The Bush administration wants to recruit citizens to keep a watch on one another. It might go something like this:
Category: Blog Page 133 of 141
An interesting, alternative perspective on the whole Pledge of Allegiance flap.
” NEW YORK, July 15 (UPI) — When I say “one nation under God,” I can take or leave the “under God” part, but I’m a fanatic about the “one nation” part. Has anyone ever considered that we’re possibly arguing over the wrong words?
The screwy thing about the self-righteous posturing of the past two weeks — and, by the way, you can stop sending me e-mail with Red Skelton’s interpretation of the Pledge of Allegiance, I already have 39,000 copies — is that “under God” is at best just a throwaway line, which is why it wasn’t in the pledge to begin with.
It just expresses a vague desire to acknowledge that, yes, the Big Guy is watching what we do. It was actually added to slam communist Russia.
But the “one nation” thing is the meat of the Hungry Man dinner, considered so important that the pledge hammers it home with the word “indivisible.” I’ll bet there are lots more people who disagree with THAT part of the pledge than there are people who bridle at the words “under God.””
Read the whole article at:
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20020715-014325-5149r
From an interview at CNN:
“Into what? I retired at 21 or whenever I decided to become a musician. What do I retire into? Accounting. I will retire into accounting, maybe.”
–David Bowie, asked if he ever thinks of retiring
Great column by Mark Morford in the San Francisco Gate:
“So it has come to this. It has come to an orphan HIV-positive female Muppet on “Sesame Street” in Africa. Let there be quiet and tragic applause.
It has come to the point where we can no longer avoid intermingling the worlds of sunny happy sing-songin’ innocent Cookie-Monster days and brutal ravaging epidemic disease and deathly nights, and man is Big Bird ever confused and sad and lost.
But this is a good thing, this new character. Everyone says so, everyone with any sort of conscience or even mild awareness of the horrors of the AIDS epidemic senses this is probably the right kind of thing to do, even if it feels like it’s not. ”
Read the whole article:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2002/07/17/notes071702.DTL&type=printable
After much resistance, my sweetie has finally succumbed the madness that is LiveJournal. She says she doesn’t know how much she’ll say in it, but she’s onboard with the rest of us lunatics now.
Go say hi to kitanzi
48 hours after getting the new medicine, things are very much better. Today I actually felt almost human, and while there is still a little discomfort, it’s mostly gone. This evening, in fact, I stopped taking the prescription painkillers and went back to Tylenol.
Kitanzi says she’s glad to have me back.. She missed me while I was gone.
Thanks again for all the well-wishers and virtual hugs. You guys are the greatest bunch of friends.
By Friday morning, I still hadn’t seen any improvement on the condition of my ear, so I called my doctor and made another appointment to see him. He confirmed that little progress had been made, and arranged for me to see an ENT specialist that afternoon.
The ENT was very nice, even though I affectionately think of him now as Dr. Torquemada. After the requisite examination, he had my hearing tested to see how well the eardrums were responding, and then proceeded to vacuum out the wax buildup in my infected ear. If you’ve never had this done, it’s a somewhat uncomfortable procedure during the best of times — when the ear canal is infected and inflamed, it becomes an exquisite torture form. I clutched the armrests of the chair and resolutely refused to give them anything other than my name, rank, and serial number.
The doctor then proceeded to insert two “wicks” into my ear canal. These are designed to help the medicine (in the form of ear drops) actually get down through the swollen passage to where they need to go to be effective. I’ve often wondered what it would feel like to drive a pair of nails into the side of my skull. Now I know.
I left the ENT with three new prescriptions — two new kinds of antibiotics in drop form, and one painkiller. I stopped by Wal-Mart to have these filled on the way home.
24 hours later, I’m pleased to say that there’s now some real progress. I’m completely in a fog as a result of the painkiller, but it has taken the edge off the intense sharp shooting pain that I was suffering, and the new antibiotics seem to be kicking in. I hope by Monday I’ll actually feel vaguely like a human being again.
Thanks to everyone for the well wishes and virtual hugs — they are greatly appreciated and a tremendous comfort to me.
I’ve often said that I don’t get sick very often, but when I do, I don’t kid around about it. Last night, I noticed an uncomfortable stuffiness in my left ear, and a bit of pain when I prodded at it. So this morning, I called my doctor and asked if I could get an appointment.
After poking at me, the doctor explains to me that there are two kinds of infections one is likely to get in the ear. One kind mainly affects the outer ear canal, and is sometimes called “Swimmers ear”. The more serious kind is the sort of infection that affects the eardrum and inner ear.
Which do I have?
Both. At the same time. Ow.
Antibiotics and rest, indeed. *sigh* Hopefully, I’ll feel better by the weekend.
(Kitanzi is a dear, though. She came home on her lunch break to see if she could make me feel better, and then stopped at the store on her way home this afternoon to buy various comfort foods for me. *happysigh* She’s such a joy in my life.)
Finally getting around to various things that I’ve been putting off while busy nesting. All of the songs on my webpage have now been annotated — nothing particularly deep or profound, in most cases, but It’s something I’d been meaning to do for a while.
And yes, that trip report is STILL in the queue.
Anyway, the esoterica is all at https://www.autographedcat.com/songs/
I performed this at the housefilk we had on Saturday. It was written a couple of weeks ago.
Plains of Nebraska
Words and Music by Robert Wynne
(c) 2002
Midwestern skies
Wind blows soft across the grassy land
Long winter nights
Moonlight shining down upon you
like a lantern in the fog
And can you hear it?
A lonely distant echo
Can you feel it?
The chill deep within your bones
Can you see it?
How the land can roll forever
‘Till it almost seems to fall into the sky?
(Chorus)
There is truth you will find
in the strangest of places
in the unfamiliar faces
in an unsuspecting mind
There is truth there to see
You only have to ask a
man on the plains of Nebraska
and his words will set you free.
Do you recall
Why you wandered far away from home?
And have you found it
The solitary wisdom that comes
softly in the night?
Just remember
What you seek is more than home
Don’t forget now
The owl’s quiet cry
Heed the calling
For it may pass you just this once
And having passed you never come again
(Chorus)
Dawn is breaking
Light spills out across the cold dark sky
And you discover
A peace you’ve never known before
A quiet inner light
So you pack up
Leave the ground the way you found it
On your shoulders
Everything you’ve ever owned
And you look back
For a moment, just forever,
Then turn away and walk against the wind
(Chorus)