Look what I found on the net!!

 

This is my high school yearbook picture. It was taken in 1962 at Johnson High School in Japan. I found it strictly by accident along with a web site featuring the school and all of it's yearbooks. This picture was taken by a boyfriend who did the yearbook pictures that year. I remember we had just had an argument right before this picture was taken. I never got to see it because my father was transferred back to the States and I actually graduated high school in Utah two months later. What is so cool to me about finding old pictures of myself is that I never look like I thought I looked like at the time. That's me.

Bye, bye, Miss American Pie

This is a brief farewell to the fair lady who departed the White House with Baby Huey, aka GW. Laura Bush's calm, smiling, gracious demeanor was the only steady ground throughout her calamitous husband's calculated ruination of our country. Sure, she had some views only the isolated rich espouse, but nothing like her haughty, arrogant mother-in-law. She is smart, she always looks good and she speaks well. We would surely been better off if she had been the POTUS and I have the feeling that things, believe it or not, could have even been worse without her presence as First Lady.
Laura Bush, I salute you and I will miss you. I can get you the name of a great divorce lawyer when you are ready. God bless.

Lots of balls...

Amidst the ebb and flow of today's Inaugural events, those of us with senses not so dulled by our own egos could not help but appreciate the sheer joy and happiness this historic change of power wrought upon millions of people, exemplified by a sea of smiles and good cheer. Nothing, not the gaydar inducing Rick Warren, a clumsy ministering of the oath of office by Chief Justice Roberts, or a surprisingly low key speech by the new Commander in Chief could, or should, dim the enthusiasm and pleasure of that throng. Whatever one feels about Barack Obama, we are all still Americans and he is going to be President of every one of us. We can nurse our primary wounds, or we can heal them and keep ourselves centered and focused.
Nothing is going to serve this country worse than wallowing in bitterness.
As progressives, we must make our voices sing out with clarity and loud enough to move the President Obama along a path whose goals match our goals. We do indeed have to work for change, not against ourselves as some did when they switched allegiances during the electoral season.
A sizeable portion of the joy being generated today was the departure of GW Bush. Personally, most of it, for me. That and a great sense of relief. I could see myself even forcing a smile if John McCain and Sarah Palin were up on that podium today. At the very least, they are not Bush/Cheney, the two twin towers of Constitutional disaster.
Limited in loft and spirit as his speech was, Obama did manage to interject a cutting critique of the Bush pResidency as crisp and as sharp as the air surrounding him. That made me smile.
The balls? Oh, hell yeah. The Inaugural Balls, of course. What other kind would you expect in Washington, D.C.?

Really?

I am experiencing withdrawal from last year's reality show. No, not Survivor or The Apprentice or that lot. However looking back at the primary season and the election and all the drama and the intrigue and the backstabbing and the susequent hysteria resultant I find it hard not to think of it as one big fascinating televison show. I do know the difference because Survivor and Big Brother were not as well scripted as the Obama Candidacy or the Convention of Democrats which was subtitled Why Democrat doesn't necessarily mean Democracy. Who didn't enjoy the Sarah Palin Comedy Tour?
Ummm, well maybe John McCain, although he did inspire that grand drinking game of taking a shot everytime he said "my friends' in a speech or a debate. Didn't we all cry when Hillary got booted off the island or was that another show? Well, it certainly was scripted that way. I get so confused. I know on Big Brother, some of them get together and make up shit in order to turn the others on the only genuine person in the house. Could Evil Dick and his daughter, Danielle, have been any better than Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews at convincing millions that Bill Clinton was, incredibly, a racist? Bravo gentlemen. You get to stay in the house or on the island or to go work for The Donald.
Yes, it was fun and it was tragic and I cried and I got pissed off. A lot. Which is probably why I can't wait for the next season of The Amazing Race. Both versions.

Balls..

Balls. Something lacking in most post-Clinton Democrats. Today, my favorite crazy, Blago, dangled his balls before the world and they were monsters. He dared to use his legal authority as an unindicted governor of Illinois. Senator Harry Reid, whose sac has been dried up and shriveled for years now, tsked, tsked and said no, no, no. Following closely behind, President-elect Obama, kept his boys sheltered and used Sen. Reid's raisins, thereby demonstrating an astonishing lack of leadership yet again. Doesn't Barack have a pair of his own?
Come on guys. You didn't threaten Ted Stevens or Larry Craig's seats, did you? You are letting Joe Lieberman retain his coveted chairmanship after his treasonous behavior. George Bush and Dick Cheney are walking away scot free after ruining the country and destroying the Constitution and Obama and Reid are not making even a weak peep.
Roland Burris is hardly a convicted criminal, is he? And neither is Rod Blagojevich.
He must be taught a lesson by those who cannot measure up due to their lack of testicular fortitude. Balls.

Refrigerator soup...

Needing a copy of my Social Security card for the new outfit which took over my previous employer, I innocently walked into the local office expecting maybe a half hour or so wait. Hah! That office was a distillate of what is wrong with our country. There were 50 people crammed into a small area seated on plastic chairs which were all connected and had no room between them. There was only one service window open, but we were well protected by two security guards (One has to appreciate how fast the 300 pound young man jumped up to tell a woman to quit smoking in front of the building). Few people had any preparation and asked the same questions repeatedly. Repeatedly. A young Hispanic couple was there with their soon-to-be anchor baby seeking to get a Social Security number for the baby. They spoke no English. The clerk spoke no Spanish. They played a game of Charades until another Hispanic gentleman came in and graciously interpreted for both parties. They were number 227. I was number 228. They took 30 minutes by themselves. Seated next to me was an unfortunate woman who had apparently had a stroke and she was deaf as well. Her hair was matted and filthy and she kept inspecting me and even sniffed me at one point. She was no more than six inches away. That might have unnerved me but the man across the room who came in to get a card so that he could get a photo ID from DMV was pontificating loud and strangely clear in one of those voices nurtured by nights spent in a whisky bottle and smoking tens of thousands of cigarettes. He was number 225. He couldn't get an ID from DMV without a Social Security card or a birth certificate. Social Security wouldn't issue a card without either a DMV photo ID or a birth certificate. He seemed to think he could argue his way into getting his card. He was fucked. And in his loud boisterous way, he let everyone in the joint know it wasn't the first time in his life either, sharing with us all some of his life experiences including time spent in prison for attempted murder. He started the unraveling of my nerves.
Seated on the opposite side of the grayheaded lady from me was number 226. I had not really looked at him as my focus was on the front of the office. He made a joke about "You wonder how some of these people tie their shoes in the morning" and I cracked back "I wonder how some of them even recognize "morning". He laughed and I looked at him and he was Karl Rove. Okay, not the real one (I think), but he was a dead ringer. That unnerved me. He was there to apply for Social Security and to find out if he could keep on working. He didn't want to do it online because he didn't trust the Internet. !.
So there it was. The good, the bad and the ugly. America. All crammed into a little office in Fredericksburg, VA.

Making turkey soup....

Before dipping my foot back into the political soup I let myself drift back in time when all I cared about were events immediate to my personal life. The leaves have fallen off the trees which blocked my reception of the horse racing channels and I rediscovered HGTV. Getting back into these elements brought me right back to current events, however. Everything I am interested in is being hampered by the economy or lack of it. How can I avoid the politics which now interferes with my life in a negative way and it makes it imperative that I take my part in stepping up and doing something about it. How that will manifest itself is a work in progress. More later.