Yardfishies

I was three strokes over par after nine holes at The Hooch today, finished eleven over. We didn’t play The Dump because Pat and Joy had car trouble this morning. Pat went to the Honda dealer. The car was making a noise but it stopped before Pat got to the mechanic. The mechanic couldn’t get it to make that noise.

I told Pat maybe a cat climbed up into car somewhere underneath, made some noise, jumped out. He looked under there and found a tree branch lodged up in the engine and pulled it out.

Elly’s doctor called and said she’ll know the report on Elly’s goiter, cyst, tumor, wall-nut-sized pimple by Monday. So I wondered about that for a while. Then I started thinking about the yardfishies. Then Monday became Wednesday.

Dr. Juanita was Ginger’s doctor, too. Ginger was diagnosed with lymphoma and euthanized just a few weeks later. She was nine.

Ginger was Joy’s dog, a Christmas present wrapped in a cardboard doghouse fashioned from a water heater carton and decorated in house paint. Ginger used to come in after a rough day in the yard and she’d get a hug or a kiss from Joy, me, Momma, or Anthony. Often her breath smelled of fish. My take on the observation was, well, dead lizards smell like fish, and we have a lot of salamanders in our yard, Ginger must be eating lizards. We dubbed them, “yardfishies.’

From then on, whenever one of us got a whiff we’d yell, “Ginger’s been eating them yardfishies again!” And then the same with Elly.

I’ve seen dogs toy with earthworms like bedding Big-mouth Bass. Elly was bit by a baby pigmy rattlesnake in our back yard. I witnessed it using a flashlight. Anthony was with me. She thought she was hunting some big worm.

And Elly has that yardfishies breath now and then, too, though she’s more of an in-house homebody and doesn’t graze on the reptile world as much as Ginger probably did.

I’m wondering if there might be a particularly high level of mercury, arsenic, pcp’s, or some other such dangerous substance in them yardfishies, killing our pets.

Could it be a new ex-urban farmers' warning? Abnormalities in frogs are the first signs of habitat degradation to the environmental biologist, as I understand it. The reptiles are the whistleblowers. I wonder if toxic yardfishies are killing the pets.

Dr Juanita said yesterday that two pathologists looked at Elly’s case. They find nothing to be afraid of and healthy cells surrounding the location. In other words I think they got it all, if in fact there was anything to get.

THESE EVANGELICALS TURN ME OFF TO JESUS

This Christian soldier now declares that he is AWOL. Birth me again once sanity returns to the planet or change the records forever more! If you must classify me, check the box next to Secular Humanist! What? no box?—Tom Todaro

Oh, I see, the evangelicals have found a new strategy: FOR US OR AGAINST US. Unique. Love the presidential seal. Nice touch.

http://praythevote.com/

Best solution is to vote in vast numbers. Even the machine cheaters must match up to exit polling for a reasonable conclusion.

BUT DON’T FORGET! Count the flatware! It's all that rank tickle-brained clack-dish's fault!

If you had a big old TV set in your backyard

If you had a big old hulking television set in your backyard, and you propped it up on concrete blocks, painted the image of the American Flag on the screen, what would you write over the flag? if you had a message? Maybe, Programming will resume when democracy is restored.

I have the TV, a green wheelbarrow tilted down beside it, and a rooster painted on a satellite dish. Is that important?

Easy reading is damn hard writing—Ralph Waldo Emerson.

And this Emerson quote is worth repetition: “The more he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.” Why does W-YA! brag and protest too much?

I’d paint Bush, as well as many of my would-be clients, exemplary of braggadocio as wishful strategy. My advice, coupled with the great advertising maxim of “There is nothing stronger than the truth,” would be to get thee to another ad agency, thou mammering idle-headed moldwarp!

Listen to an immortal George who happens to be a woman:

“Given, a man with moderate intellect, a moral standard not higher than the average, some rhetorical affluence, and a great glibness of speech, what is the career in which, without the aid of birth or money, he may most easily attain power and reputation in English society? Where is that Goshen of mediocrity in which a smattering of science and learning will pass for profound instruction, where platitudes will be accepted as wisdom, bigoted narrowness as holy zeal, unctuous egoism as God-given piety?”-- George Eliot, "Evangelical Teaching: Dr. Cumming," an essay ridiculing the career of evangelism, printed in "Westminster Review," 1850s

Is George woman enough for you, Oh happily corralled soccer moms, now known in the surrealistic world as Security Moms? You better watch your children because there is a lot of brainwashing going on. Better yet, watch out for yourselves. Oh, almost forgot, If you vote for Bush your eighteen to twenty-six year-old children will be drafted and sent to the most dangerous places in the world.

Pat made us a great vegan dinner last night. Tomato sauce and fettuccini. We reviewed the video of Anthony’s grad show. Anthony and I had lunch earlier and did a little preview beforehand. He’s waiting to hear about advanced placement at Whole World Theatre. Pat and I are playing golf at The Dump tomorrow. Pat is The Cookie! I love what he’s doing in the kitchen (he cooked all day for our dinner.) I had two kids and now I have three. Life is so sweet.

The “left behind,” revisited

The guy on Fox News, looks a little like Alfred E. Neumann of Mad Magazine, just said the debates will favor the candidate who connects with the typical American, you know, like Bush, unlike Kerry “who seems aloof and out-of-touch.” US voters don’t care too much about the facts and how leaders perceive reality or create their own. Shoot, we’re just lookin’ to see who messes up! That’s right, avoiding the gaff and speaking in short sentences are the keys to these debates, say the geniuses. Who leads us into the future? Plahh! How? Who cares!

The old journalism rule, writing to a sixth-grade education; now there’s one begging to be broken. Politicians pander to a sixth-grade education . . . are the adult masses the children not being left behind? Are the rich and ignorant voters the children not being left behind?
Is this a Horatio Alger story written by Stephen King? Riches to riches and a legacy of power? I found this on John’s blog: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0926-04.htm Is this for real? should I pinch myself? could this be happening?

Click his heels? teleportation without exportation?

I don't get this. Is Cat Sevens an American citizen? If he was on a no-fly list, how does the government expect him to get home? teleportation? peace train?

From the ring of this he sounds like a good guy: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/09/26/1096137104214.html

Duck, vote, another tropical whip, yardfishies

If Iraqis can duck, they can vote

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50259-2004Sep25.html?referrer=email

Tropical Storm Jeanne is out there somewhere, heading up I-75 south of Macon. She’s supposed to turn to the northeast soon but the wind in the woods out back is brisk at 6 a.m.

I wonder about Florida. Could I go down there and be of help? Should I get on the bus for the voter registration drive at the end of the month? the same weekend as the Seaside Writer’s Conference (haven’t even signed up)? Or do I stay here with my responsibilities? Seems like a long to-do list is converging in my place and time. The conference is great, especially for writers with engines like motorcycles—they need kick starting. When writing comes up in conversation I usually promote Seaside (305) 919-5734. Registration might be full by now or close.

Elly’s vet, Dr. Juanita, should call today with the results of the biopsy. I wonder about the yardfishies out back (why does a word I thought I made up spell-check correctly? Must have added it.). More about yardfishies later. Pat is coming out for a little golf at the dump today. The wind might be wicked on top of mount trashmore.

OF SWIRLING WINDS AND WHIRLING, SPINNING DERVISHES

Canceled golf, it is raining courtesy of Jeanne. Florida should have it so good.

The spin starts where? on The Factor, tonight, O’Reilly interviews W-YA! at eight.

Watching Jeanne on TV and bluegrass live

As I write this a large portion of South Florida is getting it's ass kicked by Hurricane Jeanne. It worries me. I have a lot of people down there.

I was watching live coverage from Ft. Pierce. When I was a kid we used to get up at four in the morning and drive to Fort Pierce to surf. That beautiful beach, lined with huge Australian Pine trees, along what was known then as "the jetty." It's probably lined with condos now. I tried picturing it as I knew it back in the sixties; standing there with my face into 100-mph winds. Just like Andersen Cooper! I think they are down there trying to shoot Cooper caught in a tropical cyclone, doing a 360 for a show promo.

Florida was paradise, still is I think, true paradise back in 1959 when my family moved to Hollywood from Pennsylvania.

Just now they showed Cooper and his man in the red slicker being blown nearly off their feet, from the sound of the TV in the next room.

They say Sebastian Inlet is getting a direct hit right now. Sebastian is a secret island paradise in Florida, not an island at all, but with everything beautiful that makes an island an island. I liked snorkeling through the inlet when the tide was coming in. The water pushes you over rock formations with schools of snook, some rather large, silvery and swimming along side of you. Sometimes you'll spot a loggerhead turtle, or a green turtle, a porpoise, and always yellow-blue-white-black-striped reef fish.

We were guests of friends at a summer house near Sebastian a couple of times. We went clamming just inside the backwater. Snorkeling off the beach at the house, a bull shark chased us in one day. It is a paradise.

I think about the people down there, like my good friends Mel and Jan Schack along the coast near Melbourne, and his daughters in Orlando, and Jack and Terry about five miles from the inlet. Hope they are OK. It's after one in the morning and the hurricane looks vicious.

Everett Brothers Bluegrass Music Barn

Pick-up pickin'

We went to the Everett Brothers Bluegrass Music Barn last night in Suwannee, about five miles north of here. We live in the southernmost part of North Georgia, north of Atlanta. To get to the Everetts', take Peachtree Industrial north to Suwannee Dam Road, right, quick right on Stoneycypher Road and you are there, one of the hottest bluegrass venues south of Nashville.

The Everetts have been playing since 1964. Though I live seven or eight minutes away, my sister Carol from Miami found them in the The New York Times. Carol, Mary, and I got a group together and enjoyed a night of bluegrass at the barn over a year ago. They play every Saturday night, hosting bands on big buses from all around the country and anybody else who shows up with an instrument. The only rules are no cutoffs, tank tops, and absolutely no alcohol on the premises.

Here's a story about the Everetts: http://www.ibluegrass.com/bg_bands2.cfm?b__i=7

And The Brothers' own website: http://www.everettbrothers.com/default.asp


You'll see pick-up pickers gathered under trees. I took pictures and QuickTime movies of impromptu jams under oak trees, leaning against a blue van in the parking lot, alongside the restroom building.


The Everett Brothers played on the stage in the barn, along with many other groups. It was an all day fest. Some of my favorite lines and songs:

"I'd rather be alone and dream of you only, than be in your arms and never in your heart.

Roger Everett, self-styled "brains of the outfit," killed me with his fiddle work on Tommy hawk.

Brian Stephens, acoustic guitar and vocals, closes with Nine Pound Hammer and blows me away. Makes us all laugh, too, when he bids us to buy the CD's to "support the cause. 'Cause we need the money." The cause is really to keep the tradition alive and the players everywhere are doing a great job of that.

Admission is paid into a fishbowl, and you can drop in what you wish.

Last night the twentieth anniversary celebration of the Southeastern Bluegrass Association http://www.sebabluegrass.org/ took place at the barn. They always seem to pack in the fans. There must have been a couple of thousand people coming in and out.

What's W-Ya!'s Reality Quotient? What's your poesy quotient?

REALITY:

W-Ya! says things are going well in Iraq. So does his puppet government over there (at least Prime Minister Allawi, visiting his puppeteers in Washington mouths so). My man in D.C., Nicholas Conger, describes the PM’s visit:

“ . . . as part of a motorcade on my way to work this morning (9-23-04) . . . He (Allawi) was on his way to the White House, which is down the street from my office. I was told I couldn't cross L Street until the motorcade passed by. In an attempt to sneak a peak, I was blinded by the host of mean looking gentlemen fully equipped with Uzis literally pointing them at the crowd of on-lookers, just looking for a reason to open fire. It was wild. I was afraid that if I sneezed I may be viewed as an enemy combatant and thus shot to pieces right there on the corner of 17th and L.”

WHO WAS PACKIN’?

That scenario must have made the PM feel right at home. I wonder if he was packin’ heat: From SMH.com.au, a Fairfax News service in Australia, by Paul McGeough, July 17, 2004. Old news, I know, it was in our mainstream media I recall:

“Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings.

“They say the prisoners - handcuffed and blindfolded - were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city's south-western suburbs.
“They say Dr Allawi told onlookers the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they ‘deserved worse than death’. (sic, British usage).
“The Prime Minister's office has denied the entirety of the witness accounts in a written statement to the Herald, saying Dr Allawi had never visited the centre and he did not carry a gun.

“But the informants told the Herald that Dr Allawi shot each young man in the head as about a dozen Iraqi policemen and four Americans from the Prime Minister's personal security team watched in stunned silence.”



Homestyle liberation! Now that’s Texas-style democracy and justice, folks! Shoot the handcuffed and blindfolded first, ask questions later! W-Ya! picked his man for sure.
Read the whole thing at http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/16/1089694568757.html?oneclick=true I had to sign up to sign on.

MOSTLY POESY (which looks like reality to me)

I took the Cambridge Literary Test, courtesy of a link posted by John Dufresne http://www.johndufresne.com/Dufresne%20Blog.htm I got an 80. I missed two of ten questions (must admit I made many guesses). It’s fun and challenging, especially if you’ve been out of school for thirty years (must admit, I never left). http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/vclass/quiz/quiz1.htm

More hard labor yesterday: Our house-cleaning guy was feeling a little under the weather. It’s been a while since I cleaned house, did some laundry, too. I tell you, physical labor is good for the soul.

Another day weeding lies on the farm

Bill Schneider says Al Qaeda wants Bush defeated. HUH?
http://mediamatters.org/items/200409200007

My take, sent in an email to CNN, is this:

Bill Schneider, why would Al Qaeda prefer Kerry?

Al Qaeda has recruited thousands under Bush and his coalition of 150,000 American troops, 7,000 British (soon to be cut by half), and a joke. And the joke is bailing out right and left.

John Kerry will have the same guns and intelligence agencies Bush has now, but he has a new policy of inclusion and will kick-start diplomacy with a clean slate. He'll immediately have international ears refreshed anew and ready to listen. His prospects are to gather more world support in fighting Islamic terror at home and abroad. Do you think Al Qaeda is rooting for a world unified against it? If you do your logic is flawed.

Seems like your partisanship is showing, Mr. Schneider. (Bill Schneider also works for the neoconservative hostage, American Enterprise Institute.)

On one upbeat note, it was encouraging to see the media hammer Bush for some straight talk in the Rose Garden today. We didn’t get any but it was good seeing reporters like David Gregory, NBC News, hold W-Ya to a question. Never got an answer, but it’s a start. Probably won’t see Mr. Gregory called on by W-Ya again, though.

WHAT I WOULD ASK:

Mr. President, you said Iraq was about to use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against us. You still mention the attacks on the World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and the tragic crash of an airplane, a.k.a. 911, in the same breath as Saddam Hussein. Now we know that 911 and WMD were eliminated from notes on reality as history is being written. The world knows Iraq didn’t attack us on that horrible day. You say, Better to fight the war on terror in Iraq than here at home. My question is, was your initial decision in reality to gut a country and open it up for terrorists crossing the borders from Iran, Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, let tens of thousands of people die, while creating a haven for terrorists for years to come? Just because you had a convenient address to bomb? Or did you let them neoconservatives fool you? Some of us held signs in the lead-up to war that read, No blood for oil. Were we on the right track back then?

Wouldn’t it have been more logical, saner, to root out the people who attacked the United States on 11 September 2001 through, and I know this is not a simple word for you, intelligence?

Oh, and one follow-up: Are those neoconservatives the “good people” around you? My friends and family members who voted for you said their reasoning at the time was that, “he has good people around him.”

CAT STEVENS AND THE AMERICAN WORKER ON SATURDAY NIGHT

Err, let’s see here. Ted Kennedy, our senior senator, was detained at airports. He was on the no-fly list. John Lewis, one of our greatest American patriots and most respected members of congress in all quarters, detained repeatedly at airports (don’t these security guards and their supervisors know their congressmen?). Cat Stevens, now Yusuf Islam, “Peace Train” author and singer of much fame, causes the diversion of a flight from London to the U.S., returned to London by your Homeland Security Department. Right, he’s on the list too. http://www.yusufislam.org.uk/index.shtml


Flash back to Sept. 11, 2004. Men known to be terrorists with sights on attacking America are admitted onto a flight from Dulles Airport, hijack the airplane and crash it into The Pentagon. Where was W-YA? Pretending to advocate reading? (Next news conference I’d ask the Weasel for his reading list.) Where was John Ass-craft then? By the way, where is he now?

Maybe the next Bush ad should be scripted as: “I’m George W. Bush, and I’m making the world safe from Ted Kennedy, John Lewis, and that guy who used to sing stuff like, ‘Another Saturday night and I ain’t got no money . . .’ The economy is turning the corner! I’m creating new jobs! You’ll have plenty of money on Saturday night soon!”

UNCLE SAM AND SMOKEY THE BEAR WANT YOU

If you live in Atlanta, you can exercise your patriotism by going to Florida. It doesn’t pay like Halliburton in Iraq, but you shouldn’t be bothered by gunfire, rocket-propelled grenades, and improvised explosive devices. It’s a job opportunity with not much chance of getting axed, either. And your expenses will be paid on behalf of a better environment. http://www.envirovictory.org/ga

Acts of peace

Dove at the door. Click to enlarge. (Copyright Tom Todaro 2004. May not be used without permission.

While painting chairs in our garage this summer, I watched this mourning dove and his mate gather straw and build their nest in a crepe myrtle ten feet from our front door. Doves are monogamous and share duties; the female warms the eggs (two to three) most of the time and the male spells her from mid-morning to late afternoon. Since I took this picture in the middle of the afternoon, that must be papa. Peace.

:60 radio, Toads for Changing Horses in Midstream

G.W.B.: The economy is improving.

American No. 1: Well, yes, I am 54 but I have skills and many good years ahead . . . but you can’t just . . . can you hire me on a trial basis? No? but that’s not fair.

American No. 2: I have a college education and four years of experience. I can’t support myself and my kid on eight dollars an hour.

G.W.B.: The mission in Iraq is accomplished.

SFX, all over Iraq: Boom! Rat-a-tat-tat! Weeping, screams of anger.

G.W.B.: Democracy is taking hold, elections are scheduled for January.

Voices of the Middle East: Leave our country! No?

SFX: Pleading, weeping. Chop, hack. Screaming.
SFX, Countrywide: BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! RAT-TAT-TAT! RAT-TAT-TAT!

Announcer: The only jobs with decent pay Bush’s policies have created are in Iraq. They are well paying but the price for the hire may be your life. If you don’t believe that, ask the families of Eugene Armstrong, ask the wife and thirteen-year-old daughter of Jack Hensley, my metro-community mates in Marietta. Ask the family of Ken Bigley in Liverpool.

SFX: Pleading, weeping. Chop, hack. Screaming.

V.O.: I’m Tom Todaro and I approve this message.

One final note: Elly had her surgery today, the bump was taken off her neck. She's sleeping, on puppy medication, and she's stopped whimpering. We'll get the pathology results soon. (I think she's fine.) Good night, peace lovers.

The Whole World is a theater

It was a great evening. The improv troupe played games they had never played before, not even in class. In a very small space the stage was set with three rooms plus the moderator’s (Anthony’s Teacher) desk. The house was shaking! Anthony was crisp—quips, twists, turns, fast-forwards, reverses, and even a song about a girl named “Joy” who beats her dog. (Dad in the audience threw out that one.) http://thespazzreport.blogspot.com/ His sister, with whom Anth. shares space in town doesn’t really beat her dog but she has a need to post her defense on her blog.


Rock the surprise: This is your T-Daddy speaking. Get registered now! Honor thy father. It is your patriotic duty. Read this, please.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/NewsArticle.cfm?ID=2044

My lunch companions

Had lunch with Margaret Erickson, 98, born in Sweden. She grew up in Cleveland, been to all fifty states. She said you don't have much of an appetite when you near the century mark. Carol Cato is 78, has lost her vision. Carol and I shared memories of favorite eateries around here, and beyond. She even knows Old Heidelberg in Hollywood; wonder if it's still there. Eileen Todaro (aka Mom) is 84. I'm 54. Mrs. Erickson ate well today.

Political rules, meant to be broken. Don't change horses in midstream, unless the horse is lame and you're going down.

Protect free speech; use it

My friend Ann is now listening to Air America Radio in Atlanta. It’s a station in Decatur, 1690 am. Last I heard thirty stations have picked up AAR.

John posted a story of a teacher arrested for carrying a concealed weapon through an airport, a leather bookmark with a couple of lead weights. Better watch out, don’t carry any heavy books on your next trip—the Holy Bible, Bill Clinton’s My Life. I picked up Bill’s book after checking it out at the library and it slipped from my big hand. The noise was so loud it scared everybody. If a bookmark could be a weapon just think what one could do with the whole book!

From my friend Tom, a list of what to be Thankful for. By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist Wednesday, November 26, 2003. It was cut’n’pasted and I couldn’t find it in the SF Gate archives, but here’s a sample:


10) Kneel down, right now, for free speech. Oh yes. We must. Because it is under severe duress. To exercise it now, to speak out against BushCo and war and global corporate profiteering, is a true sign that you are a traitor and an al Qaeda operative and a personal friend of Barbra Streisand. This is what they sneer at you.

Give it up, instead, for free unfettered alt-news sources like truthout.org. And commondreams.org. And alternet.org and counterpunch.com and buzzflash.com and smirkingchimp.com and even Slate and the BBC and The Onion. Cheney scowls, Rove oozes, Ashcroft would love nothing more than to shut down the entire impious godforsaken Internet. Be grateful they can only quiver and hiss and rattle their chains. So far.

What if they held a Rapture and everybody showed up but God?

Thanks to John Dufresne for this one. Thanks to Bill Moyers and his incredible career. This is required reading, call it a primer for everything else you read and hear from the media. Bush flip-flopped when he first called his mission a crusade, then backed off. He must have scared himself with that slip of the forked tongue. I guess "professional" journalism has let us down in America, where celebrities are more important than how corporate power is stealing our government and how government plays games with democracy. Read all about it, folks, read all about how where journalism matters, journalists are killed. Read all about how the quality of our fifth estate is inextricably linked with the quality, I'll add the very existence of, democracy. We're on our own. We report, we decide. Blog on, human soldiers! Do whatever it takes to hold our media, as well as our government, accountable. Turn away from the mamby-pamby pretty faces, turn off your televisions if that's what it takes, cancel your subscriptions. If you're not sure about something, Google it, or Joe-Schmo it. Forget your favorite brands, search for the truth. If you really love this country, do something! Grow your own food, keep your cars longer, knit your own socks (I have a source), but if it smells bad, and it oh so often does, don't buy it. http://alternet.org/mediaculture/19918/

Elly at the vet, voter registration forms, absentee ballots, Jesus, and Louie “The Pipe"

I took Elly to the veterinarian today, worried about a walnut-sized lump on her neck. Dr. Juanita took a quick look at a sample on a slide and said it’s nothing that worries her, probably just a cyst. She’s going to remove it and send it to the lab Wednesday, just to make sure.

Some of the people at my Mother’s assisted living residence now have voter registration forms and absentee ballot applications. I suspect they'll get some help making sure they are filled out properly.

I wonder how my old friend Louie “The Pipe” from Hollywood, Florida, is doing. Louie got his name when, taken for a “ride” by some adversaries, he helped get his since-good-buddies out of a jam in a bar (his last request was for a drink). Louie found a lead pipe, probably discarded by the plumber, in the men’s room, and used it to help his foes fight their way out of a “little disagreement.” They were so grateful they gave him a new name to go with his new lease on life. Louie retired many years ago—from the Hollywood Police Department. (No, he was not a cop.)

The note on the kitchen calendar said, “Jesus is coming.” Didn’t want to disappoint my wife but had to tell her it was Jesus Martinez coming to put in a flowerbed. Remember the band, Question Mark and the Mysterians? Ninety-six tears? In our family of four, Mom is the only churchgoer. The other three of us are unsure. If we were a band we would be “Question Marks and the Presbyterian.”

Who is buried under the family tree?

I Googled myself for the first time. There are a lot of Todaro's. I had four inconsequential hits (no pun intended) on me, but there are many pages for the name. One is Fat Sally's Guide to Mob Nicknames. (http://www.geocities.com/waytoofunny_2000/nicknames.html) Yes I have a Sicilian lineage, and, no, I may be stiff but I'm a mainstream working stiff. But I wonder what Lead Pipe and Black Sam are up to these days. Fat Sally includes these names:

Joseph "Lead Pipe Joe" Todaro
Salvatore "Black Sam" Todaro

Remind me to tell you the story of Louie The Pipe, my friend in Hollywood. Louie, if you're out there, I love you. And I still owe you the story of the coming of Jesus; one more job I created that Bush didn't.

If you must insult, do it with panache

John Dufresne posted the "Shakespearian Insult Generator" on his blog. It's http://www.mainstrike.com/mstservices/handy/insult.html

Let's vote the artless idle-headed mumble-news swines out of office!

The cost of exercising your rights, and your passions for your beliefs, as an American: So far I have alienated one friend and distanced another. Events justify the passion. I cannot ignore the truth.

I pledge, however, to temper passion with intellect to the best of my abilities.

Beware of the spell checker on this blog machine. It fails to recognize "panache," it does not even know "blog!"

One good

I hope something good becomes of our current state of affairs, as I struggle with my thoughts of democracy and the well-being of our people--how it is and how it should be. I will never turn my back away from how government operates and how the fifth estate reports to us. I will always speak out. My hope is that millions of us share that feeling.

Hurricane, hurricane, go away

Ivan left town and took summer with him. It is sixty-one degrees.

Hurricane season doesn't end until November 30. Sheer odds must be against another hit.

Anthony’s first comedy class holds its graduation show Tuesday night. If he is picked for the advanced class, tuition will be waived.

I was invited to help pay for and watch The Dawgs game on pay-per-view today at one o’clock. I love autumn but football doesn’t play into my affections. I passed.

Came across this, saved from a recent “Writer’s Almanac.” It’s a quote from
Honore de Balzac:

"All happiness depends on courage and work. I have had many periods of wretchedness, but with energy and above all with illusions, I pulled through them all."

William Carlos Williams

If one poem could make a poet immortal, this is it. Happy Birthday, Dr. Williams.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

My little powerless village

Hard physical labor—splitting red maple for instance—a scarcity of news, a twenty-five-hour power outage, are good for the political soul. So was John’s heads-up on the Harris poll reported in the Wall Street Journal. What convention bounce? Any respectable incumbent president would have the opposition shaking in his donkey boots. Not this time.

Haven’t heard much news today, just word of mouth, which is kind of damn nice. Ivan took our electricity around five o’clock p.m. yesterday afternoon and hasn’t returned it yet. It is six o’clock p.m. now. Starting to get dark. We spent the night with candles and flashlights burning and at the ready. Couldn’t get our radio working on batteries. Some trees were knocked down in the neighborhood, a couple of big old red oaks and some Bradford Pear trees. Pockets of metro Atlanta still without power. Around 250,000 customers lost power last night.

I rode la bicicleta around the neighborhood (Anthony hasn’t picked it up yet). Rode out to the highway and talked to the linemen from Tennessee working for us here. They said power should be back on in about an hour.

Girls I’ve watched grow from babies to high school students stopped by and said the Georgia Power guy told them, “pretty soon.” Spoke with Doris across the street for about the second or third time since she moved-in seven years ago. She has a contract to sell her house. No electricity, no TV, no AC . . . makes a different neighborhood. We’re actually out there walking around, chatting for real, riding our bikes, having long conversations.

I told Vernard more about the history of his house than he would have imagined. Our friends Mia and Mike used to live there. They had a room just for their Western American tortoises, one for the lizards, horned toads, and other assorted desert dwellers, the pig owned the den, about twenty birds usually roamed on their own, the barking frogs were kept in the bedroom. The garage was reserved for raising crickets to feed the reptiles. Vernard remarked, So there was a pig! The exterminator told me about him!

Jane found some interesting hurricane stories archived by the Sun-Sentinel, Ft. Lauderdale’s newspaper. One lady in the early decades of the 20th century was nearly strangled by her own wind-whipped dress.

Only an hour left on this laptop battery. Sure could use a little electricity. It is six-nineteen p.m.

I ran out the battery on a Beatles record. THE POWER IS BACK ON, after twenty-seven hours! God bless them boys from Tennessee! We were yelling from the windows! Blowing car horns! Now let me go catch up on what I missed in the world.

Just got a heads up from my mole at a big Buckhead hotel: SE Legal organization of some sort, where Zell Miller is speaking tonight, has chatter about making moves against Michael Moore and his F-911 movie. Sorry if there are typos, I have pent-up need to blog.

A poem, stormy weather, y bicicleta

I went to see Juan and his son, Uriel (Uriel is "one of the archangels named in the Apocrypha and in Hebrew tradition," according to the American Heritage Dictionary). I said, "bicicleta." And they taught me the whole sentence I was looking for. "Yo quiero a comprar el bicicleta." They sold me a ten-speed. My son and daughter can use it to spin around their neighborhood; save on gas and parking. Uriel thinks I can speak Spanish pretty well, and that he can't speak much English. He has it backwards.

My sister, Carol, is a good writer. She sent me a poem today about cats and dogs that made me smile.

Mary and I went through a tough decision about her driving to her ad agency client today, towards stormy weather and tropical storm Ivan. It’s the final day of creative for a catalog she's writing and the retailer is coming in for review. I almost drove her there. Ivan is skewing north and not enough east to threaten now. Tornadoes have hit South GA and a tornado warning is in effect down there. Mary went ahead, an hour southwest of here. I stayed home. She said the ride was not bad at all. But we’re under a heavy rain/wind warning, possible gusts up to 50mph this afternoon. I guess if the weather gets real bad while she’s there, she’ll stay until it improves. Makes me nervous.

My first hurricane was Donna in Hollywood, Florida, 1960. I was ten.

A poem I found today

I Dreamed I Took My Mom to Lunch

Taking my mom to lunch with Mary and Greg
to some Miami Beach looking hotel where the menu
is on the window without prices.

Mom and I sit down at a café table to wait while
Greg goes to see how much it costs to eat there,
They bring salad and by the time Greg comes back
to tell us it is too expensive, too late because we
had eaten our salads and there the confusion began

We have to eat, my mom has to eat I tell Greg and
and Mary disappears from the dream momentarily
somehow so do I, in an instant but I return

I think we are to eat and I sit down, then look down
at the soup and reach for my spoon, take a bite, look
up at an elderly stranger and I guess his wife with
milky faces like the soup I cannot un-eat.

More confusion as I get up and my mom is up and her
wheelchair is not her wheelchair and I hold her up
and tell Greg to get the wheelchair and he sits in
it and a waiting lunch customer pushes him up
the ramp leading to the gardens above the fountain

This is not funny and bring back the wheelchair
and a group of waiters, would be lunchers, not staff,
laugh and beg to differ on the humor of my fear

and amazement. They bring her back to me and
I say let’s go and this is not her wheelchair and we
are rolling along and my mom leans all the way
over to pick up something silver that is just a piece
of carpet tape. I’m afraid she will spill forward.
And what happened to her chair and Greg tells me,
“When I quit smoking I had these rubber boots I always
used to wear and they told me to change boots and
that would help me quit smoking,” and I said what does
that, never mind, get the chair, meet us

so we are headed to the parking area, unsure of where
and we stop above the big fountains, looking down
from a steep drop, a waterfall, two-hundred-feet down
and I see Mary walking briskly toward us then a sister
then I look as my mother wanders over to the edge
begins looking over, wheels slightly rolling, grab
her just as the front wheels are on the downside of
the edge, just enough for one hand strong, the other
weak, the chair turns, her body coming toward the edge
the chair at an angle I think just enough to spill her,
flash thought: She wants to die. I wake up.

I think she wanted to die, or I, did I

Tom Todaro
8 April 2002

Somebody tell me why this is a contest

We’re working for less, we have less of what we need to be secure and happy, we face an uncertain retirement, our grown kids are working their asses off trying to get a leg up (worse, they grasp at anything resembling hope for better days), our parents are running out of money too quickly, we feel bad about our democracy and its lost promises . . . why haven’t the polls buried Bush yet? Does anybody seek the truth anymore? Do Americans expect a free ride, free of thought and participation in this great experiment called democracy? Read, think, read some more, use your human gifts.

Part time soldiers are dying by the hundreds (do the decision makers who got us into Iraq have kids over there?). The world and the terrorists hate us. We are Americans and we need to prove that on November 2nd. Defeat fear, defeat Bush.

Kerry will win for one reason: he has to.

A reason to reelect Bush

Iraq looks hopeless and seventy percent of Iraqis blame US.

Pray for the Comeback Kid. Richard Cohen in today’s Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19108-2004Sep13.html

Taking care of our health is slowly strangling us. We're spending more time looking for decent work, working longer hours, getting less of the best health care technology in the world and paying more for it. Hell, I think more people would buy into more of an ownership America if we could just afford the health insurance. Bush is doing nothing but defending an abysmal record.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "The more he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons." Guard your flatware, folks.

We should ask ourselves, Why should we reelect the guy? I can't think of one reason.

Dump golf

Pat and I had a great time playing golf on top of one of metro Atlanta's close-in landfills. It's actually beautiful. Didn't smell much methane or petroleum odor today, if any.

Pat is a wonderful young gentleman and he's great for the family. For not playing golf much, he said it's been over a year, he's a real good hitter.

Not voting on November 2 would be an evil act. The government just got around to admitting that genocide is taking place right now, and over the past few years, in Africa. And the government is still not doing much about it. In fact this government decided as soon as it came to power that it would not do much but take care of their corporate sponsors and conquer the world.

Dick "go fuck yourself" Cheney is still obsessed with his lies about Sadam's links with world terrorism and 9/11. This is getting crazy . . .

THE DAILY MIS-LEAD
< http://www.blogger.com/app/www.Misleader.org >
===============================
CHENEY MISLEADS ON IRAQ/AL-QAEDA CONNECTION
Displaying a brazen disregard for the facts, Vice President Cheney told an audience in Cincinnati Thursday that Iraq had "provided safe harbor and sanctuary...for Al Qaeda."[1] There is no evidence to support Cheney's claim. The 9/11 Commission - which spent months exhaustively studying the issue - concluded there was no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al-Qaeda.[2]
After the release of the report, Cheney claimed there was "overwhelming" evidence of a relationship between al-Qaeda and Iraq and that he had "probably" seen evidence that was not shared with the commission.[3] After investigating the matter, the 9/11 Commission found "it had access to the same information the vice president has seen regarding contacts between Al Qaeda and Iraq prior to the 9/11 attacks." The commission also reaffirmed its position that it had not discovered a "collaboration-cooperation between al-Qaeda and Iraq."[4]

Sources:
1. "Cheney Says Iraq Harbored Al Qaeda," Los Angeles Times, 9/10/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=3067868&l=54791.
2. "Al Qaeda-Hussein Link Is Dismissed," Washington Post, 6/17/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=3067868&l=54792.
3. "Cheney blasts media on al Qaeda-Iraq link," CNN, 6/18/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=3067868&l=54793.
4. "9/11 Panel Upholds Iraq-al-Qaida Finding," ABC News, 7/7/004, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=3067868&l=54794.
Visit http://www.blogger.com/app/www.Misleader.org for more about Bush Administration distortion.

. . . New gossip book out linking GW Bush with cocaine use. Major source, Sharon Bush, Neil Bush's ex-wife, was read back portions of the book placing the drug in W's nose, in the known presence of a v.p. at the publisher, Doubleday, confirming her remarks.

Let's see if he can deny having inhaled that one. (I'd rather have a president with a penchant for weed than one into coke any day. Chillin' beats hubris.) Of course I think Clinton clearly was one of those who just tried it.

How many people died in George's war today? If you sift through the newsprint, you might be able to find out.

Vote to put Bush out of our misery November 2.

Golfing at the dump

The Blued Heron Golf Club, a public course, deserves top prize from the Urban Land Institute. It was built three years ago on top of a closed landfill, Morgan Falls, in Sandy Springs, just north of Atlanta. I fondly refer to it as the dump.

It's one of the tightest, most challenging courses I've seen. My friend Sean is the general manager. I played there a couple of weeks ago. Joy's friend Pat suggested we get together today and go play. We'll be at the dump, an exemplar of smart land use. I love the smell of methane in the morning.

First day Mary and I can be together

Today is the first time Mary and I have the chance to be together in weeks. She's been working at the client site every day; supposed to go today but it was cancelled. We're going to the boutique in Decatur, where Joy works. Mary should treat herself to something nice.

Yesterday I visited friends, mowed the lawn, chopped and stacked some of that maple, did laundry (it was a nice day so I used the clothes line), tidied up around the house, and relaxed in the evening with a martini in a frosted glass.

And it looks like Bush slipped a bit in the polls. Good day all around.

Now it's personal

Ivan the terrible, I swear it's a conspiracy, it is personal, and it is headed right for Atlanta and me. My sister tells me a friend thinks hurricanes are the vengence of African gods cast into the New World.

The Granny Vote

The Boston Globe's Ellen Goodman writes about "granny voters" and the sigificance of National Grandparents Day tomorrow, September 12. There are some seventy million grandparents in America, people who vote in large numbers. Granny Voter aims to show politicians that old folks care about the future of their grandchildren, that Social Security and Medicare aren't the only issues for the gray-haired.

"The official flower for National Grandparents Day has a rather plaintive name: forget-me-not. But the official bouquet from GrannyVoters to politicians has a much better handle: better-not-forget-us."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13001-2004Sep10.html

http://www.grannyvoter.org/

Holy shit

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ftp/graphics/AT09/refresh/AL0904W5+GIF/102038W5.gif

Holy shit! This one is going to hit Georgia hard if you believe this model. We can all kiss our Vidalia Onions goodbye if this comes true.

God bless Jamaica. Yvette, who’s been promoted to second in command at Mom’s place, has not been able to get through to her family in Jamaica. She takes such good care of Mom.

I borrowed the cook’s truck and took out three loads of red maple firewood. I’m getting too old for these macho chainsaw fantasies.

Good luck to all my family and friends in Florida. I'd be there helping if I could. Call me.

Foxy Lady

This is the sexiest news of the week. "Outfoxed" is being released in movie theaters this weekend, Moveon tells me. It's playing at the Tara here, nice place showing more independent films short of Peachtree Garden Hills. Fahrenheit 911 is approaching a gross of a hundred-twenty million dollars in America. I wonder what sales are like around the globe?

About this release, Wes Boyd of Moveon tells us:

Fox News probably wishes Outfoxed would just go away. In a short time, the movie has blown Fox's cover, exposing the network's Republican bias.

Instead, Outfoxed has been so popular that it's now at a theater near you. You can help make the movie a box-office success by coming to see the movie anytime this weekend -- and bringing a friend! If "Outfoxed" does well in theaters, more people than ever will learn how Fox turns Republican talking points into news headlines.

Outfoxed is playing this week at:

UA Tara Cinemas
2345 Cheshire Bridge Rd.
Atlanta, GA 30329
Showtimes: (404) 634-5661

I bought the DVD when it was first available. In some surrealistic way, watching it is just like watching Fox News. Like Michael Moore's great documentary, Outfoxed pulls it all together for anybody who's been paying attention, while furthering the investigation and the thinking. I'm stoked it's out in theaters.

Concede nothing

One of my friends sent out a note saying he's ready to concede the terror/fear angle in this election. His young nephew quickly responded with a pasionate note:

"I refuse to concede defeat on the terrorism\national security issue. JK should ask Americans to hold this President accountable for fighting the wrong war. He should point out that an independent, bi-partisan commisssion who dedicated years and thousands of interviews to investigating 9/11 has found nothign linking the real enemy, Al-Qaeda to the fabricated one, Iraq. But still, Dick continues to suggest connections. The 9/11 commission's findings, not so much its recommendations, are vital to this election. We would not have invaded Iraq had we known there was no al-qaeda-iraq connection. But we were told otherwise. Accountability.

Secondly, we are less safe than we were before the Iraq War. Cite - "middle-of-the-road" Muslims (if you will) converting to fundamentalists because of their anger at American foreign policy in the post 9/11 world. They're are more people who want to kill you and I than before Iraq mess. Read - Struggle within Islam, this weeks TIME Mag.

These are the issues my generation cares most about. Job numbers affect us, economic numbers somewhat, but its our peers who are dying in a foreign land that hits home. We can not back down from the "who will protect us better debate." This President has put us in harm's way. JFK will work cooperatively with the International Community to regain the goodwill we squandered in the months following the attack. My peers are going to vote this election. And we can't lose these votes in Ohio, Florida, Iowa, ect..."

There’s nothing to concede nowhere, now-how, no way, niente! So the shrub got a convention bounce. He’s the president, he should get a bounce. The convention was a remarkable show. Everybody is talking about it. Karl Rove could walk through a sewage ditch and come out smelling like The Rose Garden. The only thing to concede is that we’re up against a very scary strategy. The campaign and the fringe will do anything. And they have all the money! Kerry is the comeback kid, the closer, back-to-the-wall motherfucker. He needs us doing anything we can.

This remains “event-driven.” Just look around you. Terrorists are shooting up the place. Over a million more people living in poverty (picture you, your wife, and two kids living on eighteen-thousand dollars a year). I hired a couple of guys from the golf course crew to cut up a tree storm Frances knocked down. Hired another crew to remove a tree (an errant car knocked it down) and replace it with a flowerbed. Had the golf course crew plant a rather large boxwood hedge. We’ve had painters in here, plumbers installing new fixtures; a carpenter came in and fixed a doorframe. In the last three-and-a-half years I’ve created more jobs than the president has.

Either we’re united or we’re not: Three years later

A memory for tomorrow. This is what bothers me about the administration's ownership of September 11, 2001.

George W. Bush said in the 2000 election, “I’m a uniter, not a divider.” Not much happened at the White House for the administration’s first eight months. Domestic policy was scarcer than weapons of mass destruction in Iraq aimed at our shores. There was much thumb twiddling, plenty of vacationing.

The horrific terror of 11 September 2004 did change a lot. For just a moment in time, we had a strong world behind us. Bush could have had any coalition he wanted in tracking down terror. And we could have had a strong coalition of the informed, at home and abroad—people who actually understand a rational approach to foreign policy in dangerous times, for the long-term good of all.

We were a strong world ready to stand up and fight those who attacked us. Then something went wrong. Bush squandered that capital of unity by turning away from Afghanistan prematurely, rather than pursue the real enemy, as his neocon friends’ waved him into Iraq. Now the world would vote Bush out of office if they could. Over a thousand people in our military and tens of thousands of innocent citizens have died. Veterans are coming back and speaking out against Bush, forming activist groups. Not even Iraqis like us (still waiting for the hugs and flowers). Iraq is a quagmire and so is Afghanistan. It’s making us sick at home. Income has declined for workers, poverty has increased, and the insurance companies are digging deeper and deeper into our pockets.

This summer the Bush campaign based its strategy on fear, using tactics of smear. He can’t seriously run on his record so he attacks the opponent with lies, twisted half-truths, and distortion. These people will stop at nothing to get reelected. As voters we should do all we can to turn out in big numbers at the polls to make sure he doesn’t.

Hey, Mr. W. Divider? Where’s the “uniter” you promised us? (By the way, look up “uniter.” It’s not a word. Not only did he make up a concept he never had a purpose for, he made up a word for it.)

Another story of Hurricane?

Carl Hiaasen must be mulling over the possibilities. CNN is featuring families seriously considering moving. Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane, that’s what I’d call the book. Nature, of course, will always have her due. Sorry greed, sorry “developers.”

Hollywood/Dania, Grove/Gables, maybe Las Olas, South Beach, and other cool spots, will be all that remains. The Everglades will revive.

I stopped by the tiller repairman’s house. He’s a young looking sixty, retired, scours garage sales for small-engine equipment. Fixes and puts them out by the road next to his sign, For Sale. He fixed my tiller pretty well but I decided he could have it for fifty bucks. I’m getting too old to farm. But, a mule? now that would be cool, to have another pet . . . and I think my parenthetical obsession is now turning to the ellipses . . .

Somebody is going to find his bar tab. It will prove GWB had to commute 220 miles in order to drink in the bar holding the tab and still show up for work every day in Alabama. (Maybe Equifax could investigate.)

Only a couple of hours from Alabama, Atlanta was one-hell-raisin’ town in those years. My first trips here were to the Atlanta Pop Festivals, I and II, at the NASCAR racetrack near the airport, then in Byron, Georgia, just south of Macon.

I remember not inhaling and swimming in a river on the Byron site, late summer 1970. Most of us were naked. I hope that smirking guy, now that I recall, wasn’t Geor . . . he did look a lot like . . . ! He was hitting on a chick from my acting class who was special to me . . . now I know why I never liked the SOB!

Looks like Juan, Uriel, and I can have all the red maple firewood we can haul off. I’m working on a scheme. I played golf today and asked them if they would like to work for me again, hauling wood. Juan said “no comprende” and we all laughed. Udell said, “muy consado.” I said, “me too.”

I went to my Mom’s place today, brought her two new pairs of shoes to try out. She sat in the parlor of her assisted-living home and tried on the shoes. One pair was too tight but the other was cool. She was the center of attention. Everybody walked up and wanted to see the shoes. I was looking for takers on a 9 ½ m, the pair too small for Ma. No sale so I return to Penney’s.

Who you are with is so important. Played golf on a beautiful day with Faye, as her guest. Faye is the chief ranger at our local swampy playground. She is a great lady and a great friend, so I naturally had a wonderful time. No problem about the Kerry bumper sticker, Faye. Let me know if you need anything else. Who you are with is so important.

Mi$$ion Acompli$hed? on U.S. Treasury Building

Mission accomplished, revisited: Analysts projected in March a federal budget deficit of $477 billion for fiscal 2004 ending this month. The good news is it is only a record four-hundred-twenty-two BILLION dollars. Good job, George. Shouldn't you strap on a bow tie, hold up a balance sheet, and salute America? Maybe in front of a MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, banner affixed to the front of the U.S. Treasury? We'll just hold this release until Halloween: (Remember, we anted up a few trillion dollars in surplus when you took over the White House.)

The Congressional Budget Office said the deficit outlook beyond 2006 was worsening. The agency now projects a total ten-year deficit of TWO-POINT-THREE TRILLION DOLLARS, up from TWO POINT ONE TRILLION. . .

The latest ten-year projection "is probably optimistic because it does not assume policy changes that are popular with members of both parties, such as the extension of expiring tax cuts or an adjustment to the alternative minimum tax.” (Robert Bixby, executive director for the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group opposing deficit spending.)

The reality is twice as bad: “Under more plausible political assumptions (That means if you vote for George Bush!) the ten-year outlook shows a deficit of roughly FIVE TRILLION FUCKING DOLLARS,” unquote, said Bixby. (not really, I threw in the FUCKING, and if you want to look it up, its’ a story by Mailyn Geewax today, Mgeewax@ajc.com.)

Big ole maple

. . . must be eighty years old, fell down in a man's yard next to the Duluth Historical Society and City Hall. Might see if Juan and Udell want to truck some wood, make some more extra money. I've created more real jobs and cut more paperwork than George Bush has in nearly four years. Tell you about the day Jesus came in another post.

We had fun today

The first thing I must say is that my headline was originally in Spanish. The post wouldn't publish so I'm trying it in English.

Frances, that damn big ole hog of a hurricane, threw a bunch of wind and rain way the hell up here, north of Atlanta and into this once farm town. (Hope it knocked Zell into a hornet's nest up thar in Young Harris. Heh, heh.) The best thing I saw happen around here was that golf course they want to build homes on along the Chattahoochee was transformed into one big lake. Maybe the Army Corps of Engineers will get it. The worst was a pear tree down. Winds of about 50 mph, max, hit around here and split the old ornamental pear in front of the rest home where my Mom lives assisted.

Made a deal with the manager of the home. I went and got my two friends who work at the golf course, but not today of course, and we got rid of the split part of the tree, along with the other still-standing half; thus saving the old folks who sit on the porch from the possibility of wandering under a hurt tree and meeting disaster.

We were the show as residents gathered to watch Juan take down that tree with my chainsaw. We had fun, as my friends said, graciosos and divertivo, I know I'm butchering the Spanish, but we rode along in Juan's truck, three to a mini-cab, rocking, singing, and laughing to the Mexican radio station. Estoy muy consado.

Depends on who you speak with

It says here in The Atlanta Constitution today, our income in metro has decreased ten percent in the past three years. This region tends to rise above median income; thirteen-percent increase in the high-flying nineties versus eight percent nationally. While that double-digit increase was being reversed, Bush sat in the White House presiding over a "My Pet Goat," do- nothing domestic agenda. Bob Herbert previews what we can expect in a report from the Economic Policy Institute being released today: more studies showing real income has lagged along with job loses. Even those lucky enough to have jobs have lesser-paying jobs. Looks like the only company offering decent-paying work these days is the anti-big-government republican administration and its subsidiaries (You name them).

Today is labor day but only those hanging onto the teat of "capital" have reason to celebrate, or at lease smirk a little. The tax cuts have eased the, ah, pain? for the rich but haven't done spit for those of us who work for a living. Worse, the jobs Bush has promised are probably stashed away somewhere along with Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Are we better off now than four years ago (a question Bush surely does not want to hear)? I guess it depends on who you speak with. It must be the unemployed, underemployed, or the totally impoverished; there aren't that many teat suckers. I suggest the first step to a better picture for American workers will come November 2, on our way to our precincts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/06/opinion/06herbert.html?th

Here's a tip I read in an article about the Cheese Maestro of New York. Use wax paper to store your cheese. Using plastic is like putting a garbage bag over your head and sealing it up. (I would quote directly from the article but I'd have to go find it, but that's what he said.). I've tried it (the wax paper, not the garbage bag) and it works!

Today I sold my old six-HP rototiller for fifty bucks or I'm having it fixed for a hundred. It's a toss-up. We'd like to till-up more of our lawn and grow more vegetables. It's time to plant collards, lettuce, cabbage in North Georgia. I'd like a goat or two. City code all but eliminates the goats, and my kids are vegan and vegetarian now. They'd frown on me exploiting the little billies for milk and cheese. I might get the tiller back and run beans all over this third-acre. We could have a veritable, vegetational and vegan tofu factory. Maybe I'll (your best Zell Miller affectation of a mountain accent here) turn vegan.

Dogville

I wondered where all these words came from when I clicked to title my first post. The drop-down suggestions included, Pundit, writer, Dogville, and "my friends react to me with soundbite mimicry." So I chose Dogville. Let me chew this over, publish this post, see what I'm doing, learn my way around. I'll get back to you later.