Paris Mismatch
You, Susan Spano, are in Paris, a city not exactly lacking in the compelling, bizarre, and hilarious.
You, Susan Spano, are writing about Paris in a "blog" for a major newspaper -- a job for which you are, most bizarrely (considering the banality of your observations), being paid. What thrilling revelation do you choose to write about this week? How quickly dairy products spoil in your refrigerator, bien sur!
I've noticed that lots of dairy products quickly go bad in my fridge: milk, fromage blanc, yogurt. I suspect it's because the French don't use as many preservatives as we do in America --not a bad idea, but stinky when you keep things too long.
You might say criticizing her stuff is like "shooting fish in a barrel," but I would say it's more like duct-taping TNT to a barrel and detonating it.
"Tempest In A 'C' Cup"
There are a lot of boobs in Montana, and a number of them are employed by the Fish, Wildlife, and Parks department, according to this story by Eve Byron:
Talk about busted. About 20 bras recently were cut off a fence between Frank Cooper and Shirley Cleary's property and the Stickney Creek fishing access on the Missouri River, after Fish, Wildlife and Parks employees decided the "bra fence" posed an "attractive nuisance."
These state-employed humorless prudes cut down the bras from Cooper and Cleary's property, then threatened the Cooper/Cleary family with prosecution.
The Cooper/Cleary family didn't take this lightly, and what started as a tempest in a C cup evolved to a First Amendment free speech and property rights issue."With all the freedoms vanishing today and all the government regulations that are part of the Patriot Act, this just seemed like another aggressive move on the part of the government," Cooper said from his Helena home on Friday. "The government is infringing on our freedom of speech."
The flap over the bra fence began in July, when the Cooper/Cleary family decided to host a "Beer, Brat and Bra Bust" party at their Missouri River cabin. They got the idea of a bra fence when they were traveling in New Zealand and saw these colorful tourist attractions, some with up to 1,000 undergarments on them.
ëThey had everything from lingerie to panties to long johns on them," Cooper said. "We decided it would be fun to do that here in Montana."
The idea got a lot of support from their friends, and about 25-30 people showed up, with the women bringing red bras, flowered ones, and little black lacy things. Cooper even had three bras from New Zealand to dress up his barbed-wire fence.
"We're talking people 50 to 83 years old, all respectable citizens, like attorneys, social workers, retired professors," Cooper said. "We drank a little wine, ate a few brats and christened the bra fence.
"When we hung the bras ó we had a friend who was like a town crier ó I said ëHear ye, hear ye, let this be a sister memorial to the Cadrona bra fence on the plains of New Zealand. To all the participants that donated bras, and to their former contents, I would only suggest: Hang in there.'"
photo by Gregg Sutter
Bad Manners Day At Starbucks
I call it "Lunar Landing Behavior," as in, "Unless you made a lunar landing to get here, chances are, you're on earth, where there are a lot of other human beings -- who might be disturbed by your loud, rude, and/or slovenly obliviousness to their existence!"
The first practitioner of the day was the guy shouting about his money problems into his cell phone: "I SAID I'm sorry it bounced! The check'll be good by Wednesday!" Like me, the guys next to me turned to look and started laughing. Hmm, cash flow issues must be a real chick magnet, dude!
No sooner did the debt megaphone depart than the place was crawling with loud, underparented kids -- two of them (who went over like five). Surprise, surprise, the task was left to me to eventually suggest to a four-year-old boy on the loose that I was working (writing on my laptop), and did not wish to engage in either a discussion or a staring contest with him. I politely avoided mention of his running, shrieking, and table manners -- "table manners" perhaps being a misnomer, considering his food consumption was largely a table-free affair. Yes, I was gentle about giving him the brush-off. It's not his fault he was born to crappy parents.
The woman who looked to be his birthing pod, in a flash of parental-style involvement, asked to know what I'd said. "That I want to be left alone," I muttered, glaring into my computer, chagrinned that "parent your damn brat!" cat-fight energy and deadlines don't mix. She repeated this to her husband in a tone typically accompanied by eye-rolling, "Oh, she wants to be left alone." That's right. Astonishingly, I am not charmed by the presence of loud, running, jumping children in establishments that do not include monkey bars. Her son, by the way, jumped scarily close to my hot coffee at one point, while [I'll be generous] "Mom" was discussing, most hilariously, the joys of owning remote property in farm country where one is left alone!
Her little girl, maybe two, rivaled her brother in having the run of the place, spending much of their visit marching around jamming a big muffin into her face and exploding crumbs everywhere. Perhaps it's just me, but isn't it mommy's job to cut kiddie's food into small, manageable pieces, then "suggest" that food is meant to be eaten at the table? To the father's credit, he did make a half-hearted attempt to clean up some of the crumbs on the floor. Of course, proportionally speaking, his effort compared to using a eye-shadow brush and a tiny silver shovel to sweep up after Hurricane Charley. When they all left, a veritable orgy of crumbs still remained -- on the chairs, the table, and the table and chairs up front, which the kids were climbing on -- and still a lot more on the floor, along with crumpled napkins and other items they'd knocked off another patron's table.
The next people to sit where they were -- well, that is, after getting napkins to clean up the crumb-littered table and chairs the previous occupants left -- were a father and his well-behaved little girl, who'd just turned three (so her father later told me when I asked). What a contrast. The little girl, neatly dressed in a darling bright pink dress and little pink fabric mary-janes, sat quietly in her chair while her father went to get their coffee and food. Setting the tone for the rest of their visit, when her father set down her cocoa and cookie, she chirped in a tiny voice, "Thank you, Daddy." Thank you, Daddy, indeed.
Weaseling Out Of The War
Yes, I'm talking about our Weasel-In-Chief, who's been known to cut a rather cowboy-ish figure in a flight suit on an aircraft carrier -- just as long as there isn't a war on that he has to fight in.
Check out this video clip of Ben Barnes, former Speaker of The House of Texas -- the guy who helped George Bush scurry out of harm's way and into the Texas Air National Guard. The tape is apparently from a recent Kerry rally, writes blogger Josh Micah Marshall. Marshall doesn't know Barnes, but says two sources who do assure him it is, indeed, Barnes. Here's what Barnes says:
Letís talk a minute about John Kerry and George Bush and I know them both. And Iím not name dropping to say I know ëem both. I got a young man named George W. Bush in the National Guard when I was Lt. Gov. of Texas and Iím not necessarily proud of that. But I did it. And I got a lot of other people into the National Guard because I thought that was what people should do, when you're in office you helped a lot of rich people. And I walked through the Vietnam Memorial the other day and I looked at the names of the people that died in Vietnam and I became more ashamed of myself than I have ever been because it was the worst thing that I did was that I helped a lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of people who had family names of importance get into the National Guard and Iím very sorry about that and Iím very ashamed and I apologize to you as voters of Texas.
Puts kind of a different face on that gloater in the White House sending the kids mostly of poor or struggling families off to fight against the wrong enemy, huh? And thank you, George Bush, global nose-thumber: We've inflamed anti-Americanism in the Middle East with our "Oops!" of a war, alienating most of the rest of the world, leaving our troops pretty much going it alone against a bunch of fundamentalist barbarians.
As I read somewhere (but I can't remember where, exactly), the former cokehead in the Oval Office hasn't publically mentioned Osama for what...more than six months? Oh yeah...Osama! Yeah, the guy whose guys attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, leading us to pour our wrath out on...Saddam Hussein? Huh? I bet that knowledge makes all the parents with dead soldier kids feel much better.
Is That A Nuclear Winter In Your Carry-On Bag...?
As George Will wisely points out, the major danger now is that of a nuclear attack -- not from an ICBM, but with a "holocaust in a suitcase":
A senior al Qaeda aide's proclaimed goal of killing 4 million Americans would require 1,400 Sept. 11s, or one 10-kiloton nuclear explosion -- from a softball-sized lump of fissionable material -- in each of four large American cities.Of the 7 million seaborne cargo containers that arrive at U.S. ports each year, fewer than 5 percent are inspected. Less than 10 percent of arriving noncommercial private vessels are inspected. Given that 21,000 pounds of cocaine and marijuana are smuggled into the country each day, how hard would it be to smuggle a softball-sized lump of HEU on one of the 30,000 trucks, 6,500 rail cars or 50,000 cargo containers that arrive every day?
President Bush recently said that Democratic critics of rapid development of ballistic missile defenses are "living in the past." Perhaps. Some missile defense is feasible and, leaving aside costs, desirable. But costs cannot be left aside. Kerry, were he politically daring and intellectually nimble, might respond:
"The president is living in 1983, when Ronald Reagan proposed missile defenses to counter thousands of Soviet ICBMs. A nuclear weapon is much less likely to come to America on a rogue nation's ICBM -- which would have a return address -- than in a shipping container, truck, suitcase, backpack or other ubiquitous thing. So allocating vast amounts of scarce financial and scientific resources to missile defenses rather than other security measures is imprudent."
On the other hand, Allison argues that any hope for preventing, by diplomacy, nuclear terrorism depends on "readiness to use covert and overt military force if necessary" against two potential sources of fissile material -- Iran and North Korea. But the candidate Allison is advising has opposed virtually every use of U.S. force in his adult lifetime.
Intelligent people can differ about all that Allison says. But campaign time is becoming scarce for intelligent differing about how to prevent some American Ground Zero from becoming so poisoned by radiation that no one will be able to come within four miles of it.
Impeach The Electoral College
A New York Times editorial has it right -- the Electoral College should be abolished:
The main problem with the Electoral College is that it builds into every election the possibility, which has been a reality three times since the Civil War, that the president will be a candidate who lost the popular vote. This shocks people in other nations who have been taught to look upon the United States as the world's oldest democracy. The Electoral College also heavily favors small states. The fact that every one gets three automatic electors - one for each senator and a House member - means states that by population might be entitled to only one or two electoral votes wind up with three, four or five.The majority does not rule and every vote is not equal - those are reasons enough for scrapping the system. But there are other consequences as well. This election has been making clear how the Electoral College distorts presidential campaigns. A few swing states take on oversized importance, leading the candidates to focus their attention, money and promises on a small slice of the electorate. We are hearing far more this year about the issue of storing hazardous waste at Yucca Mountain, an important one for Nevada's 2.2 million residents, than about securing ports against terrorism, a vital concern for 19.2 million New Yorkers. The political concerns of Cuban-Americans, who are concentrated in the swing state of Florida, are of enormous interest to the candidates. The interests of people from Puerto Rico scarcely come up at all, since they are mainly settled in areas already conceded as Kerry territory. The emphasis on swing states removes the incentive for a large part of the population to follow the campaign, or even to vote.
Those are the problems we have already experienced. The arcane rules governing the Electoral College have the potential to create havoc if things go wrong. Electors are not required to vote for the candidates they are pledged to, and if the vote is close in the Electoral College, a losing candidate might well be able to persuade a small number of electors to switch sides. Because there are an even number of electors - one for every senator and House member of the states, and three for the District of Columbia - the Electoral College vote can end in a tie. There are several plausible situations in which a 269-269 tie could occur this year. In the case of a tie, the election goes to the House of Representatives, where each state delegation gets one vote - one for Wyoming's 500,000 residents and one for California's 35.5 million.
The Electoral College's supporters argue that it plays an important role in balancing relations among the states, and protecting the interests of small states. A few years ago, this page was moved by these concerns to support the Electoral College. But we were wrong. The small states are already significantly overrepresented in the Senate, which more than looks out for their interests. And there is no interest higher than making every vote count.
Deserter Storm
A quote from an LA Weekly story about deserters; words spoken by a soldier who took off to Canada:
ìBut if Iím going to commit to killing people, there had better be a good reason. Not for the right of someone to drive an SUV with cheap gas.î
Who's Paying For The War?
Well, in part, soldiers and the families of the soldiers fighting it, writes Patt Morrison in the LA Times:
The price of war ó the White House budget office figures that for the Iraq conflict it's $175 billion and counting. But it's the little numbers right here in California that really get to Mike Ryan.Ryan is a respiratory therapist who lives in West L.A., and he didn't even own a cellphone until his son Rick went to Iraq in March as an Army combat medic. Enter the phone bills: $120, $140 a month, a hundred or two more put on the plastic to "charge up" Rick's phone card. A single call just after Rick landed in Iraq ran $130.
Then there's the food and the cost of sending it. Rick's not keen on Army cooking (who is?). "We brought him up eating well," said his father. So twice a month, a package leaves the Ryan house for Iraq ó Trader Joe's fruits and nuts, protein drinks, canned salmon. Sixty or 70 bucks' worth of food, times two, plus $25 for postage, times two again. Almost $200 a month more.
As the war warmed up, stories abounded about how much it was costing military families to keep reaching out to touch their loved ones. There were tales of disconnection notices because of unpaid bills. A Massachusetts soldier racked up a $7,600 phone bill; his entire savings account paid just half. Arizona Sen. John McCain sponsored a bill that gives those in combat access to a free monthly calling card worth $40. Which goes only so far, as Ryan can attest. Last October, in Colorado, a soldier's wife was applauded when she stood up at a town hall meeting and asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about the ruinous cost of phone calls. "As enlisted soldiers," she said, "we can't afford this."
For a while, Mike Ryan worked overtime to pay his overseas phone bills. Then, his cousin, an Army Reserve coordinator, put him on to a military website selling phone cards.
It's run by the same people who've been selling goods to the military for 109 years, through PXs and now websites. They buy phone cards wholesale from AT&T, which holds the contract, and sell them to soldiers with a "small margin to cover costs and overhead."
It works out to $39 for 139 minutes, which has helped, said Ryan. But for families that don't know about the website and may be calling soldiers via other means (different companies' phone cards, for example), the phone bills are likely to be much bigger.
Not that the Mike Ryans of the world begrudge their kids the cost. "I would have paid 10 bucks a minute," he said.
But those bills, those relentless bills, and for families living on a military paycheck of $2,000 or $3,000 a month. The soldiers weren't drafted, of course; they signed up by choice, and they and their families will make do.
With his own hard bills to pay, Mike Ryan can't help but think about that other figure, the one in the billions of dollars. It makes him wonder about the profits being made on phone cards or on feeding his son in Iraq.
It leaves him thinking it's soldiers' families that are paying to subsidize this war, a couple of hundred dollars and a care package at a time: "When you think of Halliburton and Bechtel and how they've pretty much opened [Iraq] up to free enterprise Ö. [Can] American companies come in there and profiteer off the soldiers?"
Sure they can! Because our cowboy president only pretends to care about the common man. Pretend concern only goes so far.
Who Let The Dogs Out?
When you're selling your house, it pays to show the interior on the real estate agent's Web site. It also pays to lock up the dogs before you take the photos. Check out the third photo down. Be sure you look out the window. (Thanks to Stu, link has been fixed.)
(via Metafilter)
Cathy Seipp's Stalker
I admit it. I'm jealous. I have no stalker; only convicts writing me from prison, and only the dumbest convicts, because they're all asking me to be their pen-pal. (Hello? You're asking somebody who answers mail for a living to sit down in her non-existent free time and dash off a few words to you? No wonder you're in jail.)
Well, Cathy Seipp has, not just a stalker, but a blog-stalker of her very own. The guy writes long entries about Cathy! Cathy! Cathy!...filled with amusingly dull-edged little digs, and lots of links to her work -- which is actually quite thoughtful of him. (Hadn't read the Robin Abcarian piece from Salon -- really appreciate the heads-up, dude.) Read his latest blog-stalk/tribute to Cathy here.
And, please, somebody do blog-stalk me. I'm feeling terribly under-loathed.
Science Happens
The Fundamentalist-In-Chief and his anti-science cohorts finally conceded that recent global warming has human causes. From a New York Times editorial:
This tardy acceptance of what mainstream scientists have been saying for years does not mean that the administration is prepared to deal seriously with the problem - by, for instance, supporting mandatory caps on emissions of carbon dioxide. But at least nobody is trying to hide the evidence.The administration's views are contained in a report to Congress accompanied by a letter signed by the secretaries of energy and commerce and the president's science adviser. It asserts that natural causes cannot explain significant warming since 1970 and says that man-made emissions from smokestacks and tailpipes are the likely cause.
White House officials, who did not go out of their way to publicize the report, clearly do not mean it to be interpreted as a campaign-year change in President Bush's position on global warming or as a precursor to more aggressive legislative and administrative measures. But they did not brush it off, as happened in 2002 when Mr. Bush dismissed a serious internal study written by his own experts. Nor did they attempt to suppress it, as happened later that year with a report on air pollution from the Environmental Protection Agency.
So this is progress, of a sort. But it won't mean much unless Mr. Bush gets serious about remedies. His program of research and voluntary initiatives has generated modest enthusiasm in industry but inspires little confidence that the warming trends will be arrested, much less reversed, in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, there are several initiatives awaiting attention on Capitol Hill that could begin to restrict greenhouse gas emissions. But they have no chance of approval unless Mr. Bush gives the nod to the Republican leadership.
A nod out the window of one of those huge SUVs you always see the guy riding in?
Beauty Is The Beast
Lucy, nude, except for a small pink bow, after her bath.
White House Announces Earth Is Probably Round
And emissions are the only likely explanation for climate changes in the past three decades. There's no mention of whether James R. Mahoney, the administration official who presented this report to Congress, motored over in a big-ass SUV.
Poor And Poorer
It's the economy, stupid. Bush's tax cuts for the rich seem a little slow to trickle down, according to census figures showing 1.3 million more people living in poverty in 2003 than there were in 2002.
(via Metafilter)
Cheney Panders To Gay Voters
I know I'm a bit late on this story, but I've been a bit swamped this week. How nice that Cheney suddenly appears to discover a spine, of sorts, in his back, vis a vis giving everybody in America the same rights, no matter who they have sex with. Of course, it takes having a gay daughter for him to pull back from the fundamentalist party line, although he does conveniently weasel in the "states rights" issue. That didn't seem to work too well back in Civil War days: "Oh, we'll have slaves down here in the south, and you northerners keep your damn mouths shut!" Wouldn't it be nice if the small minds currently in power were able to make policy without the "some of my best friends are..." example staring them in the face -- and at the dinner table, at that?
Blogging A Double Life
I'm late to meet Lena at our local Hippie Haus Of Coffee, and Cathy went to the same party I did last night, so go read what she had to say about it. Afterward, I went with faaaabulous Swiss journalist Claudia LaFranchi to AOC, the French-ish restaurant of very small, very, very tasty portions. The girl bartender at the cheese bar does a great job of explaining wines. Sadly, I forget her name. But, for a good time, sit there.
Bitch On Wheels
Gotta get the hairball with legs to the groomer before 10am. More blog items later!
Hate me because I need a bath."
Fuel For Love (Advice)
As I was coming back from the liquor store near my house with a pint of Ben and Jerry's and a bag of potato chips, my boyfriend (via cell phone) observed about my dietary leanings that I'm "like a crack addict without the crack." Indeed, I am, but mainly because I haven't been in a grocery store since...I think Lyndon Johnson might have been president at the time...and I need the calories.
I do like that somebody on Emmanuelle's photo blog disparaged me as looking "thin as a rail." I'm just looking forward to the day when people sneer about how rich I am, and how disgusting it is that I have an apartment in Paris. (Soon, please.)
Anyway, this is a roundabout way of complaining about Ben & Jerry's -- the mystery meat of ice cream. What is wrong with those guys...too much LSD during the 60s...70s, 80s, 90s, etc? I like that their ice cream cows aren't all shot up with steroids and stuff, but just about all of their ice cream has way too much crap in it...pretzels, lost wallets, marshmallows, Cracker Jack prizes, you name it. I'm waiting to discover a rare Buffalo nickel, or maybe a new washer-dryer.
Well, after staring forlornly into the liquor store's freezer at the likes of "cookie dough and kitchen sink with Jerry Garcia's wallhanging clippings" I ended up getting the most minimalist flavor I could find: "Chocolate Brownie Mix," which purports to have chocolate brownie dough stirred into it -- an apparent homage to all the girls of my generation who suffered from bulimia their freshman year of college.
I'm home now, mainlining ice cream...in rainbow VW bus form. Come on Ben, Jerry, and whatever monolithic corporation now owns you...producing a pint or two of virgin chocolate gelato wouldn't kill you, now would it?
Dad Wrong
Imagine being accused of sticking up a bank you didn't actually stick up. Imagine proving that you were nowhere near the bank at the time of the robbery. Imagine going to jail for robbing the bank anyway. That's the kind of "justice" being advocated for men who didn't father children, but were fingered anyway for child support. Cheryl Wetzstein writes in the Washington Times:
A child-support agency is asking the California Supreme Court to stop a ruling in which DNA tests voided a man's obligation to pay child support from becoming a legal precedent.Fathers' rights groups cheered a state appeals court ruling for Manuel Navarro as a victory for "paternity fraud" victims, but their celebrations may be short-lived. The Los Angeles County child-support agency has asked for the appellate court ruling to be "depublished," or omitted from official records, so no other man can use it to overturn his child-support order.
The child-support agency says the June 30 appellate ruling is "creating confusion" in trial courts and that is why it should be decertified.
Santa Ana lawyer Linda S. Ferrer, who represents Mr. Navarro, says the agency wants the ruling off the books because it stands to lose a lot of money if more men use it to get their child-support orders overturned.
"That's the only thought ó money," said Ms. Ferrer, whose client had been ordered in 1996 to pay $247 a month in child support for two boys.
The Navarro case has broad implications because the California Court of Appeal for the 2nd District was so blunt in its ruling.
Mr. Navarro said he was never properly served child-support papers and was assigned child support in absentia. He recently underwent a DNA test that proved he was not the father of the boys.
When he went to court with his proof, however, the trial court ruled that Mr. Navarro still had to pay the child support because he did not protest it in time.
Mr. Navarro appealed and, on June 30, the appellate court handed him a victory, reversing the trial court decision and declaring that Los Angeles County "should not enforce child-support judgments it knows to be unfounded."
There's more.
Child-support orders, once established, are not easily overturned. Advances in DNA testing, however, have exposed cases in which mothers ó intentionally or accidentally ó have named the wrong men as the fathers of their children for purposes of child support.Yet many child-support officials are not sympathetic to the men, contending that losing a putative father's support is likely to be detrimental to the children. "At what point should the truth about genetic parentage outweigh the consequences of leaving a child fatherless?" Paula Roberts of the Center for Law and Social Policy asked in a 2003 paper.
How about we declare you the father, Paula, of the next "fatherless" child who passes through your center? It's about as just -- and makes just as much sense.
Food For Xenophobes
I just saw a disgusting Jack-In-The-Box commercial. In a corny, split-screen "interview," some ham-bone actor playing a French newsguy interviews the Jack-In-The-Box character about "natural-cut fries" -- which is what Jack-In-The-Box is renaming French fries.
The dialogue in the commercial made something very clear: The churlish people running Jack-In-The-Box saw a golden opportunity to capitalize on the tendency, by a certain small-minded, jingoistic segment of America, to hate and fear "furr-iners." Contrast that to what I heard in France, every time I asked (and I asked often) about the feelings of French people toward Americans, vis a vis our Iraq policy and other bones of contention. Almost everybody I asked said something along these lines: "We are not anti-American; we are just anti-Booosh." (Yeah, well, you're not exactly alone -- and let me add that I say that as somebody who has an affinity for France, yet disagrees with a good deal of French policy.)
It's one thing for some rube on the street to extemporaneously say something anti-other, but for corporations to air premeditated, heavily funded attempts to feed on and promote hateful, xenophobic thought? Ick. To say the least. And, no matter what anybody else says or doesn't say -- couldn't we please, please, be bigger than that?
I'm guessing most people reading here aren't frequent fast-food consumers, but if you do have the urge to suck down some overprocessed, chemical-filled crap -- please try to see it isn't that of Jack-In-The-Box. Pass it on.
Your Daily Darwin
Evolutionary Psychology, Public Policy and Personal Decisions, despite its title, is an extremely interesting book, with an ambitious goal: Real-world application of the work of evolutionary psychologists. A number of the chapters were talks in a lecture series, which editors Charles Crawford and Catherine Salmon later compiled into a book. Judging from the three chapters I read, itís as accessible to the average person as David Bussí Evolution Of Desire ñ despite its cover design, which gives it the look of some dry text you were made to read in college at gunpoint. Highly recommended.
The War Against Kerry
Here's fellow swift boat commander William Rood's account of what really happened -- corroborating Kerry's record.
(via Kausfiles)
Brainy Thugs And Sex Fiends Gather To Celebrate Publication Of Luke Ford's New Books
The location was spectacular -- the rooftop pool of the West Hollywood Wyndham Bel Age Hotel, complete with a view of all of Los Angeles at sunset, and tasty complimentary hors d'oeuvres.
Cathy Seipp, Emmanuelle Richard, and I threw the party in honor of Luke's recently published XXX-Communicated: A Rebel Without A Shul and The Producers: Profiles in Frustration.
Over 100 undesirables, mostly members of the press, stood around drinking and looking tough. In a sad statement on the youth of today, even the 15-year-olds (blogger Cecile DuBois) don't look like anyone you'd want to meet in any dark alleys.
On the left, that's Feral House publisher, Adam Parfrey. Next, my cohostess, Cathy Seipp (whose "Luke-O-Rama" chronicle of the party is here), her daughter, Cecile, and Luke Y. Thompson, whose head always reminds me that it's been too long since I've had a Slurpee. But, come in for a closer look at my intelli-thug friends:
Here's renowned self-esteem expert Nathaniel Branden being sexually molested. Poor dear.
Here's our guest of honor, trying to convert all the porn stars to Judaism.
And here I am with LA Weekly's Deb Vankin and her friend Holly (thanks, LYT), looking embarrassingly unscurrilous.
In my defense, I was later cited by Emmanuelle Richard for cheese smuggling.
Explanation Around The Collar
Here's a label from clothing produced by an American company that's sold in France:
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Not that I'm a big Kerry fan. It's question of who's the lesser of two idiots. Um, er...or, something like that. Or...maybe that's the problem. In a country of, what, 200 million people, we can't find two citizens with some smarts and a modicum of integrity to run for president?TRANSLATION:
Hand wash in lukewarm water
Gentle soap
Lay out to dry
Don't bleach
Don't dry in the machine
Don't iron
We are sorry that our president is an idiot
We did not vote for him
Speaking of integrity, it's too bad John McCain won't be on the ballot, since he appears to have a good supply of it -- and seems to speak his mind more than so many of the bought-and-paid-fors in the House and Senate. I don't agree with McCain's stand on abortion; then again, I'm no fan of The Governator's Hummers, and I voted for him. If McCain were running, I have to say -- I'd run naked to the polls to vote for him.
Who's your dream candidate?
It's Easier To Buy Crack Than Wine in NYC
Supermarkets aren't allowed to sell wine; only liquor stores can (and they're closed on Sundays, thank you very much). Hello? This is New York City. You can score crack easier than you can a bottle of Merlot.
Speaking of wine, here's a terrific (and fun) wine review site, winestooge.com. I love the way he sums up the wine, too -- with one, two, or three Advils:
The better the wine, the more you drink, the bigger the headache, the more Advil it earns. May Bacchus pity a wine with no headache.
(NYC prohibition link via Reason's blog)
Smells Like A Small Penis
Emmanuelle has the latest in Hummer news. The vehicle, not the act, you gutterbrains!
Bureaucracy Now
Cathy Young writes in Reason about dumb "advances" in visa requirements for foreign travelers to the U.S. that do little to enhance our homeland security:
For instance: In many countries, such as England, underage children currently travel abroad on their parents' passports. Now, the Department of Homeland Security has decided that every person entering the United States must have a separate passport regardless of age, starting on October 26. Travel agents in Europe are concerned that many travelers with children, unaware of the new rules, may fly to the United States only to be turned away at the border.Can anyone explain what this requirementówhich, in addition to the inconvenience, will impose extra financial costs on travelersóhas to do with fighting terrorism? Has there been a rash of cases of middle-class British couples smuggling in Al Qaeda operatives disguised as their 12-year-old children? Can we all sleep easier now that we know we're safe from terrorist toddlers? What next? Special screening for terrorist pets?
Watch out, Osama bin Yorkie!
Like Driving A Slinky Dress
My opinion of the Honda Insight my boyfriend rented me.
photo by Gregg Sutter
A brilliant idea of his, renting me an Insight, to keep the creepy car salesmen out of my test-drive experience. Also, having it for a few days (as opposed to taking a mere half-hour test drive) will give me the chance to drive it at night, in the Hollywood Hills, and on the freak-way. So far, though, I'm charmed. And not just because it's the highest mileage car on the road.Don't Fuck With Finke
I was over at Cathy Seipp's blog, when I spotted her heads-up about this bitch-slapping LA Weekly's Nikki Finke gives some poor GQ editor. Cathy was previously a target for Nikki's ire, thanks to this piece on her blog. I must say...being a girl who screamed "environment-hogging vulgarian!" into the open window of an enormo SUV last night, then discovered, to my embarrassment, that the driver was not the owner, but the sweet little valet guy at Hal's Bar & Grill...I do enjoy a woman who can dish out a good measure of written or verbal psychosis. A soft spot for over-caffeinated nuts, what can I say?
The Modern Girl Has A Heart, Just Not A Stove
photo by Lena Cuisina
Well, I do have a stove -- and someday I'll turn it on. The last time it got fired up was years ago, on a home-invasion date. (This is my term for when a guy tells you he's cooking you dinner, but informs you at the last minute, when you ask what wine you should bring, that he's cooking it at your house.)Having not turned my oven on since I'd moved in in the late 90s, this caused my entire house to smell very "what died in here," which led very naturally into the headache excuse that sent the loser home. By the way, not only did he come over and turn on my stove, sending thousands of dust particles I'd been keeping as pets to their death, he sucked down two bottles of my wine -- including a special, pricey bottle of Pouilly FuissÈ I'd bought to serve my French friend Nathalie, which he chose to open without asking. Now, I'm a [post-]Jewish drinker...about a glass and a half has me under the table. If you're an alcoholic, maybe you should bring a bottle instead of sucking down two of mine!
Getting back to the point, my best friend, Lena, came down with some sort of typhoid fever the other day, so there I was, coming to the rescue -- with a box of Organic Chicken Broth. I must add that I saw nothing amusing or out of the ordinary about this until Lena pointed out the complete lack of chicken, vegetables, boiled water, and cauldron in my life that went into this gesture.
Republicans For Kerry
Ken Layne, finally back after a much-too-long blog-vacation, nyah-nyahs Bush-worshipper Tim Blair:
"And you guys, you formerly cynical guys who now worship the incompetent Bush simply because you were told to do so, you're only making it easier for the Kerry people to win."Blair, too drunk to follow the entire convoluted sentence, caught on at the end and whimpered, "How so?"
"Look at you people with this Vietnam boat nonsense. Every day, you're pounding home the fact that Kerry fought in Vietnam. You idiots started this stuff so early -- with the "Oh he protested the war" and the Jane Fonda photoshops -- that the Kerry people turned the whole Democratic convention into celebration of the Vietnam War. Nobody even remembers being against Vietnam anymore. The next Vietnam movie will be a buddy comedy starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, and all they're going to do is kill Charlie and win medals and dance with beautiful girls. It'll make $300 million on the opening weekend. They're going to tear down that bummer memorial in Washington and put up a 1,000-foot statue of a smiling American soldier proudly standing on a stack of golden skulls. You morons have made Vietnam the Democrats' favorite memory and greatest victory. Then you scream hooray when a gang of addled old Nixon bagmen show up in a teevee commercial to bitch about Kerry fighting in Vietnam, and once again the normal people with lives only remember, again, that Kerry fought in Vietnam and the Bush campaign is upset about it."
"But," Tim sputtered, "He clearly claimed he was in Cambodia several days before he was in Cambodia. It was seared--"
"Stop that," I said, poking his neck with the corkscrew worm. "Listen to yourself. What are you doing, again? That's right, you're reminding people that the other guy fought in Vietnam. Have you become so brain dead that you think this helps your girly boy Bush? Do you honestly believe the coward boy can beat the War Monster?"
Blair tried to shake the confusion from his head. Then his eyes brightened for a moment and he said, "Four months! Kerry was only in Vietnam for four months!"
"See? You did it again. You people can't stop reminding everybody that Kerry was in Vietnam, taking lives like your boy eats cookies. Killing people, saving people, holding Life & Death in his hands like a savage gift. He kills the Viet Cong or anybody else he chooses, he saves a U.S. sailor who fell out of the boat, he walks the halls of the Senate deciding who he'll kill or who he'll save. In Vietnam, Kerry is a death's head of gruesome power, while your Bush hides in Alabama, a scared little girl. And what did little Bush do in Texas?"
Well, he did chortle a little when Carla Faye Tucker went to the chair.
Political Stupid-cide
Apparently, the would-be U.S. senator from New York hasn't met many Springsteen fans in her lifetime. New York Conservative party candidate Marilyn O'Grady, who fails to understand that the term "die-hard Springsteen fan" is redundant, is the half-wit behind a "Boycott The Boss" television commercial:
"He thinks making millions with a song-and-dance routine allows him to tell you how to vote," Marilyn O'Grady says in the 30-second spot. "Here's my vote: Boycott the Boss. If you don't buy his politics, don't buy his music."In a statement, O'Grady said Springsteen "has a right to say what he thinks, but we have an equal right to speak. Now that he's moved onto the political stage to bash my president, it is entirely fair to respond."
Springsteen was among more than 20 prominent musicians who announced Aug. 4 that they would hold a series of anti-Bush fund-raising concerts under the Vote for Change banner in 28 cities in October.
"I feel this is one of the most critical elections in my lifetime," Springsteen told The Associated Press at the time.
Springsteen's "No Surrender" has become an anthem for Democratic Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign.
A spokesman for O'Grady, Howard Lim, would not say how much the Long Island's ophthalmologist's campaign was spending on the commercial, in which she says, "I stand with President Bush and it's time to tame the liberal elite."
With what? That towering intellect you've been showing off in boycotting Bruce? As my friend Lena put it, "O'Grady might as well give up campaigning right now. The entire eastern seaboard lives for Springsteen."
Dressed To The Canines
Two Irishmen came up with the brilliant idea of starting a "lifestyle" magazine for self-involved, princessy, prissy dog-obsessed women...like me! Brian Lavery writes in The New York Times about The New York Dog, a glossy scheduled to start publishing in autumn, and intended to nuzzle up on newsstand shelves to Vogue and Cosmopolitan:
"Instead of talking about women's fashion, we're talking about dogs' fashion," said Mr. O'Doherty in an interview from his office. Following the lead of other magazines, The New York Dog will feature dog horoscopes and obituaries, dog dieting tips and pop psychology advice for dogs.In the interest of fairness, the magazine also expects to have an alternative view on its subject. The longtime New York journalist Jimmy Breslin, who does not like dogs, will write a column to be titled "The Back Yard."
Allow me to propose a candidate for cover girl. For every cover. What kind of dog is she? Why, an attention hound, of course.
"Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut..."
Photo Finished
Wil S. Hylton tells the tale in GQ of Joe Darby, the soldier who blew the whistle about Abu Graib:
But coming forward would change his lifeóas well as his family'sóforever, and for the worse. Because back in his own community and in the small towns of America, handing over those photos didn't make Joe Darby a hero. It made him a traitor.
(via Metafilter)
Cheney-Hating
It's under-satisfying, writes Nick Gillespie in Reason.
The Religious Wrong
Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, wrote an eloquent and well-reasoned op-ed piece for Sunday's Los Angeles Times on the irrational thought (and, in turn, despicable consequences) promoted by certain religions:
President Bush and the Republicans in the Senate have failed ó for the moment ó to bring the Constitution into conformity with Judeo-Christian teachings. But even if they had passed a bill calling for a constitutional ban on gay marriage, that would have been only a beginning. Leviticus 20:13 and the New Testament book of Romans reveal that the God of the Bible doesn't merely disapprove of homosexuality; he specifically says homosexuals should be killed: "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death."God also instructs us to murder people who work on the Sabbath, along with adulterers and children who curse their parents. While they're at it, members of Congress might want to reconsider the 13th Amendment, because it turns out that God approves of slavery ó unless a master beats his slave so severely that he loses an eye or teeth, in which case Exodus 21 tells us he must be freed.
What should we conclude from all this? That whatever their import to people of faith, ancient religious texts shouldn't form the basis of social policy in the 21st century. The Bible was written at a time when people thought the Earth was flat, when the wheelbarrow was high tech. Are its teachings applicable to the challenges we now face as a global civilization?
Maybe morality means driving a car, if you can afford it, that does the least amount of damage to the planet and the people on it who have an affinity for breathing.
Consider the subject of stem-cell research. Many religious people, drawing from what they've heard from the pulpit, believe that 3-day-old embryos ó which are microscopic collections of 150 cells the size of a pinhead ó are fully endowed with human souls and, therefore, must be protected as people. But if we know anything at all about the neurology of sensory perception, we know that there is no reason to believe that embryos at this stage of development have the capacity to sense pain, to suffer or to experience death in any way at all. (There are, for comparison's sake, 100,000 cells in the brain of a fly.)These facts notwithstanding, our president and our leaders in Congress, many of them citing religious teachings, have decided to put the rights of undifferentiated cells before those of men and women suffering from spinal cord injuries, full-body burns, diabetes and Parkinson's disease.
Of course, the Bible is not the only ancient text that casts a shadow over the present. A social policy based on the Koran poses even greater dangers. Koran 9:123 tells us it is the duty of every Muslim man to "make war on the infidels who dwell around you." Osama bin Laden may be despicable, but it is hard to argue that he isn't acting in accord with at least some of the teachings of the Koran. It is true that most Muslims seem inclined to ignore the Koran's solicitations to martyrdom and jihad, but we cannot overlook the fact that some are not so inclined and that some of them murder innocent people for religious reasons.
You've Heard Of "Fuck-Me Pumps"?
Well, this is what I call a "Don't Fuck Me Pump," for sale in the store next to Hal's Bar & Grill, on Abbot Kinney Boulevard, Venice, CA.
We have more impressive fashion here, too, like this elegant Pamela Barish coat:
And don't forget my friend Kevin Simon's designs. Ms. Kevin Simon, that is.
All The President's Spin
The Spinsanity.org boys deconstruct the Bush administration's tactics of media manipulation. Read the excerpt here at Mediabistro:
During the 2000 presidential campaign, then-Governor Bush liked to tell the story of a hypothetical waitress who would benefit from his tax cut plan. "Under current tax law," he said, "a single waitress supporting two children on an income of $22,000 faces a higher marginal tax rate than a lawyer making $220,000," adding, "Under my plan, she will pay no income tax at all."This wasn't much of a feat. What Bush failed to mention was that his hypothetical waitress probably already paid no federal income tax.
In August 2001, President Bush announced a new policy on the use of stem cells in federally funded medical research. "More than 60 genetically diverse stem cell lines already exist," he told the nation in a televised address, concluding, "We should allow federal funds to be used for research on these existing stem cell lines."
Researchers eager to obtain access to these "existing" lines were quickly disappointed, however, when Tommy Thompson, Bush's Secretary of Health and Human Services, admitted that only 24 or 25 lines were actually "fully developed." Although 60 lines did exist, it was uncertain whether many of them would ever become available to researchers.
In late 2001, Bush began pointing back to a statement he claimed to have made during the 2000 campaign. As he put it in May 2002, "when I was running for president, in Chicago, somebody said, would you ever have deficit spending? I said, only if we were at war, or only if we had a recession, or only if we had a national emergency. Never did I dream we'd get the trifecta."
It was a good story, but there's no evidence that the President ever made such a statement in Chicago or elsewhere. In fact, Vice President Al Gore was the candidate who had listed the exceptions in 1998 (though Bush advisor Lawrence Lindsey said at the time that they would apply to the Texas governor as well). Was this an innocent mistake? The answer is almost certainly noóBush continued to repeat the "trifecta" story for months after it had been debunked.
Then, in a televised address to the nation in October 2002, Bush declared, "We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemyóthe United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America."
Each of these statements was true, but Bush's words were carefully constructed to leave a false impression. Without ever stating that there was a direct connection between Iraq, al Qaeda, and September 11, the President artfully linked them together with a series of carefully chosen phrases. After the war, Bush told an interviewer from Polish television that "We found the weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. But he was not reporting the discovery of drums of chemical weapons or artillery shells filled with anthrax. Rather, Bush was referring to a pair of trailers that some analysts thought might have been used to produce biological weapons. While experts debated the purpose of the trailers, the President of the United States was falsely claiming that WMD had been found.
These examples might not be so troubling if the press had consistently called attention to them. But on most issues, with the possible exception of stem cells and the aftermath of the war in Iraq, he got away with little more than a slap on the wrist. Journalists deserve much of the blame for this, but one of the chief reasons these examples received so little attention is that many were based on a partial truth about a complex policy issue; after all, the waitress did end up with no federal income tax, there were 60 "existing" stem cell lines, and Iraq had some fragmentary connections to Al Qaeda . . . sort of.
Bush's record raises a number of questions. Just how often did the President deceive us? How did he do it? And why didn't anyone put a stop to it?
The answers are disturbing. George W. Bush has done serious damage to our political system. His deceptions span nearly all of his major policies, were achieved using some of the most advanced tactics from public relations, and were designed to exploit the failings of the modern media. In the process, Bush has made it even more difficult for citizens to understand and take part in democratic debate.
These deceptions are worthy of close attention for more than the insight they give us into the President himself. He is simply the highest profile carrier of a virus infecting our political system. Its symptoms are misleading public statements, a disregard for the value of honest discussion, and treating policy debates as little more than marketing challengesóa devastating combination for democracy.
Buy their book here. And, for consistently solid, non-partisan exposure and deconstructions of lies and distortions in politics, point your browser to Spinsanity.org. These guys -- Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer, and Brendan Nyhan -- do great and very important work, and I don't link to them enough.
One Of My Favorite Saucy Wenches Kicks Off At Age 91
Julia Child, when asked by a radio interviewer what her ultimate meal would be, said: "Red meat and a bottle of gin." My kinda woman. FYI, I've never met a piece of tofu I liked, and I order my meat, not just "rare," but "still mooing." No, I'm not kidding, either. For any of you vegetarians gasping out there, Fran Lebowitz said it best: "My favorite animal is steak."
do with a grilled cheese sandwich and a square of apple pie
This reminds me of a question crime writer Elmore Leonard asked me a few months ago: If you were on a desert island for the rest of your life, and you could take only five foods, what would they be? As I have a mind like a steel sieve, I can't remember what Elmore said; but, for me, the list is (in no particular order):
(Of course, I'm assuming this is a desert island with a produce section.) What's in your desert island grocery bag?
Know Nukes?
Nuclear power is...good for you?
These Executives Were Made For Walking
animation stolen, with permission, from Gregg Sutter
Reuters, in a bid to save some bucks, recently announced that they'll be firing 20 editorial staffers in America and Europe, and replacing them with 60 new hires in India. Now, anyone who knows any "editorial staffers" know that they don't tend to be terribly well-compensated, say, compared to plumbers (or migrant workers, for that matter), so this is not exactly the brightest of ideas.
Luckily, David Cay Johnston figures out how Reuters can save some real money: "If Indian executives can be hired at the same wage discount ratio as Indian journalists then Reuters could expand its top level executive suite from four to 12 and still save $968,000," he writes. "That's more than four times what could be saved by outsourcing journalists."
Where's our first executive volunteer?!
Ils Sont Revenuuuuus!
(They're baaaack!) Americans in Paris, that is.
(via Jason Stone's entertaining and informative Paris blog)
Cecile's Back, Too
After Russian camp, with a groovy new blog look.
Cathy's Alternate Universe
Cathy's found Jesus! No, not Cathy Seipp. (I don't think she knew the guy was lost.) She does, however, look rather fetching in Blessed Virgin-wear.
"Cathy's World" is the name of my friend Cathy Seipp's blog, which happens to be the top blog on Journalspace (although another favorite of mine, A Fly On The Wall, does give her a run for her bandwidth). PS She's wrong about gay marriage and George Bush, but she's, nevertheless, always an entertaining read.
Well, it has come to my attention that Cathy Seipp's Silverlake-based "Cathy's World" isn't the only "Cathy's World" on the planet. Just minutes away, in Simi Valley, CA, there's another Cathy with a "Cathy's World" of her own -- quite different from our Miss Seipp's. (Be sure you keep your sound on so you don't miss the music!)
A Vote For Bush
...is a vote against science and modernity. From a Charlie Savage story in The Boston Globe:
''I worry about a culture that devalues life and believe, as your president, I have an important obligation to foster and encourage respect for life in America and throughout the world," Bush said Aug. 9, 2001, calling life ''a sacred gift from our creator."
He's worried? I'm terrified that the most powerful nation on the planet is being run by a guy who bases policy on his belief, based on zero evidence, that there's a god.
Luckily, he's had plenty of experience with devaluing life. Check out this bit from Common Dreams:
Bush was a governor in love with the death penalty. He executed 152 prisoners, more than any other governor in US history.One was Carla Faye Tucker, for whose death Bush became justly infamous. Tucker was convicted of murder, but in prison underwent a dramatic conversion to the kind of fundamentalist Christianity Bush claims to embrace. She became an astute observer of the prison system, and asked Bush for a meeting. He refused.
After Bush had her killed, he sadistically mocked Carla Faye Tucker on a conservative talk show. Asked what she might have said had he met with her, Bush assumed a scornful whine and imitated a woman pleading for her life. Governor Bush apparently found this as funny as his recent presidential search under a table for the Weapons of Mass Destruction that never were found in Iraq.
As governor, Bush also executed an immigrant who was denied access to representatives of his home country, as required by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The US was a party to that convention. But Bush explained that "Texas did not sign the Vienna Convention, so why should we be subject to it?"
In that spirit Bush scorned the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child by joining Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and Yemen in executing minors. More than 90 percent of the children held on Bush's death row were non-whites.
Because Bush slashed Texas mental health programs, his prisons were full of psychologically impaired victims, whom he also held eligible for execution.
Pro-life president? Where?
Undoing The Ruin Feminism Has Done To Relationships
It's been a mission of mine as of late, with columns like this one I just posted on my site. I've taken to calling myself "an Elizabeth Cady Stanton feminist," meaning, I think women should have the vote and get equal pay for equal work, but I am absolutely clear on the fact that women and men are not the same. No, not due to culture, but due to biology (which is where culture comes from, contrary to popular feminist belief). Men and women had what evolutionary psychologist David Buss refers to as "different adaptative problems over human evolutionary history." Simply put, women get knocked up and have to raise kids, men don't, and men and women evolved to be physically and psychologically different because of that.
Unfortunately, that's not what feminists will tell you -- or even a lot of regular people will tell you -- thanks to an unfortunate trickle-down to the masses of the work of pathetic dementos like Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon. (Clearly, they and their hairy-legged, "patriarchy"-blaming cohorts were too busy looking for bra burnings to make it to biology class.) The way I see it, much of the misery people are going through on the dating scene traces back to their crazy talk -- all the younger women who think they're "empowering" themselves by dressing like they're on their way to repair your septic tank, and all the younger men who act like neutered kittens when they're around women.
pandering to the male gaze
Tell me something: If Andrea Dworkin wasn't so scary looking -- would she still be clinging, like a rat on driftwood, to this scientificially untenable feminist party line? By the way, the link above (on "scary") is Andrea's story of being "raped" in Paris. We'll never know the truth of the story. But, contrary to the (wrong) rape propaganda of Susan Brownmiller, Dworkin, and others, most rapists don't look to just any woman to rape, but to young, fertile ones. It's, again, biology -- as Randy Thornhill and others who write from data, not knee-jerk reaction and professional victimhood, prove again and again. I'm sorry...but does anybody think any man looks at a woman who looks like Andrea Dworkin and think "Rape!" -- or does the word "RUN!" come immediately to mind?
Mise En Seine
photo by Gregg Sutter
The High Cost Of Saving Money At Walmart
A UC Berkeley study says California taxpayers are forking over $86 million a year to subsidize Walmart's low-wage workers. Walmart, of course, disputes the findings:
The study indicates that Wal-Mart workers in California rely on the state for about $32 million annually in health-related services, and $54 million a year in other assistance such as subsidized school lunches, food stamps and subsidized housing."When workers do not earn enough to support themselves and their families through their own jobs, they rely on public safety net programs to make ends meet," said the report by Arindrajit Dube of UC Berkeley's Institute for Industrial Relations, and Ken Jacobs of the campus's Center for Labor Research and Education.
The researchers said they conservatively estimate that the approximately 44,000 workers at 143 Wal-Mart and its sister Sam's Club stores in California earn about 31 percent less than workers in large retail as a whole, and that 23 percent fewer Wal-Mart/Sam's Club workers generally are covered by employer-sponsored health insurance than workers in large retail.
There is an array of reasons for the low rates of coverage, said the researchers. They include higher employee turnover, eligibility issues, employee costs for health plans and plan quality.
In the end, Wal-Mart essentially "is shifting part of its labor costs onto the public," the report said.
A very expensive "bargain." How about you Walmart afficionados shop at worker-friendly Costco, like me -- so the $2 you save on a laundry basket doesn't end up costing me $12?
UPDATE: This remark from Lena, in the comments section below, deserves to be seen, so I'll post it here:
I just came across this quote today, from a 1937 Supreme Court decision, in Cass Sunstein's new book, The Second Bill of Rights: FDR'S Unifinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever:"The exploitation of a class of workers who are in an unequal position with respect to bargaining power and are thus relatively defenseless against the denial of a living wage... casts a direct burden for their support upon the community. What these workers lose in wages, the taxpayers are called upon to pay... The community is not bound to provide what is in effect a subsidy for unconscionable employers."
Chief Justice Charles Evan Hughes
Getting Felt Up By Strangers
On purpose? Eeeeeeeuw! (Isn't riding a crowded F train punishment enough?)
Why Sitcoms Shouldn't Hire Women, Except As Actresses
A female assistant on "Friends" who was fired for typing too slowly had the bright idea of trying to collect a few bucks by alleging, first, racism (that one was nixed by the court), and then, sexual harrassment -- merely because she was in earshot of off-color banter! -- turning the writer's room on sitcoms into a hostile legal arena.
assistants who can't take off-color banter
photo by Gregg Sutter
Harvey A. Silverglate (a director of a foundation which signed an amicus brief in the case) explains in The Wall Street Journal, how cases like this "allow punishment even of workplace discussion that's central to the professional mission of an enterprise" -- something I find personally and professionally terrifying. So...why did the court allow her to sue for sexual harrassment? According to Silverglate:
Because she had to attend sessions at which writers tossed around "lewd, crude, vulgar jokes and comments in the writers' room" as part of the creative process of scripting "a show about the lives of young sexually active adults" (as the court characterized "Friends").The trial judge had dismissed her claim because the offensive speech was not directed at her personally and was geared to create an atmosphere conducive to producing script ideas. Not so, said the Court of Appeal that reinstated her claim. "A woman may be the victim of sexual harassment if she is forced to work in an atmosphere of hostility or degradation of her gender." If she has to work in an atmosphere that "sufficiently offends" her "so as to disrupt her emotional tranquility in the workplace," that's the equivalent of depriving her of her opportunity to work. Ms. Lyle "was a captive audience." In other words, by performing the very job for which she'd applied, she was unwillingly exposing herself to the offensive atmosphere that constituted gender discrimination.
The California Supreme Court gave civil libertarians hope when, last month, it agreed to review the decision. If it fails to reverse, the workplace will join the college campus as a place where some are entitled to the comfort of not having their sensibilities challenged, while others suffer arbitrary censorship.
The writers pointed out that they shouldn't be penalized where they felt required to tell colorful jokes "as part of the creative process." The court disagreed and ruled that the jurors would decide "whether defendants' conduct was indeed necessary to the performance of their jobs." How is the jury to do this? By deciding whether the writers had "no alternative to these sexual brainstorming sessions." After all, noted the court, the creative necessity defense would not justify writers' assistants being "kissed, fondled or caressed in the interests of developing a 'love scene' between the characters."
So, banter is akin to sexual assault. What's more, the burden is on the writers "to convince a jury the artistic process for producing . . . 'Friends' necessitates conduct which might be unacceptable in other contexts." They'd have to convince jurors that "the recounting of sexual exploits, real and imagined, the making of lewd gestures and the displaying of crude pictures denigrating women was within 'the scope of necessary job performance' and not engaged in for purely personal gratification or out of meanness or bigotry or other personal motives."
It was a frighteningly simple step for harassment law to go from punishing actions to punishing words. Here, we glimpse the next plateau -- punishing bad thoughts. Stay tuned.
Nobody writes really great (or even borderline adequate) humor in an environment rife with propriety and decorum. You need a sense of play to crack stuff out of the muse (that bitch!). For me, at least, this takes batting a bit of vulgarity around -- something I make clear to any potential assistant I'm interviewing.
I also point out the porn films from my friend Walt lazily piled on top of my stack of videos, noting that I'm a girl who has porn films lying around in the open; ie, if this troubles you, perhaps the church choir is hiring.
Let's review this week's vulgar Advice Goddess verbiage: There was that one rather mildly Puritan-peeving line, "Yeah, this is going to happen -- and Mommy and Daddy are going to have a threesome with the Easter Bunny" -- which actually got nixed for the cleaner, and, I thought, funnier option: "Yeah, this is going to happen -- and your grandmaís going to rob the corner liquor store, buy crack with the money, and sell it to schoolchildren."
Truth be told, I'm actually having a hard time coming up with good smut examples after the fact...although, again, on the extremely mild side, there was that question of whether somebody should be described as "the love child of Danny DeVito and The Swamp Thing," or whether DeVito would best be replaced with one of a number of other Swamp Thing guy-wife candidates.
Hmm, I guess that's still a distressingly unshocking example, since The Swamp Thing isn't really classifiable as an animal, thus eliminating any potential charges of beastiality banter at the office. Then again...there was that goat bit I like to retread from time to time: "Well, if the goat is consenting, I really don't have a problem with that." Shit! I'm screwed. (Oops, I mean..."Poopy! Gee whiz, I'm in trouble!")
Luckily, I'm an underfunded hostile workplace.
La Spano Dimwits It Again
Parlez-vous "feeble-minded twit"? Susan Spano, the LA Times Travel section's fountain of wit, searing prose, and insight, now "blogging" from Paris, lost her keys the other day. Stuff like this happens -- to anyone. But, Spano, being a "faint auntie" type (not my first choice if I'm hiring a travel writer, but what do I know?) responds like so:
There's a marvelous little tea shop near me, Les Nuits du Tea, where I go so often they've gotten to know me. So I used their phone to call the two people who have copies of my key. Neither was there. Then the owner of the shop suggested calling a locksmith.Big mistake. I should have gone to a movie and tried to reach the key-holders afterward.
When the locksmith arrived, he said it would be necessary to drill a hole to get in and then replace the lock, a Picard, one of the most secure you can buy in France. I knew it would be expensive, but I never dreamed what it would cost. The locksmith drilled the hole before telling me the price of the lock replacement, so I was stuck. The tab: 1,000 euros, about $1,200. The locksmith said my landlord could get the money back from homeowner's insurance, which is obligatory in France. I'm doubtful. And then the locksmith said he didn't take credit cards, so we had to go to a cash machine. I felt those 1,000 Euros draining out of my account like blood from a vein.
It's only money, I tell myself. And frankly, I'm getting taken simply by living here, because of the weak dollar-euro exchange rate. But what a way to go.
The way of a woman who, at best, belongs in a kitchen in the Valley poring over the Hamburger Helper directions, not in Paris all by herself -- much as I will admit to enjoying the occasional laugh at her dull and error-ridden dispatches. (I've been meaning to post one about her July 28th entry...soon, soon.) Somebody do this lady a favor and put her on a plane back to the States immediately, where she won't have to force down all that troublingly sublime French food in lieu of the cheeseburgers she so craves.
Getting back to the nut of this deal: Somebody tells you it's $1200 cash to replace the lock, and you totter to the bank machine and fork it over? You don't think to ask first? You don't think to wait? You don't think to tell the person "I'm not sure about this charge, and let's go down to this cafÈ where I know people because I want a second opinion?" And even wilder, you have just spent, what, four months in France, and you are merely "doubtful" when the guy tells you the landlord is going to put in for a claim to his insurance company and give you back your money? I am in tears laughing.
And I'm telling you, anybody who's ever seen a Picard lock on a French door (hers is probably the super-secure one you have to turn a few times to open) knows it screams "WAIT!" (if you can). Especially when you have not one, but two people who have keys...albeit, not immediately at your beck and call.
Please.
I am not cheap, but I didn't make an extra key to the Paris apartment for my boyfriend last month because it was 20 eu, and we figured we'd mostly be together (I spent July there, but he only came for ten days). Forgive my ever-present vulgarity, but if I'm going to bend over and shit money, Spano-style, I'm getting designer clothes out of the deal!
P.S. Susan, I realize you work for the LA Times and aren't held to the same standards of accuracy as those of us who toil independently in our living rooms, but I would guess that tea place you're talking about is "Les Nuits des ThÈs."
Cathy's Right
Cathy Seipp weighs in, exactly right, on the Mary Kay Letournau case (the schoolteacher who, at 34, had sex with her 12-year-old student):
I agree the gender reversal does make things rather different, but still not OK. This is real life, not a soft focus European art house film.
L.A.ís Channel 2 ìNewsî
Some publicity person is putting their lips to the right behind at KCBS-TV news.
There was a foot race, in Hershey, PA, of Hershey employees dressed up as Hershey candy mascots. I know this because I accidentally had L.A.ís Channel 2 news on -- the 11 oíclock program -- when newscaster Linda Alvarez (who conspicuously pronounces Alvarez like sheís talking head-ing on Mexican TV) announced this stunning international development. Regarding my getting peeved at her "Look at me, I'm ethnic!" pronunciation, you don't hear Ben Stein calling himself "Ben Schtein," do you?...or pronouncing words of German origin like he's back in the old country? Please. How do you say "Help me, I'm affected!" in Spanish?!
Getting back to the original topic; accompanying Alvarez' report, KCBS aired footage of the five or so poor schlubs in chocolate costumes wobbling around a chalk-lined track. Like, wow, huh? Like, amusing? Sadly, no.
Nevertheless, I know you must be holding your breath for the results...so here they are: Yes, probably much to the chagrin of the person dressed up as a Hersheyís Kiss, and the one decked out as a Hershey Bar...the Reeseís Pieces person tottered to the finish line first. Yeah, I know...the suspense nearly killed me, too. But, wait -- there's more!
As Channel 2 bragged in the news promo spot I heard, they have a "new attitude, and aggressive new spirit!" "Breaking news is our new priority and nobody has more reporters assigned to cover it!" They mentioned something, too, about "a new level of coverage and commitment!"
Yes, coming up (in the next few days), teased the voiceover after the news: ìHow some people can be addicted to tanning!!î Wowee...I wonder if they put Seemowah Hoysh on that one?
**Now-aging photo props for this blog entry provided by political columnist Jill Stewart, who pawned them off on me after Nancy Rommelmann's going-away poker party.
No Use Crying Over Yesterday's Foie Gras
Friday, 4:57pm, the counter at Monsieur Marcel at The Farmer's Market at Third and Fairfax, Los Angeles. Gregg and I had the soft cheese plate (the St. AndrÈ, and a bleu, and one other I don't remember the name of), some Pouilly FuissÈ, then some foie gras...the remains of which you see here. We tried to send it back, but the waiter gently pointed out that we'd already licked the plate clean. Hmm, fair enough!
The War Against Really Heavy Black Eyeliner
I'm just getting around to reading all the magazines that came while I was away. From Harper's Index, June:
State grant awarded a Missouri police department's Youth Outreach Unit two years ago to battle Goth culture: $273,000Amount the Unit returned to the state in April after no Goth-influenced youth could be found to aid: $132,000
Get Your Wide Load Off My Street
Guess what, you massive SUV-driving, environment-hogging vulgarians? You're breaking the law by driving your monstrosity on my street.
Yes, if you drive one of the numerous U.S.S. Nimitz-sized overcompensations-on-wheels like the Escalade, Range Rover, Suburban, certain Mercedes M Class, the Land Cruiser, the Sequoia (oh, there's a telling name for a small penis subsitute if I ever heard one), and the Dodge Ram 1500, you're banned from my residential southern California neighborhood...and a lot of other So-Cal neighborhoods, too. So reports clever Andy Bowers in Slate:
Cities throughout Californiaóthe nation's largest car marketóprohibit the heaviest SUVs on many of their residential roads. The problem is, they don't seem to know they've done it.I discovered this secret ban after noticing the signs at both ends of my narrow Los Angeles-area street (a favorite cut-through route for drivers hoping to avoid tie-ups on bigger roads). The signs clearly prohibit vehicles over 6,000 pounds.
I knew a 6K pound limit ruled out a lot of the larger trucks that routinely rumble by my house, unpursued by traffic cops. But then I got to thinking: Could some of those bigger SUVs exceed 3 tons? So I did some research, and I hit the mother lode.
It turns out every big SUV and pickup is too heavy for my street.
And mine, too. But, why? Andy writes:
It's no accident the automakers churn out so many SUVs that break the 6K barrier. By doing so, these "trucks" (and that's how they're classified by the U.S. Department of Transportation) qualify for a huge federal tax break. If you claim you use a 3-ton truck exclusively for work, you can write it off immediately. All of it. Up to $100,000 (in fact, Congress raised the limit from $25,000 just last year). Heavy SUVs qualify for similar state tax breaks in California (up to $25,000) and elsewhere. These vehicles are also exempt from the federal "gas guzzler tax" because they're trucks. (And you probably know that many SUVs are exempt from the tougher gas mileage and safety standards of cars because they're classified as trucks, but that's another story.)Tax advisers actually warn their clients to make sure they buy vehicles that are heavy enough to qualify for the tax breaks. Some offer helpful lists of which SUVs will tip the IRS's scales.
Here's what few people seem to realize: By weighing in at more than 6,000 pounds, big SUVs are prohibited on thousands of miles of road in California. Cities across the stateóincluding San Francisco, Los Angeles, Pasadena, and Santa Monicaóuse the 3-ton cutoff for many or nearly all of their residential streets. State law gives them the ability to do this for very straightforward reasons: The heavier the vehicle, the more it chews up the roads, endangers pedestrians and smaller vehicles, and makes noise.
This isn't an arbitrary weight limit. 6,000 pounds has long been a recognized dividing line between light and heavy trucks. (For example, the Clean Air Act defines "heavy duty vehicle" as a truck with a gross vehicle weight "in excess of six thousand pounds.")
Clean Air Act? Oh, that silly thing for those stupid granola types who care more about their need to breathe than SUV afficionados' need to look cool?
On a related note: I could never understand the disconnect between bible-thumpers' professed love of god's planet, all god's creations, blah, blah, blah, and their, well, their enthusiasm, for fouling the air and the water, among other things.
Then, somebody told me about "The Rapture" -- the fundamentalist notion that the world will end with Armageddon, and all the "believers" will fly up out of their pajamas to heaven, and everybody else will meet some terrible fate. You know what? I think these flagrantly anti-environmental types think the (ridiculous fairy tale) end is near, and that's why they don't care about chewing up the planet. Why else would it be?
"Amy Is Annoyed" Week Continues
Here's the piece I wrote for my friend Hillary Johnson, who edits the Ventura County Reporter, on irritating people shouting into their cell phones in public:
Thanks, but I'll pass on breaking stories of your raging yeast infection, your cat's irritable bowel syndrome, and live updates on your current location: "I'm walking down Third Street. I'm still walking down Third Street. Yep, still on Third Street."
Everywhere I go, someone on a cell phone is shouting something breathtakingly dull or unpleasant or both. I used to frequent this serene cafe, where you'd just barely hear the murmur of conversation under the classical music. I still go there, only it's no longer serene, because I'm usually sandwiched between two people having dueling high-decibel cell phone conversations. It's for them I'm having this card printed:
Just because you have a self doesn't mean you should express it. Apparently, you are under the impression that the world will be a better place once you broadcast the news that you've changed laxatives or forgotten to floss. Perhaps you call this "freedom of speech." I call it "bad breeding." Kindly save your loud, dull conversations for the privacy of your home. Thank you! --AmyAlkon@aol.com
A few restaurants and coffee bars responded to the cellular din by putting up "no cell phones" signs. Can't people mind their manners without printed instruction? Most people in public places do manage "no nose-picking," "no toenail clipping," and "please don't urinate on the foyer rug." With cellular rudeness, it has to be intentional disregard. I mean, come on: Unless they've got one hand on their Leader Dog and the other on their cell, they can see all those other people around -- people who would surely prefer to have their thoughts go unpierced by the shrill and uninteresting.
About Last Night
Gregg surprised me with a new digital camera. He gave me the Canon digital Elph SD110, which is about the size of makeup, and supremely stylish. But, enough about my equipment; here are the first few pictures...from last night. Richard Rushfield (of Vanity Fair writerhood and a new and very entertaining blog) hosted the Susannah Breslin Memorial Hacks Lounge at Club Tee Yee in Glendale.
Note: Don't be fooled by the "Memorial" in the name. It's the Hack's Lounge they're memorializing, not its namesake. Who is Susannah Breslin? Well, in the words of Xeni Jardin:
It is because of Susannah Breslin that the terms "bukkake," "Osteogenesis Imperfecta Fetish," and "stumpfucking" have become part of my vocabulary.Her fiction and online pornopunditry examine the dirty fringes of media life, exploring sex in the age of Google with singularly snarky sensibility and a taste for erotic shock.
If porn were a studded black leather belt, and America a bare, pink ass, Susannah's work would trace the intricate rows of embossed welts left behind. She is neither a Pollyanna, nor a prude: she doesn't celebrate adult entertainment as an inherently freeing phenomenon, nor does she condemn its impact. She pens prose about porking with a poker face. It simply is--and it is as central and lasting a part of American identity as soft-serve ice cream, carpool lanes, strip malls, and prom night.
Susannah, whom I met when we appeared on Candace Bergen together, is not dead; she's merely moved to Seattle (ie, she's sleeping). Richard says she likes to move every few years, to shake things up. Well, Glendale is shaky enough for me; getting there from my place by the beach should, by law, require a sherpa guide (one with his own helicopter to fly you over the mess on the 110 by downtown LA).
Nevertheless, it was worth the trip. Met Janelle Brown, who's now writing for The New York Times, whose work I was a fan of when she ran on Salon; a fun girl named Evangelynne Heath who's writing for a reality show on ABC family (but not a sleazy one); and Susan Leibowitz, a producer for Dateline NBC, who has interviewed (correction: chatted with) our friend Luke Ford about the porn industry (Luke was recently, and most hilariously, paired with a nude Chabad girl on one of my favorite blogs, A Fly On The Wall).
After Tee Yee-ing for a few hours, Gregg was hungry, so we went to Canter's, which has some pretty nice vintage night signage of its own:
UPDATE: Here's my boyfriend's version, which he e-mailed to me a few moments ago...
Tell The Truth!Amy by Amy:
After Tee Yee-ing for a few hours, Gregg was hungry, so we went to Canter's, which has some pretty nice vintage night signage of its own.Amy by Gregg:
After Tee Yee-ing for a few hours, Gregg was ready to scream and maim something. Sensing this, I raised my oh-so-trim ass off the stool and beat a retreat because I didn't fancy the idea of walking home from Glendale in my Ralph Kemp jacket, so we went to Canter's, where Gregg spilled Cole Slaw juice on his shirt as an homage to Joe Loop, from Be Cool. I then proceeded to eat the diva's share of his grilled cheese and tomato because he always orders better.
Hmmm, I'd say that's pretty accurate!
Pry, Pry Again
Bob Morris takes on nosy people in The New York Times:
The guy behind the counter at the household and gardening supplies store in Kingston, N.Y., was being very friendly. I had a question about lawn sprinklers. He had one for me, too, when Ira, my boyfriend, came over to join me. "Hey, are you two brothers?" he asked. Other than salt and pepper hair, we don't look much alike. But since we have been asked before, Ira had a ready answer. "Of a sort," he said, hoping that would end it.No such luck. "Hey, don't these guys look like brothers?" the man said to a colleague. "You two really aren't brothers?" he asked.
You would think that in a world of "Will and Grace" and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," he might have been able to do the math. Or maybe he had and was toying with us. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and a direct answer, too. But I'm sorry ó I didn't feel liking getting into Gay Politics 101.
But then, who doesn't face intrusive questions from strangers in summer, when city folk meander out to the greener boonies, and all kinds of Americans traipse around Europe, upgrading their cultural experiences?
"You're American?" I was asked more than once while visiting Spain. I should have said, "Of a sort," but instead quietly answered that I was. Then I was interrogated about my country's role in Iraq and Israel and my feelings about the Bush administration.
Not that things are much better even in cosmopolitan New York. Kate Spade, who recently wrote a book about manners, often faces New Yorkers trying to guess where she is from. "When I tell them Kansas City," she said with her subtle twang, "they ask me what in the world I did there" ó as if nothing Midwestern could possibly engage a New Yorker's interest.
Inquiring minds also want to know: Have you had work done? Do you rent or own? Why don't you have children? What kind of surgery was it, exactly? Did he suffer long?
Tama Janowitz, the writer, has a daughter who was born in China. "People have asked if it was me or my husband who couldn't have a baby," she said ruefully.
So many probing questions in innocent drag. In Victorian times, which were perhaps too well mannered, arbiters suggested that questions be avoided in conversation entirely. Instead of putting someone on the spot by asking, "How is your sister?" you would say, "I trust your sister is well," leaving it up to the other person to run with the topic.
Bob rounds out his piece by quoting PJ Forni, whose book, Choosing Civility (given to me by Lena), is quite good. Speaking of which, my latest pet peeve is total strangers who come up to me in a cafÈ and paw my iBook, the lid of which I've covered with a groovy Macskinz.com zebra print pattern. (Macskinz doesn't have iBook covers now, but scroll down here to see my zebra print cover on the iPod, and the hot pink leopard print next to it.)
I'm always especially shocked when people reach over and grab one of the top corners of my screen while I'm typing feverishly, with headphones on, clearly extremely engaged in what I'm doing. It never seems to occur to them to wait until I take a break to come over and get grabby; nor, perish forbid, to ask before touching.
Once, when I was sitting at neighborhood coffee joint, deep in conversation with Lena, I was so startled by a guy who grabbed my screen with his big dirty fingers that I reflexively shot back "Barbarian!" (Hmmm...perhaps this is why Lena bought me Forni's book?)
At the recent alternative newspaper conference, a news photographer grabbed my screen without feeling compelled to ask. I shooed his hand away (more politely than he deserved), asking him if he would be comfortable if some total stranger just reached over and felt up his Hasselblad. "Um, no," he muttered. "Good point." Please, somebody tell me: Why is it that this would be a strange and difficult thing for anybody to conceive of on their own?
"Mommy, Where Do Brats Come From?"
In Toward A Psychology Of Being, Abraham H. Maslowe writes:
Much disturbance in children and adolescents can be understood as a consequence of the uncertainty of adults about their values. As a consequence, many youngsters in the United States live not by adult values but by adolescent values, which of course are immature, ignorant and heavily determined by confused, adolescent needs.
Yeah, heavily determined by the confused, adolescent needs of their confused, adolescent "parents." I, on the other hand, was raised in Michigan by grownup parents who can best be described as ìloving fascists.î When I was about eight, I thought I could fly, but the idea that I would be loud in an adult place or kick the back of somebodyís seat did not exist in the universe as I understood it.
I talked to my parents on the phone on Sunday, prior to posting this entry about an underparented brat on a recent flight I took, and asked my dad if my two sisters and I ever threw screaming fits as children. He said no, ìnot after you were little babies,î and added, ìWe always talked to you girls as adults, and expected you to act like adults when we took you to restaurants or other adult places. You were children, so you didnít always do the right thing. But, weíd say girls, ëthatís not done here,í and youíd listen.î
Apply my dad's words on parenting to the relatively recent controversy about medicating boys out of misbehavior with Ritalin. Now, I take Ritalin as an adult (ìconcentration vitamins,î I call my little yellow pills, which help me keep my Jack Russell terrier of a brain on a short leash to my deadline). But, what I want to know is, how come we suddenly have hordes of wild boys swinging from the classroom ceiling tiles? Or, rather, why didnít we have them when I was growing up? Just a guess, but the culprit isnít something in the water, or everybodyís favorite cultural punching bag, too much television, but, simply, too little parenting.
P.S. We werenít allowed to watch TV growing up, save the Wonderful World Of Disney (and then there was the occasional Get Smart we snuck when my mom ran out to the store), but all the other kids watched a whole lot of TV, and not one boy I went to school with ever acted, in class, like something that escaped from the monkey house at the zoo.
No...surprise, surprise...boys I grew up with didnít get out of line because they knew the remedy for it wasnít a tiny paper cup of juice and a handful of pills, but getting drop-kicked to Saturn and/or grounded for all eternity. (Just picture yourself at age 45, coming home after work to sit sullenly in your room in your parents' house while everybody else is living it up at the bar.) When presented with these alternatives, shutting the hell up and listening to your teacher suddenly seems a very wise idea.
Underparented At 30,000 Feet
(Written July 1, 2004, enroute to France.)
Iím flying Swiss Air from L.A. to Paris with my Yorkshire terrier Lucy in a leopard-print and black patent leather Sherpa bag under the seat. Yes, I actually bought my dog a $211 round-trip ticket to Paris, which seems a bit ridiculous since sheís 2.5 pounds, smaller than a lot of pigeons.
Before 9-11, and the ensuing secondary security checks, I used to smuggle her on planes constantly, in a ferret case about the size of a loaf of bread, which I stowed in my carry-on. Nobody was ever the wiser because sheís quiet and well-behaved and about as obtrusive as my wallet -- which is more than I can say for the kid across the aisle.
As the plane was taking off, ìWay to go, Hunter!î ripped through the seven-row cabin I was seated in. Heads turned. A boy, about 9, in a row with his mother, father, and his sister, about 7, was shouting at the Gameboy thingie he was playing. Ah, but boys will be boys, right? Sometimes, the imagination gets the best of them...right? ìHunter,î his mother cut in, "Do you want yourÖ" (the rest was drowned out by his shout of ìYeah, Hunter!î) Scary. The kid was his own personal cheerleading section -- belting out his own name every time he scored.
Meanwhile, the little old lady next to me wants me to find her a movie on the screen in front of her seat. ìClassic or new releases?î I ask her. She canít hear me. Neither can I. I turn to the shouting boy, whose mother has disappeared. Instead of seething whatís on my mind, ìShut up, you underparented cur!î I opt for a calmly-voiced ìCould you please keep it down a bit? Itís very distracting.î
I go back to helping the old lady. 30 seconds later, the kid is bellowing again -- this time, to a boy whoís taken his motherís seat next to him. (The mother is still nowhere to be seen.) I turn and give the kid's father a purposeful look, put my finger to my lips and make a ìShhhhî sound. Now dad can take charge. Dad? Dad? It seems Dad finds Newsweek extremely compelling.
I finally get ìCold Mountainî to play, in English, on the little old ladyís screen. Just then, Mom comes back. Apparently, Hunter tells her I asked him to cut the shouting. Mom is outraged. At me. She demands an explanation. I am incredulous. "Well," I say, "Your child was shouting, and itís disturbing, because weíre in (look around you, dimwit!) rather close quarters!î
Is she horrified? She is. By me. She turns to her Precious, and, caresssing his cheek!, coos, ìDonít listen to her, HunterÖdonít you listen to her.î Caressing his cheek!
The Writing Process by Pamela Anderson
Silly James Joyce and F. Scott Fitzgerald, driving themselves to drink, and ruining their eyesight to boot, by actually writing their own novels. America's silicone sweetheart, Pamela Anderson, who just published a novel, lifts and separates herself from her fiction-writing predecessors by having a ghostwriter handle the tiresome business of transforming her spoken pearls into printed words. And it's a good thing she does, according to Entertainment Weekly's interview with our newest literary lioness:
"Well, there are things I donít really know about, like sentence structure, a beginning, a middle, and an end. All those hard things."
Such ridiculous impediments to getting one's international breast tour -- uh, book tour -- underway.
(link accessible to AOL/EW subscribers only)
Luke Y. Thompson Claims To Turn 30
Disbelieving friends gathered last night at The International Museum Of Action Figures...
...also known as the Hollywood apartment of movie critic and up-and-coming Hollywood (Boulevard?) star Luke Y. Thompson, to celebrate his alleged proximity to adulthood.
For the record, regarding that Hollywood Boulevard crack above, Luke is not gay. No, Luke is a girl magnet.
There were several catfights for Luke's attention last night, but Cathy Seipp, who is looking quite buff these days, broke them up singlehandedly. Quite frankly, they were all quite dull compared to the mudwrestling match between Cathy and Jill Stewart, which reportedly started when Cathy sucker-punched Jill with a naked plastic woman, allegedly muttering the words, ìTake that, you liberal in moderateís clothing!î
Luckily, Luke is secure enough in his steamy, alpha-male heterosexuality to appear in this soon-to-be-released international blockbuster:
Yeah, yeah...I know what you're thinking. Sorry...you know what they say: "Only his hairdresser knows for sure!"
UPDATE: For Miss Seipp's take on our night in Luke's lair (and a teaser about a soon-to-be-posted Amy vs. The Underparented blog item) click here.
The War On Potheads
We aren't doing so well in The War On Terror, thanks to our little detour into Saddam country. But, thanks to The Patriot Act, we're rounding up a bunch of doobie dealers and charging them up the wazoo! Maureen O'Hagan writes in The Seattle Times about how the U.S. Attorney in Seattle dragged The Patriot Act into a drug money laundering case against 15 people:
The 15 each were charged under the Patriot Act with one count of bulk-cash smuggling. Nine others were charged earlier with international money laundering and marijuana trafficking under a separate law.It has long been illegal to take more than $10,000 out of the country without reporting it. But the Patriot Act strengthened that law and "took it out of just being a reporting violation to be a smuggling, trafficking type of offense," Greenberg said. The crime carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and the forfeiture of the illegally transported money.
Sure, you've got that free-floating anxiety about where Osama and Co. will strike next, but I bet you're feeling plenty safe from wafting pot smoke! Send in Special Forces! Launch the Navy Seals! Because all know what happens if these evil-doers aren't stopped. Yes, that's right. Then, the potheads win. Scary, huh?!
(via Reason's blog)
Deconstructing Alcoholics Anonymous
The Orange Papers. Banned by Yahoo! Now back online.
(via Metafilter)