. And it was. But the 'prince' wasn't all that bright. And his vassal would try to counsel him, but he would say, 'NO, this is MY realm, and I will do as I please!'

It didn't take long, and the 'prince' took in an innocuous looking woman, who was in reality the worst witch in the Shire in which he resided. The vassal was distraught, and wrung his hands and warned him, but he wouldn't listen. Her ally was a warlock, who was capable of dark magic. And they bewitched the 'prince', and managed to take all his lands and house away from him. The 'prince' was so gullible, he never really noticed what the dark forces were doing. And the vassal had no powers.

It wasn't long before the witch and the warlock managed to send the vassal into outer realms, where he could have no power over the 'prince'.

But the 'prince' was happy. He thought that they would look after him forever and a day.

Except they didn't and weakened him. And took everything he had.

Now, the laws of the land said, they couldn't just throw him out. But they made sure he was miserable, and stole whatever they could from whatever he had inherited from his Fairy Godmother.

And when he became ill, and was sorry for everything, he had to leave, and they found a way to finally obtain the realm he had so lovingly built up, and he ended up in poverty and misery.

The vassal returned, and tried to have the protective forces of the realm rescue the 'prince'.... except he had been away too long, and the laws were changed.

And no one lived happily ever after.

End of story.

I did a test today.... and it wasn't a nice one

Was over at Peter's, and our friend Doro came over to help me out, because, I am NOT very good with anything any more.

It sort of turned into 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf ' because I am still so angry.

And I was fucking bloody Martha.

And you know what?

He didn't care.

At all.

He gave inane answers.

He just didn't care. Period.

(My heart just literally gave me pain, saying that.... literally.)

Oh, I didn't scream or yell. I didn't.

I just told her a story about what happened recently. Truthfully, but still so fucking angry it was bitter.

Ok, it wasn't a story. It was what happened. She obviously hadn't heard about him signing over the apt. although she and her husband bought the top left one years ago.

She kept giving me the thumbs up sign behind his back.

And then it got uncomfortable, and she left.

I called and apologised for having her subjected to that.

But I wanted to see how far along on the road to dementia he is.

And got an answer from her that I didn't want to hear.

'He never cared. Drop it. He never cared. It was bad enough when you left, but nearly getting you arrested? Walk away, and take care of yourself. We're here for you.'

Werner, who has seen me cry myself to sleep more times than I wish, trying for him not to notice, is far more adamant. 'Throw him away. You deserve so much better.'

My father's immediate reaction was very much like his. Heteros, hmpf...

I think it better not to throw people under the bus. They'll slip under there on their own, you know?

Gawwwd, am I tired at the moment.

There is a lot I am not putting in here, regarding the 'person' who managed to take away everything I had....

So, I guess, after 34 years, I'm going to give notice, final at the end of the month. And what Peter does after that doesn't touch me any more.

Goodness knows... I have done so much over so many decades, much of which wasn't easy... but one day you have to wake up and say 'enough is enough'.

And don't anyone get on my case about stretching it out, hey. I want it to be civil, and he can find someone else to leech onto. But not onto the few friends I have left.

After all that... well, it won't be easy, but it will be right. And it feels 'right' at the moment, so am sure.

'Norma Rae' has passed on...

Go to Crooks and Liars here. Another insurance victim...

And in other news....


Patrick Swayze died.

Now THAT is something I do NOT need...


Towle Road reports that a new film is in the works.... Michael Douglas is going to play in a bio-pic. Liberace, with Matt Damon as his lover. And I am going to have an asthma attack RIGHT NOW.

And throw up.

What the fuck hell are they thinking?

One of my first memories of the tee-vee was that they were constructed to look like little theaters. And Bio-Mom loved nothing more than watching Liberace, and I fucking HATED that person. I hated his smarminess, I hated him crying when he talked about his mother, I hated his candelabra, I even hated his piano. I must have had an instant allergic reaction. I was only four or five years old.

And I never GOT it. That people didn't see him as he was. And make excuses, he was so 'talented'. It was just show, and he was laughing all the way... to the bank.

Ahh, those were innocuous times....

So what the fuck are two very talented people doing making a film about the ultimate out-there closet case who only had a modicum of talent?

I guess I am still allergic.