Friday, May 26, 2006

Advice to Veterans on Memorial Day


Memorial Day weekend is a lot of things. It's a time to celebrate having survived winter and spring and gotten to summer. It's a weekend of picnics and newly opened swimming pools and having your sisters visit from far away places. [ed. note: it's news like this that makes me happy my DC sister is already on a plane headed here right now.]

But in reality, it's a weekend to honor veterans who have given their lives in our wars.

It's crazy that, as we celebrate our veterans' sacrifices, we get this piece of news, that MILLIONS of them have had their personal identity information compromised. And not only that, but the government took WEEKS to spread the news, so there's no telling what's happened to their credit ratings, their bank accounts, their records...

Happy Memorial Day, Vets!!

As a survivor of identity theft twice in my life, here's my wise advice to veterans this weekend: GO SHOPPING WITH YOUR CREDIT CARDS. Go now, while you can still claim someone else did it. Go wild. Spend to your limit. All you'll be liable for is $50. And when Visa and Mastercard come looking for you, simply tell them to go to the government for reparations. They f***ed up, they should pay your bills.

Call it a teensy little bit of payback for their cutting your benefits, for closing schools on bases, for keeping female soldiers from being able to get Plan B (emergency contraception), and for finding ways to discredit each and every one of you who runs for office against any Republican with power. Remember the Alamo, Omaha Beach, the USS Indianapolis, but also remember the smear campaigns against Max Cleland, John McCain and John Kerry.

This isn't an administration that values its veterans, so do your best to make them pay.

And while you're spending those hard-lost dollars, might I suggest these bits of subversive shopping? Get back at the Christian conservatives by plunking down your $9 for the DaVinci Code. Have coffee first, however. It's boring.

Then, head on over to anyplace selling CDs and buy the Dixie Chicks album. It's literally flying off the shelves (the cashier asked me why everyone was buying it), and your purchase will be a nice slap in the face to all those Clear Channel DJs who think they're un-American. Um, actually, they're quintessentially American. My God, they even play country music.

And if you can't get to Vegas to be with all us bloggers who are trying to shake things up, at least go buy Crashing the Gate and read about how people are taking back politics in this country, one byte at a time.

Be a patriot. Enjoy Memorial Day. Have a beer and a tofu pup on me.

And take a veteran shopping!

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

A Video Worth Sharing

I'll write more later today (I hope), but in the meantime, here's a link to a YearlyKos promo that should make you understand why I'm bothering to volunteer for this crazy thing and why I'm going to Vegas in the heat of June.

Join me?

Friday, May 19, 2006

Going Against the Tide

First woman to head wrong way - British yachtswoman Dee Caffari holds a flare as she crosses the finish line aboard her craft Aviva, in southwestern England Thursday as she becomes the first woman to complete solo non-stop round the world voyage the 'wrong-way' against prevailing winds and currents in a west-about route. (AP photo by Chris Ison)
May 19, 2006

There are just so many good female stories this week. I think the caption tells the above story, but it's one that seems to exemplify the way I've been feeling lately. I may be facing into the wind. I'll remember to not spit into it. But I've got to believe I'm still going the right way.

Just like this lovely Peruvian woman recently discovered. Okay, so she's a mummy. Don't hold that against her. From the NY Times story:

"A mummy of mystery has come to light in Peru.

She was a woman who died some 1,600 years ago in the heyday of the Moche culture, well before the rise of the Incas. Her imposing tomb suggests someone of high status. Her desiccated remains are covered with red pigment and bear tattoos of patterns and mythological figures.

But the most striking aspect of the discovery, archaeologists said yesterday, is not the offerings of gold and semiprecious stones, or the elaborate wrapping of her body in fine textiles, but the other grave goods.

She was surrounded by weaving materials and needles, befitting a woman, and 2 ceremonial war clubs and 28 spear throwers — sticks that propel spears with far greater force — items never found before in the burial of a woman of the Moche (pronounced MOH-chay).

Was she a warrior princess, or perhaps a ruler? Possibly."She is elite, but somewhat of an enigma," said John Verano, a physical anthropologist at Tulane University, who worked with the Peruvian archaeologists who made the discovery last year...

"Perhaps she was a female warrior, or maybe the war clubs and spear throwers were symbols of power that were funeral gifts from men," Dr. Verano said."

And this 'un:

"Panel recommends FDA approval of cervical cancer vaccine

Merck says drug will slash global deaths by two-thirds

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A vaccine with the potential to slash worldwide deaths from cervical cancer, the No. 2 cancer killer in women, should be approved for sales in the United States, a federal panel said Thursday.

A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee voted 13-0 to endorse the safety and effectiveness of Merck and Co.'s Gardasil, which blocks viruses that cause cervical cancer. The company said the vaccine could cut worldwide deaths from the disease by two-thirds."

*********

I love those few times when the crazy right-wing nuts lose. I heard a good comment the other day that answers the argument: "but if you vaccinate them against STDs, kids'll just go out and have sex!" The response: "There's no evidence that if you give a kid a bike helmet, they're more likely to go out and have accidents."

This could be a banner week for female headlines. Gotta seize these moments of celebration when you find them.

Been down so long, it looks like up to me.

Go forth and have a great weekend! And since I'm volunteering for the Yearly Kos convention, here's a plug for that: go to www.yearlykos.org and register today. If I have to be there, so do you!!

Drinks and fervent idle chatter poolside at the Riviera for all progressives!!

-- DC Native

Thursday, May 18, 2006

My Sentiments Exactly

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Conservatives Can Only Cry For Themselves

A teeny, tiny photo of Tony Snow, White House mouthpiece.

It's good to see Tony Snow's performance this past week as I job-and-client hunt. It makes me realize there's a need for people like me to keep people like him from embarassing themselves. Though it is one of the world's toughest jobs, so who am I to judge?

What I CAN judge, however, is his tearful moment, when he got choked up talking about his bout with cancer last year. Yes, Tony, be choked up. You got all the medicine you needed, got better, and had a chance to take on this lucrative job because you lived. But you work for a party that has systematically - almost proudly - made the kind of health care that saved you so expensive that businesses are jettisoning workers' coverage. They've created an entirely new business model that abandons anyone with less than perfect health so that the profitability of the company is kept healthy. They don't care about people falling through the cracks because they don't count. Not to this administration and its party. Retirees who were promised pensions are having their health coverage dropped by their employers, who pass the costs of funding their pensions on to us, the American taxpayers. Business. Lovely business. Lord Business must always be served.

But as for the human beings in this story... there are lots of families all over the country tonight, Tony, who are crying because they can't afford the care you got and they've got to make a whole different set o' plans for their future.

Somehow, I'm not so impressed by your sensitivity, Tony. Buck up, boy. You've got a long loooong road ahead.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

A Bad Moon Rising and What You Can Do

Karl Rove, left, Brett Kavanaugh (nominee for federal appeals court judgeship) right.

Here's a wrap-up of CNN.com's headlines right now:

BUSH: WE'RE NOT TROLLING YOUR PERSONAL LIFE

Dow Drops 130 Points

Priest Convicted of Murdering Nun

Bill May offer Citizenship or Deportation

Immigrants Found Locked in Refrigerated Trailer

Controversial Judicial Nomination Moves Ahead (see photo)

Big Oil Boycott Gives Little Guy the Smackdown

And, from WashPost, a story that should get much more play than this, Robert's Missing Papers.

In brief, the story of the photo above is about the Administration using the specious "everybody deserves an up or down vote" logic to cram through more dangerous judges while they still have control of both houses of Congress. In Crashing the Gate, authors Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga explain that the Republican revolution really got momentum when a little-known and fresh-out-of-college Karl Rove developed the strategy of targeting the judicial system to instill a generation of judges that would give Big Business favorable judgements, inspiring Big Business to send their dollars to Republican candidates and starting this fabulous engine that has gotten us to the above-listed headlines.

How's that workin' for ya, Karl? America?? Bueller? Bueller??

I guess it's workin' fine.

The other highlighted story is about how, months after our new Supreme Court justice got in, we still can't find those pesky papers detailing his history under Reagan, working on affirmative action. Hmmmm... do we think those papers made him look good? Especially since Archives officials now admit that White House folks were in the room (as no other people are allowed to be) carrying their own personal item (briefcases, etc) and the papers haven't been seen since.

Are these the same guys who are tapping our phones? GOODIE!! At least they're consistent in stealing things like our rights and privacy and freedom of information.

So what can you do about this tide of bad news and your appropriate frustration? Join me at the Yearly Kos convention in Las Vegas next month. And, while there's still time, have your company become a sponsor or have a booth.

As an Average American and blogger, I'm looking forward to meeting other obsessed political junkies like myself and seeing if we can move this conversation out of our separate home offices and into the communities where votes need to be awakened and mined in November. As a business, I'd almost consider having a booth myself (too broke, alas!) to get my name and contact info out in front of the Biggest Mouths in the Blogosphere. Daily Kos is the most widely read political blog on the planet, and, well... all the blabbermouths will be in Vegas and in the mood to strategize.

Going to Vegas for a convention. It doesn't sound too progressive, does it? That's the great thing about what could be this new political movement: we use the tools of the future with the spirit of high-stakes gamblers and the power of interpersonal connection to MAKE A F***ING DIFFERENCE at a time when that seems impossible as just solo mio.

That's my sales pitch. I've been honing it all week. Sign up. Join us!! Let's get this party started!

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

"So A Chicken Walks into the Dept of Ag..."

A provider of bird flu or our next spokeschicken on how well things are going in Iraq?

Every communications person's nightmare: the media gets ahold of a memo you wrote about talking points. Of course, only Dubya's team of Orwellian wizards would even dare try a stunt like this -- getting pro-Iraq war messages into the Dept of Agriculture. I believe these are desperate times calling for desperate measures on Capitol Hill.

My favorite part are these graphs at the end:

"The suggested talking points for agency workers to use before farm and agribusiness audiences include the poultry angle: pointing out that Iraqi farmers use U.S. aid to buy American feed and are working to "update 25-year-old chicken houses" as national stability takes hold. A barnyard stemwinder could deal with the ticklish subject of civil rights by noting that Iraq "has been evolving for 230 years" and is "still working to become a more perfect union" with the administration's help."

And there's nothing like a fresh back story in the war on terror. "Iraq is part of the 'fertile crescent' of Mesopotamia," where mankind first domesticated wheat thousands of years ago, this suggestion begins. Then it moves to the clincher: "In recent years, however, the birthplace of farming has been in trouble."

*******

Now THAT'S what I call a segue!

-- DC Native

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Blessed Pro-Life America


Ahhh, to be in the land of the free and the home of the Defenders of Life. Here's my argument on being "pro-life" in this country - in my experience, those who espouse that philosophy never care about the baby once is comes screaming out of a woman's womb. They don't vote for higher taxes to pay for their health care, for daycare so that their parents can work and support then, for school budgets or lunch programs, etc., etc.

Proof of our negligence is sadly apparent in this report, nicely timed to come out right before Mother's Day, showing that America has the second highest infant mortality rate of any developed nation.

Mix this with a healthy dose of political meddling in FDA decisions (approving Plan B, allowing the use of RU-486, and perhaps most heinously, interfering with the approval of a VACCINE AGAINST CANCER because they fear that it will lead girls into promiscuity) and you've got a country that lives in cognitive dissonance - holding contradictory beliefs in their wee heads just fine... as long as nobody points such contradictions out to them.

The interference with the HPV vaccine actually proves a theory I've long held: that if "life" is defined as the growth of cells that connect, then eventually, we'll have to stop all this battling of cancer. Who's to say cancerous tumors aren't a form of life - maybe the Thetans whose return to earth Tom Cruise and L. Ron Hubbard so eagerly anticipate? And if you're truly pro-life, then you do have to agree with South Dakota's recent ban on all abortions, even including rape and incest, right? I mean, cells are dividing in some woman's womb - what does it matter how that sperm and egg got together? To me, the pro-life argument is woefully low on logical follow-through.

The Left, to which I proudly belong, is often accused these days of being angry, especially in the blogosphere. Count me in on that. I guess blogs are providing outlets for us to finally pull together the many strands of insanity that have been ruling this country for awhile and find like-minded individuals to share our frustration with. I'm hoping that connection leads to increases in voter turnout in November, so that we can start taking back the power in America before the Boy at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. blows up the planet.

Look, I'm a single female. I pay lots of taxes for things I don't get any direct benefit from - but I believe infant mortality is something we should be able to fix. I'm pro-choice, which means I believe women should have the choice over whether or not to have babies when they find themselves unexpectedly pregnant. But we live in a country where - especially poor - women have increasingly LESS choices all the time and less support if they do choose to have a baby on their own.

Dan Quayle went after the fictitious Murphy Brown when her character had a baby out of wedlock (and then conveniently never dealt with it as it seemed an inconvenient plot twist) - but Murphy Brown probably did more to make women comfortable having children on their own than any anti-choice campaign Quayle supported.

The Choice Debate has been emptied of choices. We now face down the maw of the lesser of many evils wherever we look. It's a pity that, while the "pro-life" wingnuts are running the country, they can't at least boost the odds for newborn infants along the way. That would lend some credence to their claims of moral superiority over those of us who consider money (via tax dollars) less important than living in a society where every child is wanted and given a chance from day one to grow up strong and healthy.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

How to Ruin My Derby Experience


O.J. at Kentucky Derby - Former football star O.J. Simpson chats with an unidentified man during morning workouts at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., on May 4.
(AP/Amy Sancetta)

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Buy Bourbon

Bath time - Kentucky Derby hopeful Keyed Entry shows his teeth as he gets his bath following morning workouts at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., on Wednesday. Expected favorite Brother Derek and three horses trained by Bob Baffert were among a full field of 20-year-olds entered in Saturday's race. (AP photo by Charlie Riedel)

The Derby's this Saturday, May 6th, so don't forget to go buy some bourbon in honor of my mother - I mean, to make mint juleps with while watching "the most exciting two minutes in sports." That's about my attention span for sports anyway... though I like the pregame show for this because it's all about the pretty horses.

:)

Pre-game show on NBC: Saturday at 5:00, Eastern. They say the show goes til 6:30, so I'd assume the race is at 6:28 pm, Eastern.

For your edification and shopping list, here's the official mint julep recipe from the Derby website:

The Early Times Mint Julep Recipe

2 cups sugar
2 cups water
Sprigs of fresh mint
Crushed ice
Early Times Kentucky Whisky
Silver Julep Cups

Make a simple syrup by boiling sugar and water together for five minutes. Cool and place in a covered container with six or eight sprigs of fresh mint, then refrigerate overnight. Make one julep at a time by filling a julep cup with crushed ice, adding one tablespoon mint syrup and two ounces of Early Times Kentucky Whisky. Stir rapidly with a spoon to frost the outside of the cup. Garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.

Per the recipe, you're supposed to drink it in a chilled silver goblet while wearing an exceedingly large hat (the latter part, just clearly understood).

Glad to be of service!

DC Native

Monday, May 01, 2006

DC Native Gets a Byline

Wayne, my much beloved friend who became a murder victim

There was a really heinous murder in town a few weeks ago. A teenage boy who'd been living with his friends' grandmother (after the friends moved out), killed the grandmother in question after torturing her all night long. The neighbors heard screams, which were quickly muffled, but ignored them because the house had had a lot of that sort of thing when the kids lived there and the neighbors got immune to hearing it. The kid had nowhere else to live, however, so when the cops arrived the next day - after a neighbor made the gruesome discovery - he was just sitting on the porch waiting for them. I guess now he has a place to live for the rest of his life. Some solution to teenage homelessness (and mental illness, obviously).

So I wrote a little piece for our local paper that got published today. Enjoy.

-- DC Native