Friday, December 31, 2004

Slacker Santa

I have been remiss in my daily chores. Some catching up to do.

From Santa-morphisis, Dec 25—Dec 31, 2001

Dec 25, 2001

I said I would write all day and I did not. How could I when . . . well, no excuses. Memorable pictures:

Joy’s great smile and loving words.
Anthony’s face, making visual music.
The normally grumpy people smiling.
The usually grumpy being OK.
The sometimes grumpy being a little grumpy, then smiling.
The always angelic at their angelic best.
The generous, the all so generous.
My feisty friend Scotty being his feisty, though merry, self.

It is evening. Santa has gone dormant. Only New Year's remains.

Dec 26, 2001

Mary and I have taken to sleeping in this week. Rousing slowly with coffee, books, and TV movies. It has been a long time since I stayed upstairs until after eleven in the morning.

Walked with Mom today. Visited with others at her place.

To The Tea House. Walked around the new square. Back home for reading. Tim O’Brien’s Tomcat in Love.

Candies and cordials with Joy, Pat, Raina, Jeffrey, and Robin. Then poker. Seven people playing poker. Maybe three actually know how. Dumped a bunch of change on the table and we all dug in.

Santa is melting away. All that is left is the beard, and . . . Remembering how kindness works. Just say kind things, do kind things. Redefine and refine love over a lifetime.

December 27, 28, & 29, 2001

Trimming my beard I asked my self, OK, who are you now? In some ways I still think I am Santa Clause but mostly I think I am not, at least until next year. People still call me Santa out there, on the golf course, at my Mother’s place.

Mary and I have enjoyed sleeping in. It is almost eleven and I am just getting to this. Finished Tomcat in Love, fourth novel by Tim O’Brien for me. A funny, funny book.

This is the year of September Eleventh. The economy is bad, worse than it has been in maybe a decade or more. People are losing sleep. People are depressed.

Dec 30, 2001

When did Santa Claus begin? When was he born? I think it was November tenth, after a few days of beard growth, whimsically seeing myself in a red suit, with fluted white French cuffs and some sort of fancy white lapels. I think I thought of doing this last year but did not do anything. Nobody writes anything in their mind, nobody designs anything in their mind, either. Sit down and draw. Or buy a pattern and see a tailor.

Dec 31, 2001

Significant beginnings to the past year: By January I was making monthly trips to Florida to help my sisters take care of Mom, working with Mary on ad projects, and playing a lot of golf the rest of the time. Now Mom is in assisted living, a mile or two from my house. My sisters visit regularly.

Went to Mom’s with Mary. As we walked Mom around the building, she slipped from my grip on her gait belt and fell half-way to the floor attempting to sit in her wheel chair. She assured me she was not hurt.

Came home to a nice family, kidding around, lots of that. Warmed it all up with a fire from wood I collected myself about a year ago at the golf course.

Look at Santa, driving the beverage cart with a wreath on front, across the golf course, selling soft drinks, beer, and snacks. Part of the landscape of Christmas, at least around here. There he goes at the big country club party. Taking pictures with everybody. There he goes to the day care centers, the old folks home, the mall with his son and friends, the UPS store, the company parties, the exercise group party. There he is sitting in his front yard waving at passersby. At the convenience store hugging everybody, including the man on the ladder changing a light bulb. Calling Mellow Mushroom for a pizza for Santa and picking it up. “I told you! I told you he would come! I knew it was Santa on the phone!”

There you have it; dancing with hundred-year-old women, ninety, eighty. And dancing with my mother down the hall with her walker and gait belt in place. And dancing and playing as if my heart has never been broken, like I don’t need the money, like nobody is watching. (The “like nobody is watching” part is hard to pull off when you’re in a Santa suit.)

Friday, December 24, 2004

A little Santa in us all

Santa-morphisis
From December 24, 2001

Yesterday, Mom comments: “Oh no, you’re not wearing that damn thing again, are you?”

Today when Santa walked into her room at Plantation South to pick her up for our annual party, Oh, no, not again. In the car: Why are you wearing that suit again.

What else would Santa wear on Christmas Eve? Besides, don’t forget, you’re my mother; you’re the one who got me into believing in Santa in the first place.

“You didn’t even notice my new hairdo,” she said. Oh yeah, it looks nice, Mom.

“When are you going to stop wearing that outfit?” It’s Christmas. Don’t you like me in my Santa suit?

“I just want to see you in normal clothes. You’re embarrassing me.”

Santa has baggage, a sack full of gifts. People shouldn’t take them elves so seriously. Santa has a mother and father, sisters and brothers, like anybody else.

From my friend, Mark:

Thanks to the Sicilian Santa for spreading Sopranos-like holiday good
cheer to all of us! Shane won't stop talking about Santa Claus and his
personalized visit to "Shane's house." In all seriousness, it meant so much to Lisa and me to get all you guys together and catch up with everyone. We need to do more of that going forward. Again, appreciate everyone's taking the time out during the holidays to get together with us -- it meant a lot.

--Mark

Dear Mark,

We're all Santa. Thanks for the kind note.

I played golf today, 24 holes, in the Santa rig; played pretty well. The suit made me swing within myself, I guess. Some creep hit into us on the 11th hole and I tossed his ball into the woods. Bad Santa.

Love, SC

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Santa dancing
Santa-morphisis
From December 13, 2001

“Work like you don’t need the money, dance like nobody’s watching.” Somebody sent me that line, without credit.

Lilly turned 100 recently. She wore glasses like welders use when cutting metal with a blowtorch. Santa is at the Plantation South holiday party, dancing with Lilly. Walking with Lilly was dancing with Lilly. “I’m a hundred years old. It’s a miracle,” she laughed as we walked somewhere in the direction of her room “Oh, God bless you, thank you Santa.”

Dancing with Martha. What a fine dancer she is at, oh, eighty-something. I looked down, Martha’s face looking for me to lead her on, looking around the room at the faces of all those ladies, Mother included, all the faces of those on staff I’ve come to know. Santa was on staff today.

I lifted my head, watched the balloons dancing on the ceiling, the clouds dancing through the high windows. The sense of the heights of human spirit danced all around us. I looked across the room again, just to check. Sure enough only Martha and I are still dancing. The dancing of the others is all in their faces. Betty laughed. “You made Betty laugh. She’s never laughed,” somebody said.

Dancing with Winnie, ninety-something. “You know, Saturday nights I used to buck dance when I was a girl.” Exactly what is buck dancing, Winnie? is it like square dancing? “Why, yes! It is square dancing! You should have seen it. We would move my bed against the wall and make enough room for the boys to come in and we’d buck and dance. Oh My! You should have seen me then!” My head up, my smile pointing at two corners of the room. “And you know? some boy would always end up hiding under my bed until late at night!” Oh Winnie!

Mary and I carry sixty presents to sixty rooms. HO, HO, HO! Merry Christmas! It’s Santa. May I come in? Sweet, old, tiny Eugenia one of my all-time favorites, was a concert pianist once. Well preserved for eighty or more, wanted to make sure she got her kiss from Santa and she got it.

In Lilly’s room. She sat in her special chair with the built-in table. Very fine old furniture in the room, old white oak with carved ornamentation on the dresser drawers, like garland.

“You have to see . . . where is it?” What, Lilly? “It was right there.” She pushes the table aside and slowly gets up. Walks over to the dresser. “It was right on here.” She goes to her walker. Oh, look, I say to Mary. There is a candy cane dressed like Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer attached to the front of her walker. We all began singing that song. “Yeah, that’s right,” Lilly said, then gave us a big knee-slapping laugh.

I wonder how Mom felt about having her own personal Santa among all of her newfound friends at Plantation South.

Lynnita is a great friend of ours. Santa didn’t make it to Lynnita’s Mother. She passed away before we could arrange the visit. Today is the wake. Tomorrow is the service at Flipper Temple, near the campus of Morris Brown University, Atlanta. Could I have been her personal Santa? What would she have asked for and could the gift be possible?

(Excerpts from my journal, Santa-morphisis, from the 2001 holiday season, all entries copyright Tom Todaro, 2004. Santa-morphisis is in the trademark process. So don't even think about it. Wink.)

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Sheltering Arms
From Santa-morphisis, Christmas 2001

I read one of Joy’s student essays today about maturity. It must be the best of its kind.

This from a girl I coddled and nurtured and cared for and love so dearly. This from a girl I’ve known from her first cry, a face I will never forget. This from a girl whose father became a peculiar kind of Santa somewhere along the way, a girl just skeptical enough, maybe a bit more, with equal amounts of innocence, better equipped than most to use it all to it’s fullest.

Mrs. Claus and I picked up some treats at the drug store and were off to Sheltering Arms a non-profit organization providing daycare for fifty-six children of families with low incomes. I could see the kids in the window when we drove up. I could hear them yelling, Santa! Santa! My blood began pumping fast.

Inside, the assistant director gave me a bag for each class. First was a group of one-year-olds. Some were excited. Some were dumbfounded. Some were afraid. One little girl stayed near the far corner and didn’t move the whole time I was there.

From small voices I could determine that most of the girls wanted either Barbie Dolls or a baby dolls. And a car. Most of the boys wanted a motorbike and a car. And Power Rangers. Jamal had a yellow bubble in one nostril. He was dressed in a red sweatshirt and tiny jeans. I gave a little brown bag to each child. Two girls were named Sidney. The bags had little knit caps and knit mittens in them, white and lavender for the girls, black and brown for the boys.

Mrs. Claus led us all in a chorus of “Jingle Bells,” then “Here Comes Santa Claus," when we discovered we’d better stick with the songs to which we knew at least a majority of the words. Mrs. Claus was especially helpful with that.

We took pictures in large groups. And small groups. And with just one or two kids on my lap. A mother of one of the three-year-olds took most of the pictures.

One kid lifted my jacket and stuck his head under it. They asked me many questions, You the real Santa? Yes. Where are your reindeer? At the farm getting fed. The children were the stars of the show and I fell in love fifty-six times.

Miracle had pierced ears. She sat on the teacher’s knee. Quentin sat on the other knee. He had long curly black hair. They clung to their teacher all the while Santa talked with the other boys and girls; while the pictures were snapped, the wishes expressed, the songs sang.
Miracle finally sat on one of my knees. She wants a Barbie doll and a car. She has this down by now. What a cool name, I said, Miracle. She really is a miracle, somebody said, nobody told me why.

The twin girls with Downs Syndrome; so pretty. One wore a purple crushed velvet dress.
The little senses of self. The insecure, vying and jockeying for position with Santa. The ever so shy. McKenzie had to be brought to me and placed on my lap. While I began speaking with her, her teacher told her, It’s all right, holding one of McKenzie’s hands. I told her it would be OK and she let the hand slip. McKenzie gave me her Barbie and car wishes very quietly. She stayed on my lap while group pictures were taken. She asked for at least two hugs, maybe three, before I left the group to go on to the next.

Things I said were sometimes awkward to me. You will get lots of presents. And your parents have worked hard for your presents. One kid said, We don’t have any presents.

I went to Agnes Scott College to bring Joy home for the break, the third time Santa appeared there this season. I stayed by the dorm door and shuffled Joy’s luggage to the car. Joy and her roommate were mildly amused. (Daddy, why’d you have to wear that suit again?)

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

From Santa-morphisis

I decided to become Santa Claus for Christmas 2001. I had a suit custom made from a pattern of deep-burgundy satin, Sherpa (looks like white fur), belt, faux-boot shoe covers.

Mary and I made many appearances at subsidized childcare centers, a folk art gallery, the golf course, my mother’s assisted living home, a few parties, and sometimes I just wore the suit to go shopping.

Anthony was eighteen. One day near Christmas, he and a few of his friends were hanging around the house. I suggested they take Santa to the mall. We had a few stops to make on the way, first the UPS store. Here’s that excerpt from my “Santa-morphisis Journal,” being the Santa.

The Elves were all over the place. Playing with the toy UPS trucks, messing with the mailing supplies, trying to climb into the big package slot.

When I got on line I was behind a yuppie woman and her little girl. Both were dressed in red. They guy behind me said, “I don’t know about your choice of red, Santa.” I turned around and said, Check your history of Santa couture, buddy, article in Sunday’s NYT.
Then the little girl started in on me.
“You’re not the real Santa.”
“Why, yes I am dear.”
“No you’re not.”
Yes I am.’
‘No you’re not.”
“Yes I am.”
A lull.
“You’re not the real Santa.”
“Yes, I am honey.”
“The real Santa came to our clubhouse.”
“Your clubhouse?”
“No, you’re not the real Santa.”
“Yes I am.”
“No you’re not.”
“Yes I am.”
A lull
“You’re not the real Santa.”
“Yes I am.”
And this continued.
“Your name wouldn’t be Virginia,” I said.
“No.”
Her mother muttered something like, Santa wouldn’t say anything like that.
I didn’t think she could be Virginia. Virginia would have believed.

Off to Plantation South assisted living to deliver the Christmas gift for the staff from Mom. With the Elves in tow, sweeping the cookie basket as we pass through the ice cream parlor/beauty shop corridor. On to Mom’s room as I introduce my Elves and kiss Mom, hand her a card that came in my mail. Off to the Mall.

Ah, the possibilities. Waving, Ho-ing, hugging, posing for pictures with people randomly. Photo in front of Frederick’s of Hollywood. Santa at the mall. The Elves and I schemed and schemed. Hmmm . . . how about a picture of Santa with Santa? Over Japanese food the boys considered chipping in for the picture. They would never let us just shoot a snapshot. I was skittish about even going near the Santa picture set. I was afraid of being kicked out, or worse.
More pictures. Two female police officers and me. No they were not arresting me. Shot of us with three girls the Elves know from school. Shot of a high school theater diva, her boyfriend, and Santa.
Did get close enough to the Santa set to see the minimum was twenty bucks. The Elves passed on paying the tab for the picture, scooted off to work, shopping and hijinks.

Santa retired to the bar. Picture of Santa and bartender behind the bar. Played Trivial Pursuit with some patrons. Santa kicked butt.
All had a merry time.
Off to Sheltering Arms day care tomorrow.

(Photos available soon.)

The shortest day of the year

Winter in North Georgia is usually mild with abundant sunshine. The birdbath stayed frozen all day yesterday. Spent about an hour splitting firewood from a tree Anthony and I had to cut down last spring.

Monday, December 20, 2004

W, Time’s Man of the Year

Good choice, Time, Inc. I think Richard Clarke would have been good, too, or Al Franken, maybe Osama bin Laden (was he considered again?); Thomas Friedman would have been an excellent consideration, maybe some of them leaders who are screwing up the party in Iraq, making a difference for years and years to come.

But since W changed the way we elect our leaders, through fantasy, I think he is the man, cowboy of the year maybe? Mini Me-man of the year with a side of Dick “go fuck yourself” Cheney?

“The first TIME poll since the election has his approval rating at 49%. Gallup has it at 53%, which doesn't sound bad unless you consider that it's the lowest December rating for a re-elected President in Gallup's history,” says Time Magazine.

There are, after all, the best of Time’s and worst of Time’s in this “person of the year business.”

Sunday, December 19, 2004

The pharmaceutical industry "Florence
Nightingales" and how they screw us


“The more he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.”
--Nathaniel Hawthorne

There is much grumbling going on in the drug business and in the financial markets. These audacious scum formulators will be picking your pockets with renewed vigor after Celebrex and its financial following took a dive this week. They shouldn’t have much to worry about, having bought a huge insurance policy from Bush Unlimited and his cadre of “good guys around him.”

Pfizer is caught in bogus trials; the FDA is once again exposed as an accomplice to corporate crime in the ostensible mission of keeping the people safe and healthy. Celebrex can kill you? So what, that’s better than pulling it off the market and opening up litigation. Sell, sell, sell. Who cares? Bush Unlimited will soon strike down all lawsuits as “frivolous” (but you killed my daddy!). Heartbreaking, isn’t it?

Are these drug-industry quack scientists Christian values voters and Bush Unlimited contributors? Then how does that explain billions of dollars in hard-on ads aired in prime time? You know, the ads with necked women in bathtubs luring daddy over for quickie. Or couples at bars with voiceovers, When the urge may strike (should throw a condom rift into the copy here, don’t you think?) These guys took the cure and now they can get it up! What hogwash. Look at the models. They’re young and beautiful. They probably need saltpeter just to shoot the damn spots. They need “the cure” for limpdick about as much my son, and he’s twenty-one.

Now the $500 billion industry is crying in its formula because they aren’t coming out with new drugs (profits makers) so they’re trying to push existing drugs on doctors who wish they’d go away and on patients who don’t need them.

Keep counting the flatware, folks.

Brrrrrr!

The first arctic wave should be here by tonight. Temperatures in the teens with twenty to thirty mph winds = zero and below. The kids’ gas bill went from $45 to $145 in the past month. I was over there showing them ways to seal windows, cut the usage.



Saturday, December 18, 2004

Friday, December 17, 2004

Presidential medal of freedom?

I think thousands of protesters with their hearts in the right place should get a piece of that. Maybe we should change it to, Presidential Medal of Fiefdom. Then all them toadies who got it would deserve the damn piece of shit

Surprise! The Republican sycophant to the drug business gets handed cushy pharmaceutical industry lobby job. He’s the new CEO and he’s not looking out for you. And you thought Bush and his congressional puppets were looking out for grandmother and her drug costs! No, the sad dude is not only a motherf*%#@* he’s a grandmotherf*&$#! Spineless source on CNN:

“The source said (Retiring U.S. Rep. Billy) Tauzin wants to be a "patient-advocate CEO."

I guess that’s why he advocated blue-sky pricing for drug companies while leading his committee. What does he care now? He beat cancer, has a lifetime six-figure salary from congress, and never has to pay a dime for his own medical care. We just sat down and took a preliminary look at our taxes/expenses and trust me, he’s one lucky-ass grandmotherf&%##*! You should see my mother’s health care costs. Her out-of-pocket for Plavix is over $100 a month and there is no generic for Plavix. With guys like this greasing congressional skids, Plavix will probably get a copyright to infinity! Not negotiable!

Now the Weather Channel
warns of Zero by Monday

With temperatures in the teens, and winds up to 30 mph, we’re looking at a wind chill factor of zero to five below by Monday! It gets colder in places I've lived but this is getting chilly. I used to marvel when I'd drive by the same bank in Exeter, NH, in July and see the temperature at a hundred and six or more, then drive by in January and look at way, way below zero.

I covered the Apple Pickers Union protester holed up on a communicaitons tower high above the salt marshes of Seabrook on a makeshift plywood platform in the dead of winter, 1975. He was against building a nuclear reactor on the site. I had to borrow a flare from an AP reporter to thaw the lock on my Volvo. Wonder why I locked my car out there in the middle of nowhere.

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Today is Beethoven's Birthday
I dedicate Ode to Joy, to my daughter Joy and all the joy she is.

Who is O’Reilly’s daddy?

Bill, snorkleman, sponge meister, O’Reilly last night was spinning parents’ rights to listen in on their kids’s telephone conversations. Guess he’d give his old folks an earful, wouldn’t he.

“Dear, why is Billy talking with that girl about showers? What’s a luftaffa or whatever he’s talking about?”

“I think it’s some kind of washcloth, honey. Now get off the phone and stop eavesdropping on Billy boy.”

How old is that producer he paid the big bucks to shut up? Just a kid reporter, I think.

If you voted for Bush

you made a huge mistake

Let me know when you’ve heard enough. We can talk.

Looks like snow, Atlanta

Big storms out there, fronts and such. Weather Channel said North Georgia has better than 50 percent chance of snow showers Saturday. The temperature dropped below twenty again last night. I shut the fireplace down. When it gets this cold we loose more heat up the flue than we gain from burning wood. Fires are better on normal days, when it’s high thirties, forties.

I’m a Florida boy, born in PA, worked in NH for a couple of years. This is still fun, though, especially when you work at home. Had quite a blizzard our first year in the house, drifts of a couple of feet on April 1, 1993. Snow’s always fun in Hotlanta.

Crossfire’s hot topic yesterday

Cleveland Clinic wants to kick out McDonalds. They should kick them out, but come on now Begala and Carlson (Mr. Bow tie, and he’s thirty?) Jon Steward was right. What are these guys afraid of? Why don’t they talk about what really hurts? The media is hurting us; please stop. Stop being so stupid.

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

All I see is a couple of cheese
sandwiches and a fish stick, maybe two.

Free expression can be costly. Some spineless Chelsea market manager had the gall to attack the hard work of many artists over this? The fascists lurk among us.

Zell sells out to Fox

The Atlanta Constitution reports today Zell Miller hired as Fox News’s newest shouter and blabbermouth.

The paper had some fun with it, teasing the story on page one with, “You were thinking maybe CBS would have picked him to succeed Dan Rather?” Then they buried it on D6.

Fox News programming v.p., Kevin Magee:
“He’s colorful. He’s an interesting guy. He’s good on TV . . .”

And he couldn’t get hired to teach at UGA, Young Harris College (in his hometown).
Why is Rumsfeld on the run
if Bush is commander in chief?

All the dutiful snooooozzzzzz reporters are dutifully running the press releases: "Rumsfeld criticized." What is the commander in chief of? Rummy is becoming just another tracer bullet in a sad, dangerous American policy machine.

Come on "journalists," get off your fixation on Peterson murder stories (all day on the sentencing trial, CNN?) Get off your fat corporate asses and do some damn reporting! Even Larry King has become a pathetic part of all this.

This comes to me from Raina
and Mary, two of the best people I know

If each American who voted Democratic in 2004 spends $100 in 2005 on a Blue company instead of a Red company, we can move $5 Billion away from Red companies and add $5 Billion to the income of companies who donate to Democrats. To spend your money wisely this holiday season, check out these websites for info on good (and bad) businesses.

Burr. It's cold here on the toad farm

We're looking at 20 degrees by morning. Glad the days are sunny. High today was thirty-nine. Lots of firewood stacked and we're ready.

Monday, December 13, 2004

Them Christians just
don’t know when to quit

My daughter has two bumper stickers on her ’89 Olds: “You can pray in my school if I can teach in your church.” And, “Somewhere in Texas there is a village missing an idiot.” She lives in Blue Atlanta and I live in the Red suburbs. We switched cars today so I could have some work done on her olds. Boy was I proud driving her bumper stickers around this red part of town.

I watched Hannity and colmes “interview” Pat Roberson as he preached his vision of how our government should be run and claimed there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that separates church and state.

The first step is complete, according to that whacko: GWB went un-re-defeated. But that’s not enough until Jesus Christ owns the Supreme Court.

I have tried so hard all of my life to open myself to religious belief, it hurts.

Now I am so at peace knowing that this Jesus Christ is not my answer. It only continues to hurt that they blur that Jesus with the Jesus people I love believe in.

The only way I can follow is to strip my lexicon of all this false language associated with these “values” people right down to the question of God. And God is a question, after all.

The so-called evangelists have driven a wedge into all people. Like the war in Iraq has created terrorism, this kind of Christianity is creating atheists.

Let’s give it up for John Dufresne

John’s book, The Lie That Tells A Truth, is a great pick of William Safire’s for gifts of books about language, in this past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. John welcomes all into the wonderful world of storytelling in ways only a generous man such as he knows how.

It’s fitting that the book is recommended as a gift, as John is a most giving guy.

Saturday, December 11, 2004

Today is Carol Todaro’s birthday

I guess I’ve known Carol Todaro about as long as anybody. She’s the youngest kid in our family.

Now there are many things I know about Carol. She is very thoughtful, gracious, sophisticated in her own cool trademark style. She likes a lot of the things I like, denim, black garments, white garments, scarves, Alice Munro (did you get your present yet?), Florida, walking, good, tasty, healthy food and wine. We have much in common, for sure. Yet we are entirely different people raised by the same two humans.

But then there are things you don’t know about Carol, can’t know, the unknowns you know and those you haven’t the ability to know. Here’s a little something about a poet who is far from our favorite. In fact we just wish he would go away now. I had read a little of Rumsfeld’s poetry but this is extensive. Thanks for sending it, Carol. Laughter is kind. (I guess one of many things our parents taught us, especially dear old Dad, rest his soul, is this: We don’t take shit from anybody. And we sure know how to laugh about it.)

If you ever have a chance to catch Carol’s art (and writing) you’re a lucky person. Carol’s work is unique. So is she.

Carol is my friend of many years. She’s my confidant, sometimes conscience, fellow family consigliore, but friend is the best word. I guess I’ve been some of those things to her from time to time. (I’ve also been her terrorist, but I was a kid and she was my little sister, OK?)

One huge Happy Birthday, Sister. Lot’s of love going out to you today.

Runaway,

Alice Munro’s short story collection in NYT Ten Best Books of 2004. To the moon, Alice! Maybe one of Jupiter's.

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Can someone get this man a clue?

Rummy gets grilled in Kuwait by his own troops. Armor? Your truck will blow up anyway. More soldiers? Hell, that’s up to the officers in the field. Pay the troops on time? Huh?

From the Washington Post. Puts yesterday’s news in perspective. So does Jay Bookman in the AJC.

The one question that seemed to give Rumsfeld pause came from a lieutenant colonel who said that many of the soldiers in his unit are having trouble receiving all the pay due them, causing problems for their families back home who are being pestered by collection agencies.
"Can someone here get the details of the unit he's talking about?" Rumsfeld asked. "That's just not right.’”

Yer tellin’ me!

Carol Todaro’s six-foot book at Art Basal, Miami. Thanks to John Dufresne for posting it. Scroll down in his post for today, Dec. 9. Can’t figure out what went wrong with posting pictures here on Blogger.

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Air America “alive and well”

What looked like a one-trick pony with a limited agenda, and it was, has legs and is on the verge of covering half the nation.

Air America, featuring Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo, who have renewed interest in staying aboard, now has advertising revenue “that makes it look like we are in the middle of year two,” said founder Jon Sinton of the eight-month-old network.

Sinton admits the mission was to defeat Bush in November but four more years with plenty to talk about will help Air America stay aloft.

Maybe Sinton should mix up the format with good music in some day parts; jazz, blues, the best of rock. Sinton lives in Atlanta, commutes to New York. The story is in today’s AJC.

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Neocon Social Insecurity

Paul Krugman stepped aside from writing an economics textbook to write today’s NYT column. This is how he wraps it up.

“For Social Security is a government program that works, a demonstration that a modest amount of taxing and spending can make people's lives better and more secure. And that's why the right wants to destroy it.”

Read the whole thing.

Saturday, December 04, 2004

Cute little blog

I found a darling little blog today. Catchy little graphic film you might enjoy. Click here then click on ihaveanidea in the Dec. 3 post.

Friday, December 03, 2004

Good budget, bad budget

When it comes to raising money and spending it, the federal government could take a page out of the Republican Party’s playbook. Wait a minute; the Republican Party is the federal government!

According to Associated Press, “President Bush and the Republican National Committee spent a combined $707 million this election cycle after a fundraising effort so prolific the president’s campaign still has millions left over.” Good budget.

Since taking office Bush and his band of drunken sailors in congress have taken trillions in surplus and, presto, plunged us into trillions in debt, putting us on the road to third-world economic status. Bad budget.

All those rich people kicked in all that money to elect and reelect their country-club buddy to “get government off their backs and out of their back pockets.” An ill-advised war rages on, good jobs go begging, clean air and water legislation goes woefully under-funded, the trade deficit deepens, dollar declines. Where’s that going to leave the rest of us? Our children and grandchildren?

How many days left until November 2, 2008? Somebody should come up with a Web-site counter for that.