I don’t know if it was the travel all day on Sunday with a horde of other travelers or the combination of a flu shot and giving blood on Monday or some food I ate but I got sick last night, very, very sick…and it was horrible.

I’ve been in bed all day reading Momzillas (total chick lit.) which I picked up at the library on Monday. It’s about super rich, competitive stay at home moms on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It provided the perfect distraction from my sickness. The book is ok, itself. A lot of shortened versions of words like ‘convo’ are dispersed throughout. The language of the book is definitely influenced by instant messenger speak. In fact, instant messenger is used as a tool in the book to convey knowledge behind the narrator/protagonist’s back. It was also about a woman going through an identity crisis after finishing graduate school, getting married and having a baby. That was the much more interesting part of the novel and one that the author Jill Kargman could have delved into more. Well, hopefully, I’ll feel better soon and be able to post about books more!

I held on to him and sobbed, soaking his white T-shirt nearly translucent with my tears, pounding my fists against his chest, pleading with him and the gods to let us stay together. But suddenly I stopped and cried out, almost confusedly: “Wait. Who is actually willing to date you?”

My moment of clarity had finally arrived. What was I doing?

via

1. Cool sites like feministing, Girl with Pen, etc.
2. The Onion.
3. The NYTimes.
4. Gmail is cool too.
5. H-Net!
6. Google image search…so neat.
7. Google maps…so I can look up places like Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ.
8. [WorldCat.org].
9. bloglines.
10. Oh and duh Amazon.

This article about Plymouth, MA points out why I love history.

Daniel Ramey, visiting from Seattle, said he was shocked to learn from the nearby sign that the rock was not necessarily where the Pilgrims first set foot.

“I totally thought it was what they tied the boat to and stepped on,” he said. “Seeing the real story told more in textbooks would be awesome.”

It’s about representation, representation, representation!

So on my drive down from Albany I listened to some Rush Limbaugh and O’Reilly Factor. Why you may ask…well a friend of mine who is a liberal loves to listen to that stuff to hear what the enemy is saying. Ha!

Fortunately, I’m still a liberal.

So this is what I heard on Rush:

A dude called in and said “dirty Harry Reid and dirty Hilary Clinton should make a dirty, dirty baby” or something along those lines with the words “dirty,” “baby,” and “make.” Yeah…!

Also Rush could not get over the fact that the French President Sarkozy said some positive things about the US.

SARKOZY (via translator): To the millions of men and women who came from every country in the world and who, with their own hands, their intelligence, and their hearts, built the greatest nation in the world, America did not say, “Come, and everything will be given to you.” Rather, she said, “Come, and the only limits to what you will be able to achieve will be those of your own courage, your boldness, and your talent.”

RUSH: Right on, right on, right on. Second bite. VIA

***

Then on O’Reilly’s Radio Factor (hosted by someone else other than Bill, thank God) there was an actual effective (!?!?!) conversation about intelligent design and a recent court case in Pennsylvania. I need to find a suitable link.

FYI this halfway decent conversation didn’t win me over to the dark side.
***

Sean Hannity also was interesting with a lot of soldiers calling in. He seems to position himself as the only guy who will listen to and actually cares about the troops. He definitely was taking advantage of emotions.

Today in “way back when” I listened to Veruca Salt, a band I listened to a lot when I was 12 and 13. I drove up to Albany for this here conference. I kept trying to find the NPR station but I couldn’t find the proper one, so I gave up and popped in the CD.

As soon as I opened the CD case and saw the purple V on the CD I was taken right back to middle school. I was so cool in middle school, at least compared to high school when I was busy sucking up the various english teachers while editing the newspaper and lit. mag. (I really wanted to quit the newspaper and focus on the lit. mag but alas.) So, I blasted Veruca Salt in my rental car in the drive up from NYC. Listening to them made me remember how awesome women rocker were in the 1990s like Courtney Love and Kim Gordon, who was/is awesome before the 1990s and still is.

I can’t really think of any contemporary women beside one of my other favorites, the Dixie Chicks, that compare with bands like Veruca Salt.

They’re awesome. I wish they would make a big comeback and inspire some more kick ass music which were in desperate need of!

But this Bridge Club is super gutsy…

In a fight reminiscent of the brouhaha over an anti-Bush statement by Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks in 2003, a team of women who represented the United States at the world bridge championships in Shanghai last month is facing sanctions, including a yearlong ban from competition, for a spur-of-the-moment protest.

At issue is a crudely lettered sign, scribbled on the back of a menu, that was held up at an awards dinner and read, “We did not vote for Bush.”

Wow, that is pretty cool in my book, the women explained themselves via a comment from their team captain:

“What we were trying to say, not to Americans but to our friends from other countries, was that we understand that they are questioning and critical of what our country is doing these days, and we want you to know that we, too, are critical,” Ms. Greenberg said, stressing that she was speaking for herself and not her six teammates.

It is definitely reminiscent of the whole unfortunate, blown out of proportion Dixie Chicks scenario. Some popular culture pundits claim it is trendy to speak out against the war and Pres. Bush and that it is more acceptable to do so (See massive articles about the latest slew of “anti-war” movies). I always doubted this and this whole incident shows that it is not A-OK to use our free speech rights. Anyone who says this is NOT about free speech, is badly misinformed.

I hope these Bridge players go unpunished and our further lauded for their courageous behavior and encouraged to continue to speak/act out against actions and figures they believe are UnAmerican.

I also love how this references voting, showing that these women participated in their duties as American citizens.

So I have been observing my Veteran’s Day by watching CBS soap operas on mute. Yes, on mute. For those of you who don’t know I was a faithful summer ABC daytime viewer during the early to mid 90s and enjoyed a summer internship at a NYC based soap in 2001. Well, today I have been “busy” messing around online and looking up every few minutes and this is what I’ve learned about the status of soaps today…

• Minus a few, new characters, the exact same storylines have been happening for ten plus years.
• There are more blondes than brunettes.
• Actors skip and jump around like shows like they’re crossing the streets.

BEST DIALOGUE EVER:

DUDE: I am not a thorne in Carly’s side.

CHICK: She thinks you tried to kill her sister.

DUDE: Your mother hates me.

CHICK: You’re not welcome here.

DUDE: Well, your family better get used to be since you’re having my baby.

CHICK looks away guilty.

That’s it. The end.

(Posting will still be light)

Warren Jeffs admits he’s not THE prophet!

Learned this while watching CNN, AC 360 to be exact.  Andy Cooper said this stuff goes on unnoticed in the US. Yeah, if unnoticed means “every night on CNN.”

But this is a huge revelation for the Short Creek gang. Wow.

More commentary later.

my NetNewsWire stops working and doesn’t reload my RSS feeds…Oh Well.

I’m currently watching The Ku Klux Klan - A Secret History.

It’s VERY VERY disturbing.  I never had any idea that the klan had such power in Indiana.

Here’s some info here.