Sounds Good..... But.....

Well, I watched the Obama Show. It was good - well executed, well produced and directed. He looked great, sounded great, made a lot of big promises. But, except for the $10 billion a month to be saved by getting out of Iraq, I didn't hear anything about how all of this largesse is to be paid for. On the contrary, he promised a tax reduction for everyone earning less than $200,000 per year. That's most of us. Implied, of course, though I didn't hear him actually say it in this particular ad, is that he will raise taxes on those earning more than $200k. I'm too lazy to do the research and the math, but I doubt that he could raise taxes on the relatively wealthy enough to pay for more than a small part of his lofty promises.

So, where does that leave us, if he gets elected (and I hope he does, as it's better than the alternative)? Answer: It will leave us deeper in debt, borrowing even more from foreign countries to finance our profligate spending. How long can that go on? No one knows, because it's all new territory. We've never had such a huge national debt. And there seems to be no plan to try to reduce it. Instead, we have Santa Obamaclaus with his big sack of goodies, handing them out to all the smiling, wide-eyed, admiring "children."

I just hope his elves don't go on strike.

And The Subject Is...

Okay, the economy is sick and I'm sick of the economy. Let's talk about something else.



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Politics? Hell no! I'm sick of politics.
Well, that pretty much leaves sex. I'm not sick of sex. I love sex. Sex soothes. Sex satisfies. I could go get the dictionary and find some more "s" words to continue in that vein, but I'm not that ambitious. It's Friday night. I'm tired. But I'm not tired of sex. Sex in the sunshine. Sex in the sauna. It's all good. Not that I'm obsessed with sex!
Solitary sex is okay, but not as much fun as shared sex, which can be stunning. Sex is stimulating. Sex is scintillating. But sometimes sex is too short, which can make me sorrowful. So I go elsewhere to seek satisfaction. Not really. I just wanted to use three s-words in one sentence.












Sex in the summer. Sex in the spring. Not so much in the winter. Winter is coming, but I'm not.

So ends my sordid saga.

Apparently, many newspapers refused to print this most excellent cartoon by Berkeley Breathed. He explained their reluctance thus: "Fear doesn't so much rule the wood pulp news industry. More like pee-on-themselves existential terror."

And there you have it, in a buttshell.

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Salon.com recently interviewed Berkeley Breathed about his life after ending his Opus cartoon on November 2. One question was:

Your children's books seem to appeal to your gentler, Charles Schulz side. But how -- without Opus -- will you exercise your Michael Moore side?

BB: I'll be on my couch Sunday mornings screaming at Brokaw and Stephanopoulos to call out the blathering bastards on their stupid fucking talking points and pin the dancing, lying, spinning Tasmanian Weasels down about something, ANYTHING for Christ Bloody Sake THE COUNTRY IS GETTING STEERED INTO CHAOS AND INSOLVENCY AND WAR BY ITS UNREAD UNINFORMED DULLARD SHEEP CONSTITUENCIES AND YOU JUST LET THE CANDIDATE SAY ONE MORE TIME WITHOUT OBJECTION THAT HE'S GOING TO CUT TAXES WHILE HE CALLS FOR FREE 24 KARAT GOLD FRANKFURTERS TO BE INSERTED INTO EVERY AMERICAN'S ASS JUST BECAUSE BUTT BULLION POLLS WELL.

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Has anyone, anywhere, described our current American political scene as well as this?

A Thing By Any Other Name

I have great difficulty in determining what is truly important. I can be very self-centered, and judge importance in terms of how the thing or event affects me, and those whom I love. While I know abstractly that global warming, the credit crisis, rising unemployment and the duplicity of politicians are much more important than my photographs of my children and grandchildren and those few remaining pieces of depression glass that I managed to salvage from the wreckage of my mother's life, I'm pretty sure that I would shed more tears over the loss of those photos and cups than I would over the failure of another bank or brokerage house. (I am also pretty sure that the previous sentence was way too long.)
I will illustrate my lack of sense of perspective with a small example of a recent Z-Meltdown. I had a glass statuette of a three-headed, winged dragon that I prized. It sat on a special stand in front of the window in our living room. It had no great monetary value, but it sparkled in the sunlight and pleased me every time I looked at it. And then, one fateful day, Hubby reached across it to open the blinds and KNOCKED IT OFF THE TABLE AND IT SHATTERED INTO TOO MANY PIECES TO REASSEMBLE (he had broken it before, but into only two pieces, which he was able to mend). I screeched and swore and cried like someone had been killed in front of my eyes. Hubby was defensive and I was unforgiving. We were both unhappy for the rest of the day. Then, at some point, I realized that the glass dragon was just a FUCKING THING, but my husband was the man I love and treasure and need more than any mere object. I apologized, we snuggled, and all was well. I will try hard to remember this example, and save my hysterics for something truly important, like a speeding comet heading straight for Wall Street. OH SHIT!

It's About Time

I have 36 minutes to kill before the "debate" between The Moosehunter and the Bloviator begins. That's 36 minutes of precious time, that could be spent wisely or wasted. Thinking about that makes me think of "time," in general. What is time, anyway? If we didn't use it, would we still have it later? If we waste it, will there be less of it for someone else? If we use it wisely, will be less old when our time is up? How do we "spend" our limited stockpile of time? I can't speak for rest of you, but here are some broad categories of my own time usage:

1. Things I do to survive, some being pleasant (eating) and some not (cooking).

2. Things I do just for fun (playing).

3. Things I do that aren't fun in the doing (working), but have fun results (getting paid).

4. Things I do that are fun in the doing and have fun results (gardening). (Fooled you, huh?)

5. Things I do that are fun, but are bad for me (eating too much chocolate).

6. Things I do that are not fun, but are good for me (sit-ups).

7. Thinking about things that I would do if I had more money.

8. Thinking about things that I would do if I had more time.

9. Thinking about things that I would do if I were older.

10. Thinking about things that I would do if I were younger.

11. Thinking about things I should have done, but now it's too late.

12. Thinking about things I shouldn't have done, but now it's too late.

13. Dreaming up implausible ideas to make unpleasant times go faster and pleasant times go slower.

Hmmm...I still have 15 minutes before the debacle, so I'll work on number 13. Maybe I could invent some kind of "anesthetic" that I could take before performing an unpleasant task. Something that would not impair performance, but would make the chore totally painless and, when finished, be forever banished from my conscious memory. For example, I used to think that I wanted to write a book. But after discovering that writing a book is very hard work and would take a very long time, I realized that what I really want is to have written a book! Then I could just rest on my laurels, rake in the royalties, and retire at my prime. All I have to do is discover some way of putting myself into a state of suspended animation, operating on automatic pilot while the book writes itself. When I wake up, the nanuscript will be all ready to send to the publisher (who has, in the meantime, given me a hefty advance in anticipation of the brilliant tome).

But before I figure out how to induce this "working-trance" state, I think I should devote some time to part 2 of number 13. How to make pleasant times go slower. That will require some consultation with hubby...

Oops! It's time!