Mind Vomit by the ikss ~ a journal
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somebody out there loves me
�Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead�
-Lucille Ball
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
--Theodore Roosevelt, 1918
REGISTER TO VOTE
"The time is always right to do what is right"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The "seven social sins": Knowledge without character,
Science without humanity,
Wealth without work,
Commerce without morality,
Politics without principles,
Pleasure without conscience,
Worship without self-sacrifice."
--Gandhi
"We have not inherited the world from our forfathers -
We have borrowed it from our children."
--Kashmiri, proverb
Um�I keep forgetting (what would Freud say?) to ask John about our situation, in light of my recent night of debauchery. You see, I think I told him that, while I wasn�t going to tell him every time I went on a date, I would let him know if/when I had sex with another man. But, you see, I don�t think I was thinking I would have sex all willy-nilly and outside the confines of a relationship. Therefore, if it got to the point where I was telling John I was having sex with someone else, it would really be because I was actually telling him I am involved with someone else and there would therefore be no further John/Karen nookie.
Get the picture?
So now that I have just had a one nighter, do I really have to tell John about it? I mean, John and I are not in an exclusive relationship. I used a condom so presumably there should be no germs. Why tell him at all?
Let�s be honest, though. The real reason I am trying to come up with excuses not to tell John is because I�m afraid he won�t slip me the sausage (to put it politely) anymore if he thinks others are doing so. And is a one-night-stand really worth going without sex entirely for Lord knows how long?
I�m awful. I need to tell him, I guess.
But I really have just forgotten to tell him over the last couple of nights.
(Must have been a memorable experience, har-har.)
Anyway, now I don�t really want to tell him because John is not very happy right now. When we talked last night, he told me he�d gotten demoted at work. It�s a long story, but suffice it to say that his demotion is totally unjustified and his boss is an idiot who doesn�t know how to run his business. He knows what he wants; he just doesn�t know how to get it. Therefore, although John goes way far beyond the call of duty in his position and helps everyone else in the shop so much it�s ridiculous, his boss can�t see what�s right in front of him unless it has a dollar sign attached and he isn�t smart enough to know that John knows what he�s talking about when he�s trying to tell his boss how to better handle things.
I know that made no sense. Just trust me that he was unjustly demoted.
So, being the selfless person that I am, I immediately thought of how his demotion may affect me. And once again I am concerned that me may decide to move back down here. He�s already talking about giving up where he is.
My gut tells me he will find a way to stay where he is. But I still have a nagging feeling.
~~~
So some family happenings have been going on over the last couple of days. Luckily, the drama was over as quickly as it began�well, at least it�s over for now.
Mark�s ex kidnapped their son over the weekend.
They hadn�t heard from her in almost three months and she finally called Mark late last week, saying she wanted to see Cameron and give him his Christmas presents. Mark of course wanted to encourage her to actually be a mom and so agreed. Unfortunately, he agreed to let her take Cameron over night. Well, she never brought him home.
She did, however, call Mark and tell him she wasn�t bringing Cameron home, which I find rather odd.
Anyway, she wasn�t living where she was supposed to be living and hadn�t shown up for work, so Mark had a hard time tracking them down for a couple of days. He finally tracked them down yesterday and now has Cameron back at home. I don�t know what�s next in this scenario, as I need additional information from my brother.
Among other things that stand out in this tale is the fact that my brother Mark actually called me on Sunday to tell me what was going on!
You have no idea how bizarre that is.
Mark has seemingly been trying to be closer to all of us and has been way more communicative over the past couple of months. It�s really cool, but it�s just so odd. Historically, Mark has been the most private in our family, the only possible exception being my brother Larry who has lived in Utah since he went to college there some thirty years ago. Mark just never lets anyone know what�s going on in his life.
As I said to Barbara yesterday, though, I only hope he is also communicating with his daughters.
Politics
I still haven�t talked about Sunday�s Democratic debate�well, I may be biased, but I thought Dennis Kucinich kicked much ass! It was great. Plus, he was actually interviewed on the freakin� Fox News Channel afterward! I don�t know the name of the guy interviewing him, but I was astonished at how polite he was toward Dennis (seeing as this was the freakin� Fox News Channel!!) and he even said at the end of the little interview that Dennis always says what he means and he appreciated that.
Yay! J
I�m still kind of blown away by that whole exchange, frankly�
My favorite moment was when the following question was posed to Dennis (I am paraphrasing, of course): �Congressman Kucinich, I hear a lot of Democrats say they love what you have to say, but that they feel you are unelectable. How do you respond to that?�
Kucinich: �Well�I�m electable if you vote for me.�
So simple, and yet so true. :)
Plus, I thought Dennis lost a lot of his�well, I hate to say this about my boy, but he often comes off in debates as�well, to put it bluntly�a rat.
What I mean is, he�s this little guy with these big ears who gets all up in people�s faces in what appears to be agitated desperation. It�s not a good look for him and he is so not like that at all when you hear him speak in any other forum than a debate. I get frustrated when he does this in debates. I understand that he�s trying to get everyone to address issues directly, rather than as politicians do, but he just comes off badly sometimes.
More of his real personality came through on Sunday, I thought.
I thought Howard Dean did rather well in the debate also, in spite of Gephardt�s, Lieberman�s and Kerry�s attempts to throw him off. You know, I assume those guys have to have a brain to have done all of the things they have done for our country over the course of their public service. How can such smart men be so stupid (and how many times have we women asked that question?)? If they�d just stop attacking Dean, he wouldn�t have so many opportunities to defend himself. The more you attack and the more he is put in the position of defending himself, the more you all look like assholes.
Let�s face it. Dean sticks his foot in his mouth on a regular basis. If you�d just leave him to his own devices, he�d probably do as much damage to himself as is being done now and you wouldn�t look like such assholes for constantly attacking him, rather than focusing on what exactly you plan to do as president.
Man, things would be so much better if I ran this country.
(Don�t worry � I realize what a joke that is)
One groovy thing which was brought up by John Edwards was a brief discussion about campaign finance. Gephardt was harping on how he apparently managed campaign reform all by himself (I love how these guys take such full credit for this shit) and John asked him if he would be for getting rid of private contributions entirely and financing everyone�s campaign publicly.
Ah�that was music to my ears, people!
I have been saying for years that we should just get rid of campaign contributions and give every candidate the same amount of money for their campaign. They can then use that money however they see fit, whether for print ads or television or in attempts to dig up dirt on their opponent � whatever, they�d only have �X� amount of dollars so they�d better use them wisely.
Do I personally want to pay for George Bush�s campaign through my tax dollars? Hell no. But I would rather do that (which, let�s face it, would probably onlyamount to a few cents) than pay in the way we do now. Every candidate has to answer to those people who gave them money for their campaigns. Whether it�s the NRA or the Religious Right or the Tobacco Companies or whomever. They give millions of dollars, they expect favors. And they get them. And we, the people who our elected officials are actually supposed to represent, get screwed.
No campaign contributions = no special interest groups. Sounds good to me. What has always mystified me is that no candidate has ever mentioned that in such a public forum before, at least not to my knowledge. So yay for John Edwards on that one!
And finally�I may be going to the Democratic Convention as one of Dennis� volunteers. Keep your fingers crossed for me, will ya?
~~~
I am posting this mainly for clarification purposes, as you may have heard of this hula-baloo:
Dear MoveOn member,
As the New Year begins, we'd rather be talking about positive things, and there are plenty of good things happening. But MoveOn.org has come under attack from the Republican National Committee (RNC), which has launched a campaign of malicious misinformation to divert attention from the creativity and power of the Bush in 30 Seconds contest. We need your help to make sure the media don't fall for it.
RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie launched the attack on "Fox News Sunday," and the RNC followed it with press releases and calls to reporters. The charges centered on two ads posted on the Bush in 30 Seconds website which compared President Bush's tactis with those of Adolf Hitler. Mr. Gillespie repeatedly referred to the ads as 'the MoveOn ad' or 'MoveOn's ad,' implying that we had sponsored or perhaps even commissioned the ad. And he also claimed that we might spend $7 million to run it on TV.
This is a lie. MoveOn.org hasn't sponsored such an ad, and we never would -- we regret the appearance of these ads on the Bush In 30 Seconds site. The two ads in question are from more than a thousand posted by members of the public, and they were voted on by MoveOn members through December 31st. Obviously the few hundred of you who viewed these ads agreed that they were not worthy of further broadcast or recognition, because they got low ratings. Yesterday we announced the 15 finalists -- all good, hard-hitting and fair appraisals of the Bush record, in the judgment of the members and others who rated them. The two offending ads can only be found one place now -- on the RNC website!
When we've explained this to journalists, most have understood that this is a game of gotcha politics, not news. But even our statement for the press below, which goes through the entire process in detail, hasn't stopped the right wing from working this angle as hard as they can.
That's why we're asking you to please watch for stories on this as they appear, and let us know. Call the news outlet yourself and give them hell for falling victim to such political baloney. I've attached our statement, which fully explains the situation, below. Then please let us know so we can contact the outlets directly.
You can help us track inaccurate reporting on this story here.
Second, we need you to get the press back on the right track. After you've corrected the negative accounts, write an upbeat letter to your local paper about the exciting and positive aspects of the contest and the finalists. These ads reflect the courage, hope, and deep patriotism of our membership. They're creative, passionate, and totally unlike most of the political ads that are out there. And perhaps most importantly, they were picked in a democratic way. Now that's a story.
The finalists are online here.
By sharing that URL with your friends, family, and colleagues, you can help to make sure that the RNC isn't successful in stealing our finalists' glory.
Not only is the RNC campaign deceptive, it's also totally disingenuous. Yesterday, the New York Post ran a long opinion column focusing exclusively on how much Presidential Candidate Howard Dean resembles Hitler, even calling him "Herr Howie." Of course, the RNC hasn't issued a condemnation of that. When close RNC ally Grover Norquist repeatedly compared taxing the wealthy with the Holocaust in an interview on NPR, the RNC was muted. And in 2002, the RNC and its allies were silent when supporters of President Bush actually aired TV ads morphing the face of Senator Max Cleland, a triple amputee as a result of wounds sustained in Vietnam, into Osama bin Laden. Given such a transparently partisan track record, the RNC's moral outrage doesn't mean a whole lot.
Obviously, MoveOn.org and its 1.7 million members are now on the right-wing radar. They are going to do everything they can do to silence us, and we simply won't let it happen. Smear tactics and campaigns of misinformation have no place in American democracy.
Sincerely,
--Adam, Carrie, Eli, James, Joan, Noah, Peter, Wes, and Zack
The MoveOn.org Team
January 6th, 2003
~~~
PRESIDENT WAVERS ON PLEDGE TO HELP FIND LEAKER
When it was first reported that a "senior Bush Administration official" had leaked the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame, President Bush dutifully pledged his full cooperation and assistance with the investigation. He said, "I'd like to know who leaked, and if anybody has got any information inside our government or outside our government who leaked, you ought to take it to the Justice Department so we can find out the leaker. I have told my staff, I want full cooperation with the Justice Department."
But with the Justice Department now asking White House staff to sign forms that could definitively expose the leaker, the President appears unwilling to uphold that commitment. Specifically, the Washington Post now reports that the White House "declined to say Monday whether President Bush thinks his aides should sign the forms that would release reporters from any pledges of confidentiality" - and thus allow reporters to identify the White House leaker. (Time magazine reported that Karl Rove, Bush's senior adviser, was one of a number of top White House staff that has been sent the form by investigators).
When asked about the President's stonewalling, White House spokesman Scott McClellan dismissed any inquiries, saying, "That's asking a specific question about matters that should be directed to the career officials at the Department of Justice." It was a sharp contrast to his previous comments attempting to specifically absolve Rove, the Vice President's Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, and National Security Council official, Eliot Abrams, from any responsibility. McClellan also said that "no one wants to get to the bottom of this more than the President does." But three months ago, Bush refused to ask his staff to sign the same release form to minimize the investigation's cost and potential damage to national security. His apparent reticence to fully support the Justice Department's efforts to expose the leaker is now raising additional questions.
Read the Mis-Lead
~~~
EPA Plans to Allow Untreated Sewage in Waterways
The public has until Jan. 9 to comment on a Bush Administration plan to routinely allow sewage that's been only partially treated to be released into public waterways during storms.
The proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency would exempt sewage treatment plants during heavy rains and snowmelts from having to put sewage through the standard biological treatment process to remove pathogenic organisms and other pollutants. Municipal treatment plants would be allowed to divert sewage around biological treatment units and then "blend" the largely untreated sewage with treated wastewater prior to discharge.
This would put more viruses and parasites into the water Americans drink and swim in, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. NRDC says the proposal violates the Clean Water Act.[1]
Under current policy, storm overflows can only be released into rivers, streams and coastal waters without treatment when it is necessary to prevent personal injury or severe property damage, such as during a hurricane. The Bush Administration is proposing to allow sewage plants to bypass the process to kill viruses and pathogens anytime they experience high water flow.[2]
The EPA has found that discharges of inadequately treated sewage spread pathogens and disease in rivers and coastal waters and that "municipal sewage treatment plants remain the fourth most common source of pollution in rivers."[3]
Infectious waterborne diseases strike millions of Americans annually.
SOURCES:
[1] NRDC press release, Nov. 3, 2003
[2] Ibid.
[3] EPA's National Water Quality Inventory: 1998 Report to Congress.
~~~
Word of the Day for Tuesday January 6, 2004:
penury PEN-yuh-ree, noun:
1. Extreme poverty; destitution.
2. Absence of resources; insufficiency.
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