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.