aw, jeez, schilling again... ?

Curt Schilling has endorsed John McCain.

Schilling also endorsed and stumped for Dubya in '04.

The first time in '08 that Curt Schilling gets pulled early in a game after getting lit up, please let me be there behind the 1st base dugout at Fenway holding up the sign saying: "McCAIN SUCKS! AND NOW SO DO YOU!"

which reminds me of a joke...

E. Coli Bacteria: A Future Source of Energy?

And now the joke:

The bad news is: The Martians have landed.

The good news is: They eat politicians and pee gasoline.

lest we forget what the last 7 years have meant...

dear god... !

Reason #37 thousand plus five why George Bush (and, in this case, other de-regulatory australopithecenes) should be waterboarded and then force-fed the Atkins Diet.

Warning: This video does disturb!

hillary the union buster enabler...

Reason #37 why Wal-Mart -- and Hillary -- SUCK!

the hearts & minds -- remember... ?

Obama Would Hold Muslim Summit

Muslim and Western leaders would be invited to the summit for "a discussion about how we can prevent the widening misunderstandings and gaps between the Muslim world and the West," Obama said in the interview to Paris Match.

"I will ask them to join us in battling terrorism but we should also be willing to listen in terms of some of their concerns," he said in the interview to be released Thursday.

Wow! Listening. What a novel idea. A damned good one, too, that'd require treating a quarter of the world's population with respect rather than dismiss them as lackeys or "evil-doers." Of course that never occurred to the Bushies, who could only talk about victory and not know anything of the actual concept -- victory as being defined by winning the hearts and minds of the Arab street. Absent that, we have what a McCain presidency would portend -- "More wars!"

And while a Republican-lite, corporate Clinton co-presidency, would be infinitely superior to anything the Neo-con can offer, it is still believed here that as only Nixon could go to China, so too can only Obama heal this wound.

is your democrat a lemon... ?

powerful piece... must view...

the mythic little town of Brattleboro...

Ah, the lyrical, intimate little villa along the Connecticut River ensconced in the lower right corner of the Green Mountain State, abutted by New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Cozy!

Poets will now sing the praises of its people.

I too will bang the drum slowly.

Of course there will be peanuts thrown from the under imaginative gallery:

"Has everyone up there been out in the cold too long?" said one.

"I would like to know how I could get some water from your town," said another. "It's obvious that there is something special in it."

So it's official: Brattleboro will vote March 4th on whether to arrest George Bush and Dick Cheney should they dare show their faces in the land of Cherry Garcia:

"Shall the Selectboard instruct the Town Attorney to draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against our Constitution, and publish said indictments for consideration by other authorities and shall it be the law of the Town of Brattleboro that the Brattleboro Police, pursuant to the above-mentioned indictments, arrest and detain George Bush and Richard Cheney in Brattleboro if they are not duly impeached, and prosecute or extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them?"

All in favor say "Aiyeeee!"

thank you, gahd... !

Santana to the Mets means a stronger Sox line-up with Jacoby Ellsbury at the top, followed either by Dustin Pedroia or Kevin Youkilis, likely the former, while Youk follows Manny or Mike Lowell -- like, ooooo!

Keeping Lester is a good thing. Heavy duty baseball people have been saying he's quite possibly the #2 starter in waiting for the Sox. Julian Tavares even went so far as to call him the next Sandy Koufax. But then Tavares is the guy who roles his throws to 1st base. Weirdling!

So, le'me see. '08 Line-up:

1) Jacoby Ellsbury - CF
2) Dustin Pedroia - 2B
3) David Ortiz - DH
4) Manny Ramirez - LF
5) Mike Lowell - 3B
6) J.D. Drew - RF
7) Kevin Youkilis - 1B
8) Jason Varitek - C
9) Julio Lugo - SS

Rotation:
1) Josh Beckett
2) Curt Schilling
3) Daisuke Matsusaka
4) Clay Buchholz
5) Jon Lester
6) Tim Wakefield

I can live with that.

what say we make him attend AA meetings during business hours...

Bush Says Reliance on Faith Helped Him Beat 'Addiction' to Alcohol

Like, yawwwwwwn! I realize applause is the usual and socially appropriate response to when any sorry bastard beats an addiction; but when it's substituted with another addiction, say, the "Opiate Of The People," it's scarcely better on a personal level, let alone when it's become an obsessive compulsive disorder that gets several hundred thousand people killed.

Would that this prick had stayed crawled up in his bottle and left the rest of us to our luxury of growing weary of the last 8 years of Al Gore.

P.S., And why is this news?? We knew back when he was still governor that this fool was, and still is, a dry drunk, which is a whole different animal than a reformed alcoholic.

3 outta 5 ain't bad...

The students are back. Most of 'em anyways. Thought I'd crash a campus center or two, bring along my laptop and see where I could find a hotspot, and maybe get online.

After signing up with a temp agency in Noho, I walked up the hill along Route 9 to Smith College. (By the way, I didn't open up my laptop the other day at Smith as implied in a few posts down -- was just setting up an amusing scenario -- hokay, J? It coulda been funny, but Nooooo!)

So I'm at Smith a little after 1. A gray day, cold, wintery, sorta like how the Buckinghams sang it: Kind Of A Drag. And when the food caf wouldn't take my debit card, I was just a little more bummed. And when I couldn't get online, I said I'm outta there.

Stopped off at the house and ate my salad, which I paid good cash for after all that. Finished and then got back into the car to head over to UMass. Parked it in the garage. And it was still gray and drab, and most of my favorite haunts, i.e., the Coffee Shop, the Hatch, the Study Lounge opposite the Blue Wall were either dismantled, non-existent, or closed. Ok, the Blue Wall was open, but it was overlit and the tables were slow getting themselves cleaned.

Goddamn! This place has changed. So I left.

Drove to South Hadley. Mt. Holyoke College and to Blanchards, its Campus Center. Now this place is cozy. Got online too. Married a girl from here once. Might do it again. I mean they're cuter than the Smithies.

Oop! Back to work!

que the pastoral symphony...

The Bushian forces of evil are beaten back... for the moment:

The vote on the GOP cloture motion -- to ignore all the amendments and proceed to a final vote on the Bush-Rockefeller SIC bill -- has just occurred. The motion has failed, which means (shockingly) that Democrats have successfully mounted a filibuster preventing the vote on this horrible bill from occurring.

Translated to mean the Democrats seem to have evolved into vertebrates, although they're still an endangered species, and their capacity for DEvolving remains viable.

Tidy summary of what just happened to my faithful readers (all 3 of you): Today's anti-cloture vote means the FISA law, as unconstitutional as it is, has not yet been amended permanently with something even more odious called "The Patriot Act," embodied by the corporate/executive (read: fascist) wiretapping of your phones and monitoring of your emails -- of anybody at anytime -- and without warrant. Make no mistake: they're doing that now, but they're still liable for prosecution.

However, the worst of this excretia is Dubya's demand for immunity from civil action for the telecoms, i.e., AT&T and Verizon, for their wholesale participation in violating the American public's right to privacy. The telecoms must be held liable (to bankruptcy is the hope here) in order to hold Bush & Cheney liable (to maximum security incarceration is the dream here). If they get immunity, then the cover-up will succeed.

Of course, nothing is settled by today's events, and this act of what amounts to be heroism could easily be reversed with the help of 3 or 4 snivelling Senate Democrats not comfortable with doing the right thing. Stay tuned.

giving "states rights" a good name...

The good citizens of Brattleboro seem to be verging closer to voting on a warrant to arrest the President and Vice President.

[An activist] said he gathered nearly 500 signatures in about three weeks, and he said most people he encountered were eager to sign it. He started the petition drive about three months ago.

"Everybody I talked to wanted Bush to go," he said, noting that even members of the local police department supported the drive.

The scenario being if Dubya or Dick set foot in Vermont, they are to be arrested for the charges handed down, e.g., for espionage, obstruction of justice, war crimes, etc. And lest anybody say, "Yeah, well, they've never been to Vermont anyway... "

Activists in Louisville, Ky., are spearheading a similar drive, and he said activists were also working in Montague, Mass., a Berkshires town.

It'd be right tasty watching state cops draw down on the black limo with tinted windows. Of course the thing is bullet-proof, which means they'd have to do a Waco-like stake-out, starve the bastard out if necessary.

Slap the cuffs on 'im.

Make 'im do the perp walk.

Put it on YouTube.

jack kennedy to bill clinton: "gi'me back my handshake... !"

News Items:
Caroline Kennedy endorses Barack Obama.
Ted Kennedy to endorse Obama on Monday.

What you get for taking campaign advice from Karl Rove, Billary.

and they called him "jack the dripper"...

Doing a little copyright editing at the home-slash-office, the subject being Jackson Pollock. Came across this little tidbit: The image you see at right is of Pollock's painting, entitled "No. 5, 1948." It sold in November 2006 for more money than has any painting prior to which in history: $140M. Uhm, that'd be a hundred and forty million dollars, people.

I realize this cannot constitute "news" a year & a quarter later, but I only just found out about it.

Trivia question: Which side is up?

Bet you thought the question would be, "What is Art?"

"ipso this, you pissy little fcc"...

FCC Proposes $1.4 Million Fine for Woman's 'Nude Buttocks' on NYPD Blue

Wait! Didn't NYPD Blue bear Sipowicz' (Dennis Franz) bare butt in the shower (arguably unprecedentedly obscene), like, back in '93? And why is the FCC going after the affiliates? Maybe because ABC, i.e., Disney, is too big and powerful (and decidedly rightwing politically) to take on for Kevin J. Martin, the Christianist, i.e., sanctimonious and hypocritical, loyal Bushie bastard chairman?

Nahhh! Couldn't be that.

the unevolved bostonian...

But then again, the doofus was wearing Giants regalia in Copley Square fer gahd sakes!

just do it...

Please, Minnesota, trade with the Mets!

I don't want Johan Santana to go to the Yankees, and I don't want the Sox to deliver unto the Twins either Jon Lester or Jacoby Ellsbury, much less than with 3 other major league prospects. Lord knows I can't afford to go to Fenway anymore anyway, but for the Sox having to then sign Santana, after giving away a quarter of their farm, to somewhere in the neighborhood of $20-25 million per for six, is just nuts!

So let 'im go to the Mets, and if they're lucky enough to make it past Philly or Atanta and whomever else in the National League -- which, by the way, should now change places with the American and be considered the junior circuit -- then I'll worry.

Sound like a plan?

P.S., Lest you think me overly sentimental, did you not see the difference Ellsbury made when he replaced Cuckoo for Coco Crisp in Game 6 of the ALCS? And correct me if I'm wrong, was Lester not lights-out in Game 4 of the Series last fall? I mean, c'monnnn...

2do...

Here I am, the artist formerly known as Hospital Boy, organizing my unmentionables while I catalogue my baseball card collection and drink wine (Note to the brothers: 1-2 glasses and not the whole bottle; & not to worry, I'll be there for the Superbowl!).

I've already acknowledged my current habitat as being Hadley, the strip of Route 9 and surrounding farm land that lay betwixt Noho & UMass. Oh, how I so enjoyed life here back in the 80s when I was struggling academically but living a very social existence. Am also compiling my "2do" list of, well, "shit-2-do." I mean, clearly the health insurance company, mandated into existence by Mitt Romulan, i.e., when he was, like, gubernatorial hereabouts, has no interest in expediting my disability claim, so one of my items on the "2do" (or is it by now "23 skiddoo!"?) list is "get a freakin' job!"

I was two weeks short of the magic 15-hundred hours for the temp agency employing me at a defense contractor in Cambridge when I was admitted to the ICU in Keene. Of course, I lost my job and the bonus week's pay the 1500 represented.

So tomorrow is Friday, and getting a freakin' job is fairly generic. First order of bidnezz is to go to Cooley Dick (the hospital) to get my Coumadin level checked. Then I'll head over to the local radio station to see if they need a reporter (the same station I worked for back in the late 80s), call the temp agency's Springfield office, then make appointments with other temp agencies, crank out some copywriting for my buddy, who's letting me house-sit for him as well, work a few personal services for an hourly, e.g., water the plants, chop some wood.

I could go into Boston to schlep some luggage for the courier service that's always interested in throwing work my way. Am gonna need to go over my bills and finances at some point too; call the health insurance company to update my address change and ask 'em, vis a vis my disability claim: WTF??

Ah, yes, the baseball card collection; I just bought the 2007 Beckett Official Price Guide and found out my '71 Hank Aaron is worth $60 alone. Am very curious as to what my '68 Nolan Ryan rookie card is worth today as well. Back in '88 it was worth $1,500. Ok, those are "mint" prices, but whatever scratch I can generate upon sale will be welcome.

My comic books are up to $7K now. Gotta sell one collection or the other, if not both, but not before I get a gist on the cards, eh?

Better get some sleep.

----------
Update: Ok, the '68 Nolan Ryan/Jerry Koosman rookie card, Card No. 177, is priced at $500 in the Beckett Guide -- not $1,500 and not more than. And as I recall now, that price tag I saw was in a card dealer's shop under a showcase glass. Let it be a lesson, those dudes are in to make a profit.

another one bites the dust...

Heath Ledger: 1979 - 2008

[F]ound dead at 3:26 pm this afternoon," a police spokesperson said, saying he was found in his residence in the posh district of Soho. "We don't know the cause of the death."

appeasing their wrath...

Here's what you don't wanna do: Open up your laptop, go online and to your homepage, i.e., your blog, and, in this case, exhibit Laura Bush's unrefined fuzzy, or an unreasonable facsimile thereof, and do it in the food area at the campus center of Smith College. I mean yer bound to get the hairiest of eyeballs (pun quasily intended), if not an armed guard bearing down on yer table.

And so I write, about what I do not know. But that's what they tell you ya' gotta do if you have a hankerin' to write; like, say, a novel. So write, young man! Write, ye bahstad! And send down to the Knights Who Say "Nee!" their shrubbery!

1 mo 2 go fo 19 & 0h...

Good times...  !  Good times... !

why the democratic (in name only) leadership council should be bathed in honey and buried up to its ears in a fire ant colony...

P.S., we, who like to bark, don't torture... !

Digby pretty well summarizes the progressive antipathy toward the DLC:

The idea was to go to the middle, work with moderate Republicans to "get things done" in new and modern ways --- the third way, actually. The thanks that pragmatic Democrat got was that the Republicans (with the help of the press) mercilessly harassed him, impeached him and then stole the election from his successor. From where I sit today it didn't work out too well for Democrats in the long run. (And I'm not sure either Bill or Hill have actually absorbed that ugly truth either --- or took the right lessons from it.)

All in all, it'd be best if the Clintons hit the road, i.e., in the traditional sense of my wanting them to make like sheppards and get the flock outta here. Meanwhile, Barack Obama's keeps playing to the middle, which -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- is precisely why ol' Hill is no longer "inevitable."

Russ Feingold also makes an interesting comment about John Edwards running on his, Feingold's, voting record, and not his own, Edwards'. And I liked Feingold's timber more than I could take Edwards' femininity, but Feingold didn't bust the right move, so OH WELL!!

Al Gore! We hardly knew ye!

Ugh, Politicians (he spat in no particular direction)!

another one bites the dust...

Bobby Fischer: 1943-2008

Maybe greatest chess player ever. Total loon.

oh the mormans hate the baptists and the baptists hate the mormans...

What denomination is McCain again?  And do I really care?

did i mention the dlc is really republicans infiltrating the democratic party... ?

Think Harry Reid won't pull the trigger for Hillary on Saturday... ?

Did they recount New Hampshire yet? No?

so, uhm, nancy, what exactly did you give up in order to become speaker... ? i mean, besides the impeachment... ?

White House to Congress: Yeah, we obstructed justice! What'reyew gonnadewabou'd it?

these bastards could very well get me to hate the ne pats...

wretched fox bastards... !!

On Feb. 3, a k a Super Bowl Sunday, in an original News Corp. smorgasbord, reporters from FOX News will be teaming up with reporters from FOX owned and operated stations from around the country for a three hour broadcast event, focusing on—USA! USA!—presidential politics and professional football.

Want to know the very definition of flag desecration?

It's when a Republican wraps himself in one.

thursday...

evening... the day is nigh upon survived...

knocking the block that is my head...

how 'bout we make the media do its job... ?!

Whaddya say we make Nevada, my earliest memory of a home, i.e., from years 2-9 , a.k.a. 1960-69 (Wanna hear the state song?), the beachhead where the corporate media is beaten to a pulp and then made to cover the very viable presidential campaigns of John Edwards:

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards are in a statistical dead heat in polling here before Saturday's caucuses.

& Ron Paul for the year 2008?

No major GOP candidate has set foot in the state for two months, and some Republicans are bracing for a possible surprise first-place showing by long-shot Texas Rep. Ron Paul, the only Republican to broadcast TV ads in Nevada.

If each or both win Nevada on Saturday, the media will be forced to cover issues heretoforth untold, e.g., Getting The Fuck Out of Iraq!! and Universal Fucking Health Coverage!!

Wow! Who'da thunk it??

"Home means Nevada. Home means the hills. Home means the sage & the pine... "

just do it...

Join Congressman Wexler's Call For Cheney Impeachment Hearings

another day in year 49...

I fancy myself as a writer, and yet I cannot seem to endeavor the small steps in order to facilitate that end; the first of which, in my mind anyway, is to be prolific. I've pounded this blog for two-and-a-half years, for example, but only in fits and starts; no real fluidity. Somehow, as a consequence, I feel I've shortchanged myself in quality and not so much for quantity. I mean, what the hell kind of chickenshit deal is that?

I'm operating under the impression -- which could be an illusion; obviously it remains to be seen how it all plays out -- that I'm now getting my life back in order. As I edit that sentence, it occurs to me I may never have had my life "in order," precluding the semblance of "getting it back," but nevermind that.

I reside (not yet really living) in Western Mass, this after spending three weeks at my mother's in Maine, after a week at my brother's in New Hampshire, after 10 days in the hospital recovering from congestive heart failure and pneumonia. A million years ago I was living in Southie and working in Cambridge, and the calander says the time that passed between then & now was little over a month. Much like life, I would submit: the passing by thereof and oh so quickly.

At the moment, I'm working for a friend, who could just as easily thrive without my meager contributions but is nonethless granting me this boon, because, well, he's my friend! We've known each other for 27 years, dating back to freshman year when Jimmy Carter was still president. All of which, of course, reestablishes life in my checking account; not enough to suit the credit card companies (But who can give a flying fuck about them, eh?), let alone the tax man, who, once again, cometh. Sheesh! (Ok, they can have a flying fuck.)

The heavy snow slows the thought processes, nobody wants to wade in that stuff. Although I did put in the requisite calls today to the local temp agencies & radio stations. And then I watered the houseplants.

I just may've given up on the big city lifestyle -- that's for the top-of-the-pyramid players anyhow. A one-room cell over a bar in Southie had its possibilities for creative writing, except, that is, for the dim decor and the grand mal depression it retrospectively put me through, and which may have facilitated the onset of my pneumonia, which in turn may've facilitated the A-fib. I even considered suicide. Seriously.

But in the last month and a half, my family and friends have shown me my value to them, even as I couldn't see it for myself. To see and hear them, expressions of generosity and concern. I always knew it was there, but never had I felt it so.

Thus I am inspired to try again. Get back up. On my feet.

I feel better than I have in months, maybe years. My blood pressure doesn't whisper to me anymore. But my knees still won't let me play softball again, a sadness that. But i'll be getting back to the gym soon, and it may open my mind to other avenues of wellness. Yoga. Meditation. Ferreal?

Work, play, love, laughter, perspective; a little wine and some beer. A fire in the fireplace, a toke of the herb. Writing some more, walking some more, meditating, giving myself a chance to make something a little bit more of myself.

If this plays a little ego-centric for you, I recommend you turn the page. As for me, this is therapy.

No TV. Reading.

... and writing.

an insular monday...

Dateline Hadley.

More snow. More than I've seen in decades, cumulatively speaking. Be it in New Hampshire or Maine or, now, western Massachusetts, this has been one white winter. The walk is shoveled, and will be again as needed. The passing plow makes that necessary every so often, and one endures the truth of it. It is the nature of New England and New Englanders.

And, no, we don't think the Pats are "invincible!" Not with an ancient and aging linebacking corp that has prepared us for the possibility they'll give up a score at anytime and everytime. Pretty much boils down to whether theirs can stop our guy behind center. So far they haven't.

My work is part time for now and I've been kicking the can a little as I unpack and wash clothes that haven't seen the light of day in weeks.

Given my friends and family, I realize I'm a lucky man.  I just don't know what to do with it.

just as long as he leaves office...

White House Predicts

'Remarkable Shift': Bush Will Leave Office With 45 Percent Approval

And beer flies out my nose.

sauce for the dukakis is sauce for the huckabee...

another one bites the dust...

Sir Edmund Hillary: 1919-2007

2 pts to anybody who can name the Sherpa* who got to the top of Mt. Everest before Heap White Man.

----------
*Tenzing...

new hampshire to recount... ?

Check the comment section of the previous post. I was only half-kidding when I suggested the electronic voting system in New Hampshire favored the Establishment body-snatchers. Turns out Dennis Kucinich, who only looks like a pod-person, has a similar concern:

“Ever since the 2000 election – and even before – the American people have been losing faith in the belief that their votes were actually counted. This recount isn’t about who won 39% o[r] 36% or even 1%. It’s about establishing whether 100% of the voters had 100% of their votes counted exactly the way they cast them.”

Bully! Let's take care of this once & for all, and well before the general election next November. Because we all fucking know corporate America -- in this case, Diebold -- defaults to the Establishment critters in any race, and tilts heavily toward the Reptiles over the Amphibians. (Guess which party is which!)

(h/t to RawStory)...

wtf, new hampshire... ??

Well, so much for Change!

While New Hampshireites were voting for the most establishment characters they could find on the ballots, I was driving from Brunswick, Maine, to Keene, New Hampshire, down to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Boston, to Charlestown, back out to Westford, then to Lawrence, up to Derry, New Hampshire, over to Merrimack, up past Lake Winnipesaukee, to Center Ossipee, and then finally back to Brunswick by way of Westbrook, Maine. It was dark when I set out, and it was dark when I got back some 21 hours later.

And whether I'm tooling along the rock-bound coast or in the granite hills, my preference for easy listening while on the long hauls is Boston radio. During the day it was AM sports talk, most of which about Roger Clemens' quite absurd if not disturbing taped phone conversation with his erstwhile best friend and former drug dispender (B-12 or HGH? You make the call!), whose kid is dying, which the Rocket felt a need to share with the world in hopes of disabusing the skeptics of their conviction of his being a cheat and a 3rd-rate scalawag t'boot.

Later in the evening, I had on NPR's campaign coverage, which, at one point, was carrying the most sacharin victory speech I've ever heard, and this from John McCain (leaving no doubt here that the Manchurians still have a tight grip on his hypothalamus), insisting all he ever does is tell the truth, and did so with an apparently drug-induced sing-songy spittle. I mean, dear gahd, if we're left to choose between him and the synthetically tear-jerking Hillary (And well done, m'dear!), then nothing will have changed.

Thank YOU, New Hampshire!

----------
Update: And apparently we haven't enough Establishment body-snatchers afoot.

and they want to, what, "parade" that... ?

Numb-nut publication Parade Magazine has this for it's cover yesterday, dated 1/6/08 -- ten days after Benazir Bhutto was assassinated and with no reference to that fact, leaving the underinitiated to wonder if she'd come back to life, which could then put real teeth behind the statement of terrorists fearing her most. I mean, that'd make sense.

But this, coming after last week's cover of a smiling war criminal (and resident First Twit) named Dubya with yet another insufferable utterance, words to the effect of "Hey! I had a purdy good year. How 'bout ya'll?!"

Christ Almighty! Is there any more loathsome and irrelevant bird-cage liner than Parade Fucking Magazine?

Reader's Digest maybe?

Trailer Trash Quarterly?

la marseillaise...

Being 1/4 Canadian Frog, this clip always brings a tear to the eye.

quote of the week...

Give [Mitt] Romney his due: It is quite an achievement to be too phony for even the GOP.

Via TPM

freak me out... !!

Pic courtesy of Driftglass via C&L.

the dean scream...

Iowa Caucus night, and, for old time's sake, we bring you once again The Dean Scream from Iowa Caucus night '04. The bastard M$M had great fun with this then, and that quite probably undermined the now DNC chairman's presidential candidacy, but, in retrospect, it's gotta be considered "a classic."

Cracks me up everytime.

it rains, it pours...

Today may be the coldest day I've experienced since childhood, appropo given I'm back in southcentral Maine, land of said misspent youth, and not Virginia. Weather.com says it's 7 degrees on the other side of the frosted glass, and that it "feels like" minus-11. I'll freakin' goddamn say! It's a breeze to freeze fersherr!

My mother's headed to surgery as I post this. Sister dearest is with her going in. I'm headed over to greet her coming out. Too many trips to the hospital can surely level the mental playing field for any ex-jocularity, and yet it's reassuring to know the smaller regions of New England are well represented by the medical establishment in terms of perceptable competence as well as aesthetics. Now if we can get the insurance and pharma industries brought to heel, America might be a decent place to live again.

As to the latter point, I'd certainly like to see John Edwards take Iowa tonight. A good progressive champion is exactly what this country needs right now. Obama talks like a Republican, and Hillary is a Republican. As such, they are no genuine help to those in need of it. So to the curb with 'em, I say!

Meanwhile, the bet here is on the Huckster winning for the Repos, where beauty can now be defined by Rudy's corrupt freefall or by Mitt's expensive clothing growing less visible by the moment. (Uhm, strike that last part as "beauty" beheld. Please!)

Conversely, and it could be my imagination, everyman Americans seem to be showing less of their collective ass these days, i.e., not getting suckered by the reflexive fearmongering of the radically wrong right. A good thing, si?

One continues to hope we can save ourselves.

if you can't amaze 'em with articulation...

... baffle 'em with their own bull cookies:

The appearance of the Flying Spaghetti Monster on the agenda of the American Academy of Religion's annual meeting gives a kind of scholarly imprimatur to a phenomenon that first emerged in 2005, during the debate in Kansas over whether intelligent design should be taught in public school sciences classes. . .

"We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it," Henderson wrote. As for scientific evidence to the contrary, "what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage."

This is choice, using their own rhetoric to illustrate oh so well their inanity.

And weren't my own appendage so noodly.

day two, anno domini...

There was a period o'er the last coupla days when I thought it wouldn't stop snowing. Heavy fall with many inches. The sky seemed blanketed as the ground, an almost mystical, insular universe of gray and white. Small coastal towns in the corner of the universe lend their own ambiance to the sense. Time could very well have stood still.

Today the sky is cloudless. The sun is setting as it does so early this time of year, and the contrasting light and shadows are akin to what might have inspired Edward Hopper to his particular greatness. I am filled with fear and wonder and know not what to do with the conflicting emotions as they can oft times paralyze.

And so I sit quietly in the Little Dog Coffee Shop, appreciating the decaf "Little Dog Blend" and the cost-free wifi. Some places are better to be than others.

happy new year... !

'07 had a very rough landing at this end. May '08, then -- yours, mine, ours -- be smooth as Wild Turkey.

Salute!