Making Love in the Dark

A long time ago, in a decade far away, at the beginning of women’s liberation, burning your bra freed up more than just your breasts. Those of us who were serious also ditched our underpants, and girdles. We liberated our bodies in keeping with our new mind set. We only wore that stuff because we were told to, not because it felt good and we wanted to. Taking if off was pure freedom.

I’ve always felt that a man invented the bra anyway. I haven’t done the research to find out, but I can’t imagine a woman coming up with that kind of torture apparatus. Three decades later I still feel the same way.

Parliament Funkadelic said it best, “free your mind and your ass will follow.” I did, and haven’t looked back, since.

I tossed it all out. I didn’t need it anyway, because I was an exercise freak. I was already well toned and proud of my body. Women’ s lib simply meant now I could show it off. I could go to nude beaches. I could vacuum my house in my birthday suit, if I wanted.

I didn’t have to turn off the lights, if I was with somebody who was making me feel like I wanted to get my groove on.

When you had to get out of a girdle, you did it in the bathroom, out of sight of your partner. Trust me, wiggling in and out of a girdle, is a big mood killer,

My body was rock hard from doing tae kwan do, and running eight miles a day, six days a week. Toss in three days of lifting weights at a real gym and you know I was fierce.

But that was a long time ago. Gravity has taken over and I no longer take it as seriously as I did then. Aging gracefully and comfortably is what matters most these days.

Women, young women, now grow up exercising and worrying about the shape of their deltoids and gluts. 21st century women are very diet conscious and food knowledgeable.

So why are they going back to wearing girdles? What have they got to hold in? What are they trying to hide? Or is it just another step in attempted youthful body perfection?

All the advertisements for this new girdle show actresses who don’t eat or wear anything bigger than a size 2. Why would they put on a girdle?

These new girdles are called Spanx. They look like spandex shorts or panties. The point is they hold it in. They are supposed to be 18 hour comfortable. You know that’s a lie. Nothing that is restraining your body is comfortable for 18 hours. Nothing!

Now in all fairness, I know some of my sisters need the extra support. Okay. Maybe you never gave up your girdle or your bra or panties. Otherwise who’s shopping Victoria’s Secret besides small transvestites and guilty husbands.

But with the return of the girdle comes the return of problems, such as do you let your partner see you wiggle out of that thing? Especially after your partner got with you thinking you were three sizes smaller when you met.

Do you allow yourself, your real self, to be seen in the light? Or do you make your partner wait for you in the dark? And what happens when the lights come back on?

Most important, can you walk past a mirror and face yourself.? Or are you only happy wearing your 18 hour chastity belt.

Because chastity belt is what it will become, because you can’t just rip that sucker off for a quickie in the elevator.

C’mon now, men don’t restrain their love handles, why should we?

Monday Meanderings....

The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that teens have a new street game...it’s called Knockout......young boys and some girls walk up to a stranger and literally try to knockout the individual with one punch....usually something is stolen to prove the attack was carried out....one person has already been killed in the surprise attacks..

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One week to the election and the GOP is looking like its going to lose control of congress...so what are they doing? Dubya is stumping for the sexually ambiguous members, the mistress beaters, the nut cases, all in an attempt to retain power....They also are trying to talk their way out of Iraq, admitting that “staying the course” isn’t working...

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Have you seen the new Lexus LS-460? The car, which comes with a 61,000-dollar price tag, can parallel park itself. The driver has to align the vehicle and control the backup-speed, but the car does all the rest. Takes about 27 seconds...manually parking your car takes about 17, for those of us who know how to parallel park...

Okay, Scottie.....I’m ready to beam up....

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Ohioans going to the polls will still have to show ID next week. An appeals court upheld the policy....Just make sure your drivers license is in your pocket when you vote.

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The fog is breaking over Cincinnati.....Board of Trustees at the University of Cincinnati have approved domestic partnership benefits for same sex couples...students are okay with it and see it as a way of attracting better teachers....Cincinnati’s antiquated nut fringe hasn’t sounded off yet......

Ohio has a constitutional ban on gay marriage which effectively does away with heterosexual common law protections, too....will be interesting to see if UC’s move stands up in court...if and when it is challenged...

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A new federal report says hundreds of thousands of weapons earmarked for Iraqi troops are missing and can’t be traced...

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Former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani doing campaign ads for Ken Blackwell...Proves it’s just about power and money...Couldn’t find two more different personalities than Giuliani and Blackwell...

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Kentucky Fried Chicken says it is going to stop frying foods in oils that are loaded with artery clogging trans fat.....Now if they can just get their food to taste better and improve the behind the counter help, they might win back some customers from Popeyes...maybe not..

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Does anyone still listen to Rush Limbaugh....his slams against Michael J Fox were nothing short of a grab for attention.....look at me! Look at me!....I’m still relevant!...not that he ever was...talk about ego tripping...

Dur Fuhrer Bush

The bad news just keeps on coming from this administration. With absolutely no fan fare Dubya has signed a new law that makes it easier for him to declare martial law.

Public law 109-364, also known as the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007, was signed by Bush on October 17th along with the Military Commissions Act. Originally known as H.R. 5122, it allows the president to, at his discretion, declare a “public emergency” and to station troops anywhere in America and to take control of the National Guard without permission from Governors or local authorities, in order “to suppress” any public disorder or disruptions of any sort.

The recognized term for this kind of maneuver is called “declaring martial law.”

Before Bush signed this bill, the ability of the president to deploy troops inside America was hindered by two laws; the Insurrection Act and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. The two measures prevent the use of the military to enforce domestic law against US citizens on American soil.

Now, under this new law, Bush can use the army in any situation that he deems dangerous to the country both inside and outside our borders, whether the threat comes from so called terrorists or just pissed off American citizens.

Further, the law provides for detention camps, already under construction by KBR, a division of Haliburton, to contain unruly or undesirable people, citizens, illegal aliens, terrorists...anyone that the president decides is a threat. 385 million dollars has been allocated for this project over a five year period, according the Journal of Counter Terrorism and Homeland Security International.

The Patriot Act allows the feds to spy on us.

The Military Commissions Act has done away with the principle of habeas corpus, due process. That means you no longer have a right to know why you’ve been arrested and what the charges are against you. It also allows the president to decide just what constitutes torture.

Public Law 109-364 allows the president to declare martial law at his discretion.

The new law rewrites the Insurrections Act and does away with the protections of Posse Comitatus.

Only one senator spoke out against Bush and his new laws. No media has chosen to cover the story.

Welcome to 1984. Say hello to Big Brother, but do it quietly somebody is definitely watching.

Voting for Senator

Next week, I’m voting for Sherrod Brown for Senator. I didn’t know much about him before he began his campaign against Mike DeWine.

And I will be the first to admit that Brown, is still suspect in my mind. But I can’t support Mike DeWine. He is a part of the status quo that has driven this country to the brink of destruction politically.

One good thing about Brown is that he voted against going to war in Iraq. He was one of the few politicians to dare to stand up to Dubya and neocons on that one.

That one move alone, makes me inclined to trust him. It should serve as notice for some others like John Kerry or Hilary Clinton who voted with Bush. I have not forgotten that. The only reason I voted for Kerry in the first place in the last election was that he was the alternative to Bush, not the answer.

Clinton is expected to pull all women and all liberals if she throws her hat into the ring. That’s not going to happen. She has yet to pull back from the vote or to apologize. I’m glad she stands by her vote and doesn’t apologize for making it. But I question her judgement in backing the move to go to war. It looks like a gutless move rather than a well thought out one.

Brown for senator
Strickland for governor
Cranley for representative-another alternative, not good choice
Pepper for commissioner-not a good choice, but Heimlich is worse

Wish I could vote for Wulsin over Schmidt, but I’m in the wrong district. Schmidt is an embarrassment, just like the other candidate for governor, Ken Blackwell. They should return to private life where they can only do damage to themselves.

Attorney General....man, do I want Montgomery, who is a friend of the crook named Noe or do I want Mark Dann, a very questionable attorney. I don’t like either one...maybe I’ll flip a coin.

Hmmmmmmmmmm

Every time I write or think about politics, I don’t feel happy, optimistic or trusting. What I feel is dirty, as in I need to go take a shower.

The choices are not good....just alternatives.....we need to revamp the system, if that is possible.

But I don’t think it is.

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

Oh my god! The LA Times says that black and Latino preachers are upset with Dubya. Wonder of wonder, they think he lied to them.

Bamboozled them.

Showed them the money but didn’t let em touch it.

Fed them.

Gave them a tour of the Big House and then showed them the door.

And what do you know, all the money and prestige from the alleged faith based initiative went to white evangelical mega churches.

The Black ministers say they feel dirty. They say they were the hammer used to drive the divisive wedges like gay marriage into our community and were then pushed to the curb like a used up hooker.

But, apparently, some haven’t learned their lesson yet. Seems some of the black ministers want to talk it out with Dubya and his brain Karl Rove. I guess to see if it’s really, really true that Bush lost his love for black Christians after they voted for him, as implied by David Kuo’s book.

What do you call someone who sticks his hand in the fire, gets burned and not believing what happened, sticks it in again to see if he will get burned again.

Can you say dumb ass?

Or are they so blinded by greed that they are willing to do anything, kiss anyone’s ass just to get some money.

Message: you may get some money, but you will never get the power or respect as long as you can be bought.

World Truth: You reap what you sow!

T.M.I. Food Labels

Word comes today that food producers are going to start using words like ‘animal compassionate,” “free farmed,” or “certified humane,” on their products in the hope of luring the health conscious, recyclers, environmentalists and animal welfare sympathizers into buying more meat and eggs.

Whole Foods Market and similar stores are getting ready to roll out food with a label certifying that the animal was raised humanely before it was slaughtered.

It is apparently an effort to capture the compassionate carnivore, I would guess. Compassionate carnivore is like compassionate conservative....an oxymoron. How the devil can you eat meat if you have strong feelings about how the animal was raised in the first place?

I understand PETA people. They are vegetarians against the inhumane practice, they say, of eating meat or of mistreating animals. They don’t want us to touch anything with a face. I understand that.

But compassionate carnivore......that’s like being a little pregnant....you either are, or you’re not...you either eat meat...or you don’t....it’s either a pet or it’s food....can’t have it both ways.

And as always with new products comes a new price...prices for compassionate meat is going to be triple the cost of buying the less hypocritical kind of meat.

The new labels are apparently being pushed by animal rights groups including the National Humane Society.

Several grocers and restaurants are already touting the newly labeled meat and eggs and claim that it is a great selling point. Business is brisk, they say.

I’m sorry, if it bothers you that much, how can you stand by and allow the cow or pig or chicken to be slaughtered in the first place?

I don’t care how you raise it, the point is that it is food, period. Doesn’t taste or look any different. In fact, the only difference is probably the label, and of course, the price.

This is just T.M.I. on labels.

I won’t ask....you don’t have to tell.

Restrooms....His and Ours

One of the reasons I just love New York is its willingness to do the unexpected. Despite America’s decidedly right conservative leanings these days, the Big Apple remains wholeheartedly maverick and liberal.

Witness the decision by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the board that controls the subways. Officials have ruled that transgender men, who live exclusively as women, can use the women’s MTA restrooms.

It is a matter of choosing the room that best suits your “gender expression.” So I guess that means that women who live as men can go into the little boy’s room, once they learn how to pee standing up.

The decision came about because of a Verizon wireless technician who is assigned to Grand Central Station. She is a 70 year old, birth name Henry, who goes by the name Helena. Helena says she is a “24 hour woman.” She feels like one, so she dresses like one, she says. It is not clear if she has had the surgery, but the picture of her that I saw, shows she has bigger breasts than I do, so she must be taking hormones at least. Girlfriend got arrested for using the women’s restroom while on the job and decided to fight. Verizon backed her, the MTA gave in. Hence the new ruling.

While most of the country is still trying to handle discrimination against gays and lesbians, New York’s laws are already one step ahead, prohibiting discrimination against transgender men and women.

Now we have to really work on getting more restrooms for women. We already don’t have enough public stalls to accommodate those of us born women, much less to share with our trans sisters. The lines are gonna get lots and lots longer. Good thing we have better bladder control.

Enquirer, Blackwell joined at the hip

If there was any doubt in anyone’s mind that the Cincinnati Enquirer was nothing more than a Republican Party Newsletter, that doubt was erased this morning with its endorsement of Ken Blackwell for Governor of Ohio.

The Enquirer admitted that Blackwell is a slease ball...that he has no integrity...that the more honorable candidate is Ted Strickland...yet they endorse Blackwell over Strickland.

Every other newspaper is this state has endorsed Strickland. One newspaper actually endorsed Blackwell and took it back because of his underhanded, vile and vicious tactics used against his opponent. The entire nation has been appalled by what has been coming out of Blackwell's mouth. Even Dubya called him a "nut."

But the mighty Enquirer rails against injustice...it rails against the detractors of Cincinnati, saying the city has changed...it is not racist...it is a good place to live for all people, it says.

Then it turns around and endorses the status quo. Cincinnati has long been the considered the laughing stock of this nation. I guarantee you, that will not change with this endorsement.

So what is this? Does endorsing a black man make the Enquirer look like it’s doing the right thing? That it is looking past color to make a just and correct decision?

This is the same newspaper that just last week took poet Nikki Giovanni to task for calling Blackwell a “political whore.” They slammed her last week, and slammed Blackwell today. But then endorsed him one paragraph later. Go figure.

Tell me who’s the whore now?

I have lived in Cincinnati nearly all my life and it has always, always gone with the republican candidate, no matter what.

The Enquirer has never been a voice of the people. It has proven today that it never will be. The people have spoken.

But it is once again obvious that the Enquirer is not listening.

My Granddad was Republican

The issue of my grandfather’s political affiliation came up when one of my uncles got into politics by running for city council. My uncle ran as a democrat. My grandfather always voted. He could barely read and write due to his rural Kentucky upbringing. But he was a very smart man. He just never went to school. He read the newspapers everyday and was the greatest story teller I have ever known. He never said he was a republican, but all my older relatives said he was.

I suspect they were also republicans in that time and place. At that time, the republican party was not referred to as the GOP. It was, really the party of Abraham Lincoln. And it would make sense back in the day for Blacks to be republican rather than democrat.

By the time I was born and grew to adulthood, it did not make sense for Blacks to be republican. When I came of age, the Dixiecrats, southern racists, die hard segregationists, angry at the move to integrate this country, abandoned the democratic party and hijacked the republican party to make it what it is today. The Grand Old Party, home of the Christian conservative right wing.

I bring all this up because a black group of conservative republicans is running radio ads stating that Martin Luther King was a republican. The ads have outraged black liberals, democrats and those who marched with the slain civil rights leader. From an historical standpoint that may have been true. But Martin’s party affiliation was not what was important.

What was important was the color of his skin, period.

The good ole boys who ran rampant in the south in the later part of the 20th century didn’t walk up to a Black person and ask them what political party they were affiliated with, before they turned the dogs loose, or shot them, or beat them or hung them from the nearest tree.

Skin color was it, nothing else counted.

Hell, we weren’t considered smart enough to know the difference between political parties in the first place. Anyone who did was considered “uppity.” You know the term, “uppity nigger.”

Party affiliation only mattered for white people because they have the luxury of telling you what party they belong to. They are camouflaged at birth by their skin color.

Doesn’t matter with us. No matter what you did, doctor, lawyer, merchant, thief....you were still a nigger, first and foremost.

That’s what got you killed, not being a republican or democrat.

A message for my black right wing Christian conservative brothers and sisters....you have to know history, before you can use it to justify your perverted stance against your people.

Wednesday Wanderings....

About Madonna’s adoption....Are African orphans the new pet rock for celebrities? My second thought on the issue is the kids are getting a break in a hard life, shouldn’t we let them be? For once Madonna isn’t the trend setter on this one....others have done it before.

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About Nikki Giovanni....The vitriol hurled back at her is worse than what she said. She spoke her mind. Cincinnati never wants to hear about its problems, past, present and apparently future. So when is a good time to address the issues that plague those of us not in the majority? Why do we have to continually keep our place rather than speak out on injustice and inequality?

3CDC...does the KKK have a permit for fountain square this Christmas? Just asking


The once great Queen City needs to understand that until you clean up a mess, you will continue to step in it.

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About Ken Blackwell....By his own words does he reveal himself. His power grab was totally exposed yesterday in his debate with Ted Strickland.

He is not honest, he has no integrity, he is not moral by any stretch of the imagination. Were he running against the late Bill Wilkinson, I would not vote for him.

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Wesley, Wesley, Wesley....you can run but you can’t hide.

C’mon Blade, you know the IRS is the original and only modern day vampire, and he’s looking for you.

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Another rapper shot, playing gangsters and guns, do we care?

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Another GOP Congressman outed for liking boys, again do we care? He also had a habit of voting against his own self interest.

Kind of like me going against my blackness. I call that having a Clarence Thomas moment.

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Food Thought for today......eating fish is good for you, it fights heart disease, but the pollutants in fish may give you cancer. What a choice. Protect your heart but die from cancer.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm...there has got to be a middle ground.

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North Korea's Dear Leader says the UN sanctions are an act of war and he has the right to retaliate.

See, this is what happens when we rely on bullets instead of talks to settle disputes. America is reaping the consequences of the fool hardy action that took us into Iraq.

By the way...are we admitting that now its devolved into civil war, yet? Or are we still caught up in semantics?

Dolly Chops

Get ready, coming to a grocery store near you, cloned meat and milk, from cloned animals. Scientists are getting ready to carve up Dolly and sell her off as lamb chops, in the near future.

Dolly, you will recall, was the first animal clone ever made.

According to a published report today, the Food and Drug Administration is about to put its stamp of approval on the practice. Which means that you will soon be able to walk into Kroger and buy cloned meat, that is if they label it as such. You can’t really tell the difference from real meat or milk, say scientists. Clones, they say, are merely twins born a generation apart. Milk or meat from cloned animals is no different and is safe, just like what comes from real animals, scientists say.

Scientists also make a distinction between clones and transgenic animals....animals changed scientifically to answer some need in humans...usually medical problems.

The FDA calls transgenics, “New Animal Drugs.” That’s a whole separate category from Clones. Transgenics are not yet on the market. The operative word here is “yet.”

The International Dairy Association which represents food giants like Kraft and General Mills is fighting the move saying more study is needed.

I don’t know why this should upset us. We already eat genetically altered wheat, fruits and vegetables.

Chicken, and beef cattle are shot full of steroids to make them grow faster and bigger. Turkeys are so breast heavy now they can’t even stand up, all because everyone wants white meat at Thanksgiving.

Add in the fact that fish is full of mercury, what is there left to eat that hasn’t been tainted?

So what’s the big deal? I’m talking about progress. It happens, no matter what we think about it.

But I’m old enough to remember how a real tomato tastes versus one grown in a hot house. I remember scooping cream off the top of a bottle of milk. I remember the taste of real butter, not the waxy stuff called real butter sold today. If you want to know the taste, go find some Amish Rolled Butter. That’s the real deal. I buy it at Findlay Market at Mike’s.

I grow my own tomatoes and have grown other veggies in the past. It’s just so much work and that is the problem.

Convenience.

We opt for ease of living, rather than living the right and natural way.

We are slowly working our way to a day when all we will have is taste in a pouch, loaded with vitamins and minerals, no food necessary.

John Mark Karr

Can someone please tell me, who the devil gives a damn about what is on this pervert’s mind.

Why is he being interviewed, over and over and over, by the allegedly reputable news media?


He lied about killing Jon Benet. So what’s happening now? Is he trying to parlay it into a rock career so he can play his guitar to little girls, legally?

He’s had his fifteen minutes of fame. Let him go away. Better yet, lock this sick SOB up before he really hurts somebody.

Because you know when the cameras stop following him, when Diane Sawyer and Larry King stop calling him, that his next option for fame is to really kill somebody’s kid.

Then what is King going to do, jump before the cameras claiming his own Nancy Grace moment while eshewing any responsibility what so ever?

ABC has already taken him back to his school. He was caught along with the producers peeping in the windows. You can bet if the publicity on the stunt hadn’t been so negative, ABC would have played it all over, talking about the big “get” with J.M.K. by one of their ace interviewers.

You know, I don’t know who is sicker, the fame seeking pedophile or the so called reputable news media.

When does common sense kick in?

When do we, the public say enough?

Nikki, Nikki, Nikki

Okay, so maybe she shouldn’t have called him a son of a bitch. The phrase, while in keeping with poetic license did not measure up to Cincinnati’s public civility level. But calling him a political whore is an understatement. The man is a skanky ho, plain and simple.

Nikki doesn’t lie and she doesn’t mince words which is why we love her. She has not sold her soul to the highest bidder, like a certain democrat turned charterite, turned republican turned conservative, turned far right conservative card-carrying allegedly Christian wannabe governor of Ohio.

She speaks the truth, whether you like it or not, whether you want to hear it or not. Her integrity is unquestioned. She is our poet laureate.

One of the myths that is circulating during this election run up is that all blacks are going to support Blackwell. He believes it. Well, it is simply not true. His skin color is chameleon at best and will not save him come November. He lost his “Negro membership card” a long time ago.

So he can take his place alongside Orenthal James Simpson, J. C. Watts, Alan Keys and Clarence Thomas as those who use their blackness when necessary, while at the same time running away from it. The term “oreo” comes to mind, but I said I wouldn’t call names today.

When our Poetic High Priestess speaks we must listen. She sees things as they are and says so honestly and in a completely refreshing manner.

Write on, Nikki

Clinton Made Me Do It

I’ve lived a long time on this planet. My interests in politics as a spectator goes all the way back to Eisenhower. I was a kid then and too young to vote, but my parents and grandparents were also news/political junkies so I just stayed the course and learned.

The age for voting at that time was 21, not 18 like it is now.

I was born during the Korean War and have lived through the cold war, Vietnam. Watergate, Iran Contra and other world problems and scandals.

I have lived through an equal number of Democratic regimes and Republican regimes.

But I don’t think I have ever tasted a political climate like the one which surrounds us now. I don’t recall any administration or congress invoking the name of a past President as a cause for screwing up as much as this one does.

In other words....Foleygate....”well Clinton did it, too”............the economy is in recession...”well, the recession actually began under Clinton”..............bombing of the trade center, twice/ Somalia embassy bombing, terrorism in general, Osama still alive......”well, if Clinton had done his job and gone after the terrorists”......

Now we come to North Korea and it nuke testing....McCain alleges it is the fault of “failed Clinton policy.”

Give me a break, does anyone in the GOP take responsibility for anything? Clinton had North Korea at the bargaining table and submitting to UN inspectors in 1994. They were talking to us. But then Bush lite got elected and trashed the agreement. North Korea walked away and remains the dangerous rogue government it is today. Bush actually had Colin Powell do the dirty work, even though it was well known that Powell liked the Clinton agreement.

Now he’s got wannabe president McCain talking out of both sides of his mouth and Chocolate Albright pretending she really understands the situation.

Talk about morals and values....this administration and congress has proven that it has neither and I’m not talking about sex.

Truth, integrity, culpability, honesty...those are the values that count. Unfortunately, I don’t see a politician on the horizon who embodies those traits.

The GOP is desperate in its attempt to hold onto power. The Democrats are desperately trying to regain power and nobody is displaying a real sense of leadership or concern about the people of this country.

It is all about power....how to get it....how to use it.....how to hold onto it....period.

OOPS!

Now that Foleygate is raging, hatemongers like Pat Buchanan are taking center stage, leading the charge of what likely will be “gay purge” of the Republican Party. Buchanan has been all over the airwaves the past couple of days pointing out that the GOP leadership has allowed gays to infiltrate the party and they are actively engaged in a cover up of Foley’s predilection for young pages.

Buchanan wants us to know that assistants to the highest ranking leaders are gay men and that these gay men kept their bosses in the dark. So that when Dennis Hastert says he didn’t know about Foley until last week, he is probably telling the truth, according to Buchanan.

I’ve read article after article by conservatives expressing more outrage over the fact that gays are also republicans and high up in the GOP, than the fact the very conservative Foley dated and apparently had sex with young boys.

The right wing conservatives sent all these guys to Washington and when they get there, they go native, apparently unable to resist temptation. They make bad moral and ethical choices, making them no different than Democrats.

I guess I can rightly call this a watershed moment for the GOP.....will they admit in public that people can be who they are and live their life, or will they conduct a witch hunt directed by it’s right wing, clean out the closets and go back to preaching and attempting to legislate morality.

My bet is, it’s closet cleaning time.

Meandering through the News......

More messages from Mark Foley to unnamed pages, going back six years.....Foleygate rolls on.....

According to Pat Buchanan it’s a gay mafia conspiracy....the GOP leadership was kept in the dark about Foley’s proclivities by their closeted gay assistants, some of whom have already resigned as well.....


The numbers say the GOP is finished....well I wouldn’t bet the house on it just yet...Democrats still haven’t figured out what their message is or should be....

John Kerry running for President in 2008....big mistake for Democrats...

Kim Jong II fires off a nuke test.....Clinton had this fool at the negotiating table when Bush took over the White House....Bush decided to throw out the baby with the bath water....made Colin Powell trash the negotiations.....Now what are we going to do?

We’re nine days into October and already 33 troops have died in Iraq.

Yet, the Army announced that it has met its recruitment quota this year....the quota was 80,000 new troops....the Army lowered its mental standards in order to make the grade.....in other words....It’s okay to be stupid in the Army....But it’s not okay to be gay...go figure...

Hear about the Iraqi police officers who were poisoned this past weekend....700 police recruits suffered severe food poisoning...officials aren’t sure yet if it was on purpose or not....a few people including the head of food prep have been arrested..

Foleygate, Nukes and Kevlar

America’s hung up on sex a little more than usual with Foleygate roiling everyone’s nerves.

The war in Iraq has taken a backseat in the headlines even though we’re still in the bloodiest week we’ve ever had there, so far.

And that fool in North Korea is threatening to test out a nuclear bomb. So what did he think we wouldn’t notice.

We can’t do anything but threaten considering we’re using up our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The White House is promising retaliation....what’s that mean...Rumsfeld and Cheney gonna let junior push the button and blow them off the face of the map? That is about the only thing these incompetents haven’t done, start a nuke war.

Guess we will have to wait and see what Condi dreams up inside her color coordinated kevlar as she tours the middle east.

Hmmmmmmmmmm, I thought Baghdad was safe....so why is Condi wearing body armor in the green zone?

Cleopatra Jones

You will be missed. Tamara Dobson, my first black female super hero has died. She was a young 59 years old, a victim of pneumonia and multiple sclerosis.

I remember literally running to the Regal Theater to see Cleopatra Jones, the movie, back in the day. We talked for days about this super tall woman who used Karate and ultimate fashion sense and sass to beat up bad guys.

She was beautiful and bad...and I use that in the good sense.


Rest in peace

Absolute Power, Corrupted Leaders

Do we need any more proof that god’s obnoxious party doesn’t give a damn about anything except money and power. 24 hours after Rep Foley resigns amid scandal, the GOP leadership is playing cover its ass, refusing to acknowledge that it knew about Foley and his predilections as far back as a year ago.

What do you want to bet they kept the knowledge in house in order to protect Foley’s seat through the upcoming election in an effort to hold onto the power.

They don’t give a damn about we, the people or their electorates, They don’t care about our kids.

We all just represent a photo op when they need it during election years.

It’s all about the power and the money, period.

The GOP spin doctors keep trying to divert attention from Foley by reminding us about democratic sex scandals.

Yes, Democrats have had their troubles keeping their pants up, too.

But the difference is that Democrats don’t run around holding themselves up as models of morality. Democrats are about getting their swerve on, and make no bones about. it.

Republicans hide behind their faith, their self perceived higher morality, until they get caught, then it’s alcoholism or the fact that they were molested by a priest.

In other words, the devil made them do it.

And all this circus does is divert attention away from Dubya and his fake war on terrorism and shrill use of fear politics.

Closet Cases and the Politics of Self Hate

Well, another one bites the dust in Washington. Congressman Mark Foley, long known to have a preference for boys as sex partners, has resigned.

Foley got caught sending explicit email and instant messages to an under age former congressional page. He resigned after being outed by ABC News.

The bad part about this is that Congressional leaders of the House knew about the messages a year ago and actually confronted Foley about them. He promised to be a good boy and they hushed it up and let him off the hook.

Foley was outed several years ago when he contemplated running for Senator. At the time, the very conservative Rep. from Florida told his constituents it was a witch hunt by Democrats and that he really, really likes women.

Foley is another one who continually voted against his own self interest. He was constantly on the “anti” side of gay legislation during his six terms in office.

He more often than not followed the “do as I say, not as I do” policy that many closet cases follow. Like others he apparently thought that being part of the power structure protected him from the everyday perils of being gay.

He was a coward to the end, though. Rather than admit he was gay and resign like former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, Foley quit with no mention of what caused his resignation. He simply wrote a letter to House leadership and disappeared.

No doubt, the next time we see him will be on the cover of The Advocate smiling hand in hand with his new boyfriend talking about how free he feels now that he’s out.

I just hope his boyfriend is over the age of consent. The boys he targeted with the illicit messages were not, which makes him a pedofile, too. That’s a double whammy when you’re one of the ones who takes it upon himself to police the morals of the rest of the population.

Karma...the universal law....what goes around...comes around....judge not...lest ye be judged....you listening....Coulter, Falwell, Dobson, Malkin, Pete, Robertson, Santorum, Frist,, Bauer, Reed, Keys, conservative black ministers....

Who’s the Coward?

Wasn’t it just about two weeks ago that Shrub (he’s shrunk a lot) was attempting to be conciliatory toward democrats as he used 9/11 for his political backdrop?

Now he’s out there on the money raising trail again accusing the dems of being cowards for wanting to get out Iraq.

I ask you, who’s the coward...the politician who dares to stand up and speak against failed foreign policy....the pol who dares to question the smarts, sincerity and intelligence of this fratboy turned political hack...or a president who hides from his people?

Since he’s been in office, Bush has refused to appear spontaneously at any event that isn’t prescreened and listed for republicans and their supporters, only. No one else need apply..you won’t get in guaranteed.

That’s cowardly.

He went AWOL for a year when he was in the Air Force Guard.

He’s been AWOL at the White House since his election.

So this is how freedom dies.....with thunderous applause from the masses blindly following an idiot.

ITMFA...

Gutless Congress

So much for standing up to the President. Somewhere on the road to holding him accountable, Warner, McCain and Graham caved in and gave Dubya what he wanted. Thanks to this so called compromise, Dubya can say what parts of the articles of the Geneva Convention will be followed.

Dubya has the call the on what constitutes torture and what tactics can be used to extract information from detainees.

The House passed this bill last night, the Senate is expected to do the same today.

Now the door is open for other countries to interpret these rules when it comes to our POWs who may be taken captive.

Politics, politics, politics...using the lives and well being of our troops as a bargaining tool is unconscionable.

Meanwhile, a new poll out this morning says 92% of Iraqis want America out of Iraq. I’m okay with that....if they think they can handle their business without us....fine...let’s come home.

Believe me, we got enough trouble on the home front to keep the army busy.

It will be interesting to see how the White House interprets this number later today...

Unacceptable, Naive and Confused

We’re not allowed to think about it...and when we do we’re naive and confused...

News reports are wrong and biased...

Military leaders are speaking out of turn...

Military and Intelligence experts have no idea what’s going on...

All this from America’s fratboy president. The whole world is wrong, he, and his cronies, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Rice are right about Iraq and the alleged war on terror, as well as how to get information out of terrorist suspects.

We used to joke, when I was in the news business by saying, “never let the facts get in the way of a good story.” We understood this to be a joke among colleagues and nothing more.

The Bush light White House has taken this joke to heart. Even when the facts are against them, they press on. They are stuck on going forward into the abyss despite the warning signs.

The scary part of this scenario is that they expect the American people to blindly follow them over the cliff. What scares me even more is that many, many people are indeed going to follow them, no matter what.

I really don’t understand how people can continually vote against their own well being because some rich guy tells them to.

Think about it.....

The future is screwed. We are in debt up to our eyeballs, China and other foreign countries are literally buying up American real estate...they even own some of our roads and highways....our workforce is non existent, outsourced to some third world country.....our technology is coming from India and Japan...we’re stuck in a war in the middle east because of failed foreign policy...and we have lost face with the rest of the universe.

41 days, until the next election....will the people change things or will it be more of the same....

I’m not gonna hold my breath, but I am going to vote my conscience.

Monday Musings.........

Dubya in town today to raise money for two disappearing Republicans. Both Chabot and DeWine say they are “independents” in their campaign ads. They’ve been running away from their records for awhile now. It’s no secret that they’ve both voted with Bush nearly one hundred percent.

But I guess they can’t wean themselves off the Bush tit for money.

McCain will be in town too, in a separate appearance. I don’t trust him either. He is sounding more and more like Bush everyday.

And he led the cave-in to the President on how to treat terror suspects. Can you spell sell out?

**************

The Prez will undoubtedly be talking about how safe we are since he started the fight in Iraq. Well, there is a highly classified report circulating Washington, telling the White House that Iraq has become an incubator for terrorists.

The report put together by military and defense experts, says Iraq has made us less safe, rather than more safe since 9/11. The report accuses the White House of being too optimistic in its presentations about the war.

How about calling it what it is....... a lie...

**************

The body count in Iraq....65 women, 2700 men, and 100 Iraqi citizens per day, The White House refuses to lets pics of the caskets coming home be seen in order to deny the truth about what is really happening to our young people there.

*************

Elections officials are voicing fear that the bush–o-matic electronic voting machines may not perform as billed. I have previously talked about the fact that they have no paper back up and are no where near tamper proof. One Governor said he wanted to use something other than the touch screen machines because he didn’t want his state becoming another Florida or Ohio.

Not a peep out of Sec. of State/wannabe governor Ken Blackwell, the man who bought the bush-o-matic to Ohio....while owning Diebold stock when he signed the contract...shall we add conflict of interests to his many, many negatives?

***************

Don’t breathe just yet, Congressional Republicans are going after social security once again. They’re still busy thinking up new ways to shaft middle America.

License to Braid

Stop! You need a license to braid hair in Ohio.

You heard me...you need a license to professionally braid hair in the Buckeye state. Since 2000 the state has offered a 450 hour course on how to braid hair at a cost of 3750-dollars. And the state mounties will come after you, if one of your customer decides to file a complaint.

To my knowledge, there is only one school in the whole state that teaches braiding.

The course, I’m told, teaches how not to braid so tight, how to recognize bacteria, and how to sanitize your instruments among other things. I guess that means hand washing, because braiders use their fingers.

Only 26 people and 11 salons statewide are licensed. Everybody else is illegal according to state records and that’s most people practicing the art.

The license is officially called a “natural hair styling license.”

Folks that I know who get their hair braided, tell me they look for African women, usually from Senegal, or Somalia who have emigrated to America.

A spokesperson for the NAACP says it’s not fair that the state makes people pay to continue working in a traditional industry that dates back to ancient times. The government is simply looking for another way to make money according to the civil rights group.

Eight other states require braiders to have specialized training and licensing. Nine other states require braiders to have a cosmetology license.

Just goes to show you that anything can be made political, especially if there is money to be made.

Hyperventilating Over Hugo

Hugo Chavez the President of Venezuela called Dubya a devil yesterday while addressing the UN. It was totally political. He merely expressed what the rest of the world is thinking. So why all the fuss?

Dubya’s caught up the mirage that is his version of reality and has been hurling insults and ultimatums for the past month at everyone who questions or disagrees with him. He said it’s his way or the highway last week during a news conference at the White House. Sounds like John Wayne talk to me.

He has been overwhelmingly arrogant, overwhelmingly petulant and downright nasty. Yet the talking heads on TV are upset when he gets some of his own back. Give me a break. He started this pissing contest. Now the other world cowboys are stepping up to the plate.

If you want respect, you have to give it, period. This White House hasn’t shown respect for anyone, not even former cabinet members.

Bush doesn’t respect the rest of the world and he sure as hell doesn’t respect, his own people. He’s lied to us. He threatens us. He uses fear in an attempt to coerce us, his own people.

Let the people answer in November.

Richer, Whiter and Middle Class

That, apparently, is the unspoken goal of House Republicans in the latest GOP attempt to keep control of the White House.

The House has approved a measure requiring that voters in the 2010 elections prove not only their identity, but their citizenship as well. House members want folks to display a passport or a special driver’s license id with a citizenship tag on it or barring that, a special id card with citizenship tag. A photo id is already required for 2008.

Most Americans, and particularly minorities, don’t own passports. The poor, who don’t own cars, usually don’t own a driver’s license. A lot of people also don’t have state ids either because you have to drive somewhere to get to an office in other to obtain one in the first place.

Statistics show that Americans who do have passports and these other types of identification also tend to be middle class, and white, with more money. The thinking goes that richer, whiter and middle class voters overwhelmingly turn out to be republican.

So much for compassionate conservative inclusiveness.

House members who support this blatantly racist plan say it will cut down on voter fraud. But stats show there has rarely if ever been this type of voter fraud even attempted.

The GOP has been working on stealing the next election since their success at gerrymandering voting districts for the past several years. They’ve already changed the voting districts in several states making it impossible for Democrats or others to even get elected on the state level.

They’ve packed the courts with judges sympathetic to the right wing conservative school of thought permeating this country making it nearly impossible to mount a legal challenge of any substance on any judicial level.

2000 saw the presidential election stolen and handed to Bush. In 2004, 119,000 votes for John Kerry disappeared right here in Ohio.

Governor wannabe Ken Blackwell, acting in his capacity as Secretary of State has already attempted to put the fix into this upcoming election in hopes of keeping GOP control of Ohio.

The new electronic voting machines that will come into play in a couple of months have already shown unreliability in both Florida and Ohio. There is no paper trail or back up to prevent fraud or foul ups.

Voting think tanks are predicting Chaos if these machines are put into mass use as is.

I would recommend that everyone go out and get a passport right now, but I also know that costs about hundred dollars per person.

Richer and whiter is what they want...it may be what they get if we don’t step up and stop this theft of America and our freedoms by the radical right.

Fear of Flying

The FAA, Federal Aviation Administration, wants to control this country’s air traffic controllers the way corporate America controls its workforce.

In other words, the FAA wants to use fewer people to work longer hours and handle more planes while paying them less money.

A report in today’s New York Times relates how the government wants to reduce air traffic controllers by ten percent and have those retaining their jobs work on screen longer. The current regulation mandates controllers work no longer than two hours without a break.

The FAA has also instituted a dress code...this for people who work at light levels that border on near darkness. Controllers who routinely work in dark windowless rooms are now prevented from wearing jeans, sneakers and t-shirts with big letters on them.

The rule changes went into effect on Sept 3rd, two days after the plane crash at Lexington’s Blue Grass Airport killing all on board but the copilot. The plane crashed after attempting take off from the wrong runway. First reports say the control tower was staffed by one person doing the work of two people, pulling a double shift, with only two hours of sleep between shifts.

I’ve had a fear of flying since Reagan fired the air traffic controllers in 1980 during a successful attempt to break the union.

Just call me John Madden or Aretha Franklin, cause I’m probably never going to set foot inside an airport again unless I’m picking up a relative with more guts or fewer smarts than me.

Presidential Temper Tantrum

I watched in amazement at the temper tantrum thrown by Dubya late last week. I actually had to back away and cool down after his most recent news conference at the White House.

He was angry and reacting to the letter written by Colin Powell questioning him about his recent demands that Congress rewrite the Geneva Conventions, specifically Article Three that deals with torture of captive prisoners.

As you probably know by now three GOP Senators have found some back bone and told the Prez he is full of it and should find another way.

Dubya huffed, and he puffed and he tried to blow down the house, but nobody backed off. So now it looks like he is changing his approach.

The thing that bothers me is the incredible arrogance that continues to emanate from this White House. It’s his way or the highway. There is only his view of the world, his view of reality and no need to compromise despite the fact that few others beside his “yes” men and woman agree with him.

We’re America...we don’t need to follow the rules. He even went so far as to tell the American people we don’t have the right to think anything different. We don’t have the right to have an opinion. We should just let him do our thinking and reacting for us.

Cheney, Bush, Rice and Rumsfeld now admit they lied to us on everything for the past couple of years, but apparently only for our own good. They can’t use the truth, so they use scare tactics to get us to go along with the program.

I am outraged. This group of incompetents is telling me how to think, how to react, how to be an American. I thought we had the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights to define our Americanism.

I am outraged that some to the manor born former frat party boy, reformed crack head, now born again Christian extremist is attempting to dictate my thought process.

Our differences is what makes us America. Our differences is what makes us strong.

Marching lock step with the Neocons and buying into their Orwellian view of the world is the true fascism of this century.

We’re not safer five years after 9/11 because this administration has bungled every opportunity to do the right thing. Their only allegiance is to the almighty dollar and how much they can stuff in their own pockets, the rest of us be damned.

As a people, we are deeply in debt for the next century. We are ridiculed around the world. We have no foreign policy. Our military has been abandoned by this administration in an unwinnable situation. Simply put, we are in trouble and all Dubya can think about is politics and how to salvage the midterm elections for the GOP.

Bevis and Butthead of Ohio

You read it today in the Cincinnati Enquirer...Burress backs Blackwell.

Phil Burress, the reformed porn addict turned christian extremist thinks Blackwell, the former Democrat...oops! the former charterite...oh my bad!...the former moderate republican....wow sorry!...compassionate conservative republican...man, still didn't get it right!...faith based leader in the moral wars in the once great state of Ohio, where if you want a job you gotta move to China...

Do we need any other reasons to vote Democratic this election?

Rats Deserting a Sinking Ship

Now, even his own party is questioning the morality of the Iraqi situation and alleged war on terrorism. The Bushies want to "interpret" the rules of the Geneva Convention to allow them to torture so called terrorists prisoners that they've been housing in secret jails around the world.

Dubya and company want to bring them to Gitmo and conduct secret tribunals and he wants Congress to sign off on this perverted situation.

Congress stood up to him today. Senators Warner, McCain and Graham said "no."

Colin Powell, in a letter to John McCain questioned the White House's morality for even making the request.

It is interesting to note that all who stood up were veterans or retired military who didn't hide behind draft deferrals, or their father's money to keep them out of harm's way. McCain, you will recall was a POW for five years. Bush went AWOL for a year, the rest of the axis of evil in the White House were nothing more than draft dodgers. It's funny they should end up running the Pentagon.

Powell said to change the Geneva Conventions would put our own soldiers at risk, or more risk. After all, if we decide to interpret the rules on treating prisoners, what's to stop any other country from doing the same to us?

155 nations have long abided by these rules of war. Now Bush and company want to change them.

I'm going to say it until it happens....IMPEACH THIS PRESIDENT!

20 Questions

1...Why can’t the White House go after Osama Bin Laden the way it went after Jack Murtha?

2...We’ve lost whole parts of Iraq to the insurgency, why can’t this administration admit that our troops are now stuck inside a civil war of their making?

3...Why is Ground Zero still a hole in the ground, five years after the attack?

4....Why hasn’t New Orleans been rebuilt?

5...Why is this country still beholden to the middle east for oil?

6...Why is getting a blow job in the oval office worse than lying to the American People?

7...Why hasn’t Bush light been impeached?

8.... Why do Americans hate its government but keep sending the same crooks back to the hill to screw us over again and again?

9...Why don’t Americans have health care, jobs, and pay raises to keep up with inflation?

10...Why don’t Democrats have the balls to have answers to these questions?

Talk amongst yourselves, I too ticked off to continue...........

9/11 Looking Back

It has always been my habit to turn on the news when I get up in the morning. I’m a former television news reporter. It was my way of catching up on what may have happened overnight as a way of preparing me for what I might have to deal with when I went to work.

I was no longer a reporter on Sept 11, 2001. I had retired in 1999. But old habits die hard. I got up about 8:30am and turned on CNN as always. I didn’t have to prepare for work, but I’m still a news junkie.

The first pictures that I saw were of a hole that looked like an airplane in the side of the World Trade Center tower. I called my sister. I needed a witness to what I was seeing. She turned on her TV and while we sat there, me in Cincinnati and she in Myrtle Beach, we watched the second plane crash.

We watched all day, talking to each other, clicking out to talk to other people and finally to sit there alone, stunned. I don’t remember moving, not to walk my dogs, go to the bathroom, or to get something to eat.

I felt helpless. Despite being retired, my first reaction was to respond, to go to work, to get the story. I felt the adrenalin rush. But I couldn’t do that anymore. I was on the sidelines for the first time in a very long time. I was a spectator in a game that I had previously played very well.

One of the things I know about myself, is that it is much easier for me to stand in the middle of chaos and crisis then it is to endure it from the outside, watching. I am emotionless in the eye of the storm. My emotional collapse always comes when story ends.

When I go home and shut the door, the processing of what I’d just seen and done begins. Sometimes, I get over it quickly. Other stories stay for years and manifest as memories when I least expect them. It usually happens when I write.

9/11 is a story that has never left. I and we, as a people are still processing this one. No matter where we were at the time of the incident, we were affected.

I told myself this morning, five years later, that I would not write about 9/11. I told myself I would not watch the rehashes that will go on all day on 24 hour cable news. I told myself I would not again watch the video of the planes into the tower, even though I know that some of it was shot by one of my closest friends in the whole world. He was on a roof top all day long.

But here I sit, watching and writing, going against my instincts that tell me I should turn this off and put down this computer. I should go do something else, work in my neglected gardens, take my dogs for a walk, cut the lawn. But I can’t.

I remember at one point, still sitting there and realizing that tears were streaming down my face. I don’t remember crying, I just remember the wetness on my face.

Five years later my face is wet again. The tears have not yet dried.

Isn't It Amazing!

How every time the White House needs to make a point about its bogus war on terrorism, a tape showing Osama Bin Laden comes to light?

Now we've got one that surfaced yesterday, showing OBL with the dead hijackers from five years ago, coming to light as this country gets ready to mark the anniversary of 9/11.

Who's been keeping this tape and why show it now?

Just asking

So Safe

The Mayor walks around with a bodyguard. A man gets gunned down in front of City Hall. Another man dies on his front porch, killed by a still on the loose murderer. Boys continue to die daily in the streets of my neighborhood and the police chief says we’re safe.

I don’t get it. What is it going to take to make this city wake up and smell the coffee? We are not safe and haven’t been safe in a long, long time.

The problems go deeper than just getting the guns off the streets and drug dealers off the corners.

More has to be done than finding money to build a new jail to warehouse people or putting up a bill board expecting criminals to read where to get help.

Parents need to step up. The schools need to get real about education instead of simply asking for more money.

This city needs to deal with the needs of all of its citizens, not just the young professionals who have decided to re-inhabit the downtown. What about the others being pushed out by gentrification?

Can’t blame the media. It reports what it sees.

It sees a city riddled with crime. It sees a city with a lousy school system. It sees a city that cares more about its sports teams then it does about its citizens. It sees a city that is losing out to Kentucky because it can’t get its bureaucratic act together.

It sees a city that is more focused on image rather than substance.

It sees a city that continues to live in the past rather than figure out a way to step into the future.

The Argument for Drinking Bottled Water

Word out of the Washington Post today reveals biologists are capturing large and small mouth bass from the Potomac River with sexual and hormonal abnormalities that call into question the safety of the water for humans.

Seems the scientists are seeing male fish carrying eggs and displaying female tendencies. At one fishing site, nearly 80 percent of the male fish pulled out of the water, either had eggs or some type of female sexual organ development. Seven out of thirteen female fish showed similar tendencies in reverse.

The intersex condition, as the biologists call it, doesn’t change the outward appearance of the fish, only internally.

Biologists actually began finding the fish back in 2003 and apparently didn’t think the problem was as wide spread as it now seems to be.

The question now arises for humans....should we drink the water? Millions do...their tap water is taken directly from the Potomac River, just like we, here in Ohio, get our tap water from the Ohio.

Scientists, if you trust them, say that drinking the water is different from spending your entire life submerged in it. Therefore humans probably need not fear any endocrinal disruptions in the way the fish have been affected. But officials readily admit they don’t know what is causing this or why. They do think it is pollution connected.

Scientists keep saying, “pay no attention to man behind the curtain” however, after Chernobyl, after love canal, after 9/11 and what’s happened to the health of the rescue workers, I’m not sure I trust scientists anymore.

Someone else, with more sense said, “if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, guess what? It’s a duck.”

Don’t know about you, but I’m sticking to bottled water for drinking and will stop taking long luxurious soaking baths in favor of short, short showers.

Pondering Labor Day

Did you know that the average weekly salary in 1972 was $300.74? Did you know that translates into $277.00 in 21st century dollars?

Like you needed to be told that we are living on less money these days.

We are also taking fewer and shorter vacations while working about 20 hours more on the week.

I don’t get it. Why do we put up with this?

Today marks the official opening of campaign season....I can’t wait...I’m already so sick of campaign ads that I could just spit.

Republicans are claiming to be independents....willing to accept GOP money but not admit they supported Bush and his backward policies....now who’s in the closet..

And Democrats...want my vote...but don’t have the balls to ask for it...They figure I’m going to support them because I don’t have any choice.

They’re right, this time around.

We need a new party, new thought, new policies, new way of doing things...

Blackwell Voter Rules Thrown Out

A federal judge in Cleveland today threw out portions of the voter registration rules authored by wannabe governor Ken Blackwell.

The judge called the rules vague, stating the new laws were an attempt to criminalize traditional voter registration.

Opponents of the law who sued the Secretary of State as soon as he put the regulations into affect, claimed Blackwell was attempting to keep minorities from registering to vote in the upcoming elections.

A spokesperson for Blackwell said they would not appeal the Judge’s decision.

Today’s ruling means organizations like the League of Women Voters can conduct voter registration without fear of being hassled by the Secretary of State.

Karma-What Goes Around, Comes Around

The great state of Ohio got smacked this week with a great big Karma Kiss. After helping deliver the presidency to Dubya in 2000 under highly questionable circumstances, US Census reports that Ohio is now one of the poorest states in the union.

Cincinnati ranks as the eighth poorest city in the USA....Cleveland tops the list at number one. It wasn’t like that before local politicians sold their soul to the GOP. You’d think Dubya would have sent some of those billions back to the buckeye state as a reward, or some jobs or something.

Nahh! The GOP delights in disproving it’s own theory of trickle down economics...money never trickles down with republicans..only up...defies gravity....

Remember what Shrub’s dad called it when he ran against Reagan....Voodoo Economics....Wonder what the elder Bush thinks about his son’s foreign affairs policies?

On another front...governor wannabe Ken Blackwell, acting as Secretary of State, has agreed to store the official ballots from the 2000 presidential election a little longer. The controversial ballots were scheduled to be destroyed in the next couple of days. That is legal, by the way.

But a couple of independent groups are suing and are presently going over them again looking for evidence of election fraud. They’re still trying to officially figure out how the GOP stole the election, I guess. Anyway, Blackwell can’t destroy the evidence just yet.

Politics of Name Calling

So now I’m a fascist according to Donald Rumsfeld’s latest version of the facts. Call me anything you like, fascist, unpatriotic, unchristian, feminist, feminazi, Nazi, whatever. It still doesn’t change the facts that this administration lies and continues to try and hide its total incompetence behind verbosity and prevarication. See, I can use big words, too.

How about this word..Mendacity...a favorite word of Tennessee Williams. He put it to good use in his play “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” This administration has been totally mendacious in its dealings with the American people.

I’m beginning to believe that for the past six years America’s been caught up in an episode of the twilight zone and we can’t get out. This has all been an elaborate hoax perpetrated by Rod Serling.

Rumsfeld would have us believe that we’re in a political period similar to the time just before World War II when most world leaders preferred to look the other way while Hitler and Mussolini rose to power. And although he won’t name them says that certain democrats have said we should pull out of Iraq and that very act will make the terrorists leave us alone.

In my grandmother’s parlance, that is a bald face lie. No one with a brain believes that or has even said that. It is just another Rumsfeld smear attempt, and to cloud the issue at hand, which is how this administration has bungled everything it’s touched since 9/11.

No matter what Rumsfeld, or Cheney or any of their mini-mes say, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 until we invaded that country turning it into a training ground for terrorists with our troops as living targets.

They both need to be fired and their boss impeached.

Hiding Behind God

The game of who’s more Christian is being played out again in the race for governor, here in Ohio.

GOP wannabe Ken Blackwell has once again played the Christ card, trotting out a group of black ministers who back him and his divisive form of politics. These deluded individuals are quick to say they are simply voting their conscious and are not speaking for their congregations.

The news conference yesterday, held by the ministers to endorse Blackwell was a sign that the ultra conservative religious right is alive and well in Ohio and using the GOP talking points for manipulating Black people to vote against their own self interests.

Blackwell and his minions launched an attack on Democrat Ted Strickland, casting aspersions that he is not Christian enough to lead this state, despite the fact that Strickland is an ordained minister. Blackwell successfully used this tactic against Jim Petro, his challenger in the GOP primary earlier this year.

There was no talk of the real issues and problems that need to be addressed, such as the lack of jobs in Ohio, the loss of industry, outsourcing, the shrinking tax base, the vanishing population, the failure of public education, the drop out rate, poverty, crime in the big cities.

I have trouble writing about these people without stooping to their level of name calling so I will cut to the chase and not tell you what I really think of these.......people.

If you don’t agree with them then you’re not Christian or have moral standards or are not a patriot or don’t love this country. I have a problem with that thinking.

We are a democracy, not a theocracy. Religious conviction is one thing. Religion in politics is another.

We need people in office who understand the difference. Ken Blackwell is not one of those people. He refuses to address the real issues preferring to hide behind God.

That is not only not right...it’s not even Christian.

Monday Musings.......

Check out Senator Mike DeWine’s campaign ad...It’s him talking lovingly to the camera about all he’s done for us Ohioans as a concerned elected official. But pay attention to the banner across the screen....Where normally it would scream “REPUBLICAN” it says “INDEPENDENT”
The whole phrase is “independent fighter for Ohio families”..Talk about distance...

Is he running scared from Dubya or What? Talk about hypocritical, trying to make us think he’s an independent...he voted with Bush 90% of the time...

Time to call him home...

***********
New report out says wages and salaries aren’t keeping up with inflation. In fact our paychecks are at their lowest level compared to inflation since the government began collecting data in 1947. That same report says that profitability for corporations as well as the salaries of corporate big wigs is at an all time high.

The fat cats get richer...we get poorer...why am I not surprised....

*******

All the news is tied up with “Katrina” one year later....another hurricane bearing down and still no escape plan in place....

And Nagin has apparently offended the PC police again. Seems he talked disparagingly about NY’s “hole in the ground”......instead of using the term Ground Zero, I guess....Until they put something there, it is a hole in the ground. We should’ve rebuilt the towers a long time ago...just my own personal opinion..

**********

Nike drops Gatlin from it’s star roster, this after the speedster was banned from competition for eight years because of doping....

Is Nike still using Marion Jones?

Destined to Repeat?

Are they fucking crazy? The neocons...all of them are calling for yet another preemptive strike, this time against Iran.

They haven’t cleaned up Afghanistan which is the last place Osama was seen. Iraq has slid into civil war and is costing us billions. Israel and Hezbollah are still in a face off and the peacekeeping troops aren’t even in place yet. The entire world hates us for the stupidity coming out of the White House. Congress continues to rubberstamp this B.S. and we, the American people sit back and do nothing.

And they want to go into Iran? These people are out of their minds. Hell, they don’t have a functioning mind among them.

Why aren’t we protesting this stuff. Why haven’t the people taken to the streets.

Why is no one calling for Bush’s impeachment? How many laws does this former frat boy have to violate, or pervert, before someone spanks him down?

It’s not about spreading democracy to the region. Both Hezbollah and Hamas came to power because of the democratic election process. Their people voted them into power. Just because they like our material stuff doesn’t mean they want to live in our system. Those that do simply come here.

We can’t hit people with bombs just because we don’t like the outcome of their democratic process.

The money we’re wasting on these quagmires could have rebuilt New Orleans ten times over.
Instead we’re into another hurricane season just waiting for the formation of another massive wave.

Man, the arrogance of this administration.....scare tactics and lies and more scare tactics...all to win the next election and keep the power.

Public Enemy said it right...We’ve got to Fight the Power! .

An Open Letter to the Black Community

What is it going to take to wake us up? Does everyone have to die? Does someone in your family have to die? Do we all have to watch a family member before we wake up?

When will we come to the understanding that AIDS is killing our people. Not just in Africa, but right here in the United States. We make up thirteen percent of this 300-million people population. Yet fully 50-percent of the new cases of this disease are Blacks. Black women are 23 times more likely to become infected than white women. Further, women are usually infected by their husbands, boyfriends, lovers, or one night stands. Yes, women who use drugs are also being infected after sharing needles. But that kind of infection pales next to what is going on between men and women.

It has long been proven that the germ transmits more easily from male to male or male to female rather than the other way around.

My sisters, you are dying because your men are sleeping with other men and bringing the disease home to you. The simple use of a condom would cut into these devastating numbers. You must protect yourself, period. It is a matter of life and death for you. No jimmy, no love. It’s as simple as that.

Men, you need to get real about your sexuality and protect the women you say you love.

I’ve lost several friends and two relatives to AIDS. Indeed, I watched as my uncle withered before my eyes as I tried to take care of him. He was gorgeous in life. Six foot four and elegant. He wasted away to nothing, so small I could lift him in my arms.

I watched as other family members and straight friends, women who knew he was gay and used him as an escort to social affairs stayed away, refusing to visit him or to come to the funeral. I took the phone call from his son saying he wasn’t coming to the funeral using his dad’s sexuality as the reason. I cried in anger, helpless, because I knew his mother had sent a plane ticket.

He was estranged from his drug using older son for the same reasons.

Even in his final days my uncle refused to accept the fact that he was stricken with AIDS. He died ashamed. His doctor, treated him with the latest cocktail, while also refusing to accept that AIDS was his killer. He was infected from his last boyfriend, a cocaine addict. My uncle went to his grave denying himself and protecting this man.

I watched him die. It was excruciating and exceedingly painful. As I said earlier, I lost friends, but I was not prepared to lose my uncle.

Are you prepared to lose someone you love?

Why do you let the church dictate your feelings? These are your children, your brothers, your sisters, your cousins, your lovers. Why is your head still buried in the sand?

The greater sin is turning your back on your people, your family. When will you wake up?

They need you now.

Monday Musings....

Finally!

Dubya admits Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Three years after the fact, he uttered the admission during a news conference at the White House. But he still says pulling out would be a huge mistake.

Unfortunately, I am inclined to agree with him on that. I don’t see the US accomplishing anything there, but I still have vivid memories of our ill fated pull out of Vietnam back in the day.

I honestly don’t know what we can do, but tucking our tail between our legs and getting out, gripes my ass. We should never have been there in the first place.

Dubya also was willing to concede that maybe Iraq is sliding into civil war..Gee...what was his first clue..

************

Is it just me or does this dude arrested in connection with the killing of Jonbenet come off as a publicity hound who has chosen a very morbid way of getting his 15 minutes in the spotlight?

Creepy is a nice way to describe this loser.

*************

Iran says it’s going ahead with it’s nuke testing program. Is anyone surprised?


Wonder where Korean bad boy Kim Jong II is these days...awful quiet.

Minions Marching

Cincinnati’s Black Family Reunion happens this weekend. It was kicked off by a parade through the city’s west end. It was very well attended. I was there to shoot up the ends of some rolls of film and to people watch, which is one of my favorite past times.

Kids carried the day. Drill teams and bands interspersed with politicians running for office. I guess I should say the minions of the politicians, all decked out in “vote for whomever” tee shirts. The actual politicians, with few exceptions weren’t there. In Cincinnati, they march until they’re elected, then they send someone else to burn up shoe leather.

David Pepper was there and John Cranley was too. But then they must like marching because they always show up no matter what. They even march in the Gay Pride Parade. That’s why I vote for them. They go after everyone’s vote.

Mr. Eric Kearney was there too. He’s another one I support. Owns the local black newspaper in town.

There were some anomalies like Steve Chabot and Ken Blackwell. No they didn’t appear personally. But they had supporters. Chabot had two little white boys on top of his float complete with PA system, doing an a capella rendition of the battle hymn of the republic. It was kind of a twilight zone moment. Everyone was nice to the little boys, but it just goes to prove that Chabot is simply not in touch with reality.

Blackwell had a big contingent of deluded Negroes passing out his literature. At least, unlike Chabot, he knew what parade was taking place. But I saw one thing happening with Blackwell...very few people took his literature or handouts. Many politely refused to take it or to make eye contact with the marching minions.

I can only hope that the controlled animosity that I saw beamed toward Chabot and Blackwell in particular plays out in November and we get rid of these fools.

SNAKES ON A PLANE

FIVE STARS...

Don't go there alone....looking for a movie that will make you think...

Think Rocky Horror, take your friends and have a good time!

I loved it!

Andrew Young

He didn’t lie. He spoke the truth and paid for it by losing his latest job as Black spokesperson for Walmart.

Young said, and I’m paraphrasing....that Jews, Asians, Koreans and Arabs who own mom and pop stores in the ghettos of America were driven out of business by Walmart. Further, Young said that was a good thing because these foreign people routinely sold stale bread, spoiled meat and substandard product to the people who live in those neighborhoods. He also said that very few if any of the mom and pop stores are owned by Blacks.

I don’t have a problem with what he said, because it is true.

From my own experiences growing up in Walnut Hills in Cincinnati, Ohio. The stores were owned by white people to my child-eyes. They may have been Jews, I don’t know. I do know that my mother wouldn’t let me shop for anything edible at Mel’s, which was the closest store to my house. Edible as in lunch meat. We could buy penny candy. She allowed that. It came packaged and wrapped. Not much you can do to candy.

When she wanted bologna or bread, I had to walk to a store a half mile further away from my house. He was also white and his stuff wasn’t already spoiled. It was the grocery store in Washington Terrace.

I’ve grown up and the stores are still there, but they’re owned by Arabs, now. I’ve seen the Asians, and Koreans come and go, too. Same deal. They make money off of us, selling second tier product, but we’re supposed to put up with it, quietly.

I’m sorry the thought and language police are offended, but Young didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.

And let me take it one step further. Integration has contributed to the death of the Black Community. While we were segregated, we had stores, we had schools, we had police, we had libraries, we had businesses in our community because we couldn’t go anywhere else. Now we can go everywhere and we have nothing.

Go chew on that for awhile...PC people.

Dubya Slap down

Finally, someone has stood up to this rogue administration and it’s blatant disregard for the freedom of US citizens.

Federal Judge Anna Diggs Taylor issued a 45 page opinion Thursday saying that the Bush Administration’s wireless surveillance program is unconstitutional.

Dubya and company didn’t waste any time attacking the Judge stating she was an appointee of former President Jimmy Carter. As if that matters.

The White House says it will appeal. I guess they think bringing it to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, here in Cincinnati will make a difference.

It might. After all this Cincinnati, Ohio, home to crooked election laws put into play by Dubya’s lapdog Ken Blackwell. Maybe the fix is in, in the courts too, and we just haven’t seen it yet.

Round two coming up..

IKEA to the Queen City

See what happens when the electorate gets smart and dumps antiquated homophobic discriminatory laws...

Good things happen that’s what.

IKEA, the gay Mecca is coming to Cincinnati. The official announcement coming yesterday. It will be built in West Chester which is a suburb, but that’s fine, my ride just eats up highway and as I’ve said before it is big enough to carry A LOT OF STUFF. It’s scheduled to open by the end of 2007.

Now for those of you who have never heard of IKEA, it is a store which is home based in Sweden. It has everything you can imagine when it comes to furnishing your home. And you know what else...the prices are very reasonable.

Going to an IKEA store is like going to a grown up Disneyland. There is so much stuff that you suffer sensory overload. You need to go there a couple of times just to get your barrings.

I’ve been going to the one in Schaumburg, Illinois, that’s the one outside Chicago. It’s marvelous. My niece took me. People just walk around and look, not necessarily to buy, just to look. I carry a list with me when I travel to Chicago, just so I can pick up stuff to bring home from IKEA.

Man, can’t wait. Think I’ll have a yard sale to get rid of my old stuff, so I can fill my house with IKEA stuff.

From Behind the Veil

I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to hear it in my lifetime. A Black man of note, with a national reputation for activism, calling for action in the fight against AIDS.

Julian Bond, currently chairman of the NAACP is calling on the Black Community to wake up to fight this thing that is literally killing our people. His column is in the Washington Post today.

He stated what a lot of us have known for years, that AIDS is not a gay white disease. In America it is killing Blacks, primarily Black women. Women who are drug users or who sleep with drug users and share needles. Women who are straight and sleep with men who sleep with other men.

60% of new AIDS cases in this country are straight Black women. And while people are living longer, contracting the virus is still a death sentence.

Bond also called on Black Clergy to step past the rampant and vicious homophobia that is being preached in many black churches. A stance that has long hindered our community driving away some of our brightest people.

One can only wonder what woke him up and what it will take to wake up all of the others...Black Congressional Caucus, Urban League, Council of Black Churches, Black Ministers, Movie Stars, Hip Hop Stars, Sports Celebrities to name a few.

White stars have found their latest cause, of saving African children. Where are the Black celebrities willing to step forward to save our own in this country.

I wonder if someone in Bond’s family has contracted the disease. I know from experience how hard it is to watch a relative die from this disease. I’ve lost eleven friends, one uncle, and one cousin...all of them Black.

That is usually what it takes to bring understanding and an end to intolerance.

I Want My IPOD

Okay, now it’s on. I CAN’T TAKE MY IPOD? Give me a break. I’ve been a good camper. I put up with the invasive searches when I go to the airport. I love to fly and you will have to literally blow me out of the air to keep me off a plane.

I take off my shoes and my baseball cap when asked. I don’t really mind. I’ve been wearing sandals on planes for a while now. My baseball cap is all about attitude anyway. I wear it crunched low on my head to shield my eyes like Janet Jackson and to prevent being recognized, like I’m some kind of celebrity. But I take it off in the name of security.

I try to look and act conspicuous because I feel homeland security and the airport rent a cops are looking for those folks who are really really trying to blend in. I’m an American, I’m always conspicuous, so that’s no problem where ever I go. I just won’t go hip hop, that’s racial profiling on another level.

I’m not missing my other now absent freedoms. My library card is crumbling in my wallet because I can afford to buy my books rather than borrow them from the library. So homeland security will never know what I read unless they check my store receipts.

I’m still driving a big assed gas guzzling SUV and not complaining about bogus gas price raises every time this government decides to try to scare us into acceptance of it’s Orwellian version of this world.

And, no, I don’t travel with over priced, way too expensive cosmetics. I don’t drink gatorade or ten dollar starbuck’s lattes at the check in counter. I don’t miss that stuff. Nothing to complain about here.

But, NO IPOD? NO LAPTOP? HELL TO THE CAPITAL L NO!

I’m a writer. I’ve been typing so long, I get writer’s cramp when I write out a check. Besides, I’m of that age when arthritis has begun to set into my fingers, Curling my digits around a pencil won’t work.

My IPOD contains my music collection...ALL OF IT. I walk around with 55 years of musical memories in my pocket. I can put my baby on shuffle and up pops the first album I ever stole from my Dad’s album collection. I can sort through and find the first song I heard play on the first AM radio with a head phone that I bought myself. I can relive all over again the background music that was playing when I lost my virginity.

C’mon! No IPOD? Now I will get ugly.

Give me a gun. I’ll go to Afghanistan and find that six foot four, dialysis machine toting MF and personally blow him off the face of this earth. Him and every other wannabe terrorist who tries to keep me from my portable pacifier.

You may need your MTV.

Me, I NEED MY IPOD.

Catfish,Chicken Salad and the Wildflower Café

Fishing was and is a family activity for us. I've been catching catfish since before I could walk. My dad loves to fish. He caught the bug from his mom, my grandmother, who loved to fish. My grandmother always wore long skirts in the old fashioned way and carried a stool and a big can so she could be comfortable and not have to move around very much if the fish were biting. The only other thing she needed was a cold Pepsi in a glass bottle. But back then, soda pop only came in glass bottles.

Yet, even though catfish have been in my life since birth, I never ate catfish until I moved to Chicago when I was 34 years old. That's a few years ago now. Catfish have skin not scales, so they are a pain to clean. And while we enjoyed catching them. We threw them back or kept them and gave them away to the neighbors.

Once I started eating catfish, however, I was hooked. I like nuggets or even the whole fish laid out on a plate, fried, with mustard, salt pepper and maybe a green salad or some fried potatoes on the side.

If you like catfish and travel to Mentone, you need to stop at Dessies. It's right on the main drag through town, state route 117. There is a sign on the front window that announces that God is Dessie's security guard so walk right in cause he's always watching. That woman truly knows how to cook catfish. It is fried right and juicy, seasoned to perfection either whole as a dinner or as a sandwich.

Take your choice on sides, including turnips and collards. Dessie, a tall dignified snow white haired woman who may be approaching her 7th decade, was written up in the local papers, she's not famous for the catfish, but for her cobblers and pies. All of it is good and Dessie even comes out of the kitchen to chat you up and to make sure you're satisfied. She quietly hovers over you and I loved it.

Before you get to Dessies you have to pass the Wildflower Cafe. It sits on the corner next to the Gourdie Shop. It immediately caught our eye, but we didn't make it there until the weekend and it was worth the wait.

Temperature was approaching 100-degrees so my sister and I sat outside, in the shade of the back porch, which was sparingly decorated with ceramic tile covered wooden tables and chairs. Someone hand painted wild flowers or the porch columns and hung hummingbird feeders. We watched the tiny little birds come and go while we dined on a turkey club and chicken salad made with shredded chicken breast, not chunks, basil mayonnaise with green grapes and almonds, served with bread, romaine lettuce and soup if you want, and all the southern sweet iced tea you can drink.

I don't remember hearing the owner's name, but she was there too. A been around the world kind of woman, tired and slow moving with a cigarette hanging out of the side of her mouth. Talky, her life started somewhere in California and I never connected how she got to Mentone, but listening to this part of her life was fascinating. She was on the porch to smoke and to hang magic marker signs about the night's specials. We talked about the heat, learned that our waitress was a native of Gadsden, Alabama and just up in Mentone for the weekend. Her mom was there too, I guess making extra money.

We learned how to order pizza and when to pick it up, since there was no delivery. We confirmed what we already knew and that was that there is no grocery store in Mentone. I mean big ones like Kroger or Food Lion. You have to drive to Fort Payne, about 30 minutes away.

We traded information about our origins, why we were there. It was an easy way to spend an afternoon in between our heavy duty shopping runs.

The Kindness of Strangers

When you're growing up, your mom always tells you to never talk to strangers.It's a survival tactic passed on from parent to child and it is good practice. But I guess I have some of Blanche DuBois in me when it comes to meeting people.

One of my favorite things to do in the whole world is exactly that- talk to strangers when I travel. It is the best way to get to know the places where you are and to remember them when you return. Time passes, but the conversations and memories will always be with you.

Which brings me back to Mentone, Alabama, home to some really nice people and good places to chow down on real home cooking in between shopping for bargains at the world's longest yard sale.

I got lost wandering around the top of the mountain while searching for our cabin and I was alone since the rest of my party was driving in from South Carolina. I'm a buckeye girl, born and raised in Ohio and presently living in the Queen City, Cincinnati. So I had to ask for help and that meant driving onto private property and interrupting people I saw and asking them to guide me to where I needed to be.

I met a short round woman who reflected my similar build and who was famous in the area for making jewelry and a man who had moved to the area less than a year ago. They lived pretty far apart and may not have known each other although they were neighbors, sort of. They lived off the same state route 89.

The tall thin man with no local accent, was grilling steaks on his deck. I interrupted him, but he was very cool, scratched his head after reading the directions I was attempting to decipher, apologized for never having heard of the place I was looking for and sent me back the way I'd come. He didn't offer up any steak. I wasn't hungry and wouldn't have said so anyway. I was hearing my mother in my head with that other parental admonition-"don't take candy/food from anyone who isn't family."

I finally found the cabin with the help of a couple on a harley davidson motorcycle who stopped for the stop sign near where I parked attempting to read the directions again. They would've been my neighbors having rented a nearby cabin, but their vacation was over so they were headed home to Huntsville.

Bikers sometimes look intimidating because of what they wear, but past experience has taught me, they usually give great directions. So I asked her on the back of the bike and he answered from the front. All the time I was trying not to ogle the dragon tattoo that started at his throat and disappeared down the front of his vest. They got me where I needed to be.

Success!

Now to find my sister and some sustenance. Tiring work being lost and temporarily homeless.

Waking up in the Wilderness

I must admit that I had a deliverance moment while trying to find this cabin. I need to tell my sister that the next time she plans to get away make sure she gets better directions, because the person who wrote out these directions has obviously never talked to city folk. And when I approached the locals (I talked to several) they'd never heard of the place. But I later found out I wasn't describing it right. I was just reading these nonsensical directions.

Our location, Mentone, Alabama, 1868 feet up the side of Lookout Mountain in the northern part of the state near the Georgia and Tennessee borders. . Our cabin was 3 miles above that in DeSoto State Park. We city folk are literally 3 miles up the mountain off a blacktop two lane road called Tutweiler Gap, that turns into gravel and chert, whatever the hell, chert is. Our cabin was aptly named Serenity.

I'm really, really glad that I have one of those gas guzzling high assed SUVs. Cause a gas saving economical four cylinder, something or other couldn't make it over the ruts in the road, where we are.

We both made it...me in my Ascender and my sister in her big assed Expedition. No problem, except there is not enough road and the locals drive like they're on a four lane highway. Just imagine yourself driving a top heavy SUV on a road that tilts nearly 30 degrees from level. Talk about precipitous. I was creeping too because I didn't want to take a deer home as a hood ornament.

The cabin itself is wonderful. It has all the conveniences of home and then some. It has a hot tub on the back porch with a gas grill and a Jacuzzi in the bathroom which is the size of my bedroom back home. Man, I love this place. And it is very very economical, even if there aren't four of us sharing the cost..

Two sets of sisters. Me and mine and Peggy and hers. We are two nurses, a teacher who teaches history to eighth graders and me, the writer and sometimes mail machine operator. They, including my sister are from South Carolina. They are ocean people. I'm the only one landlocked in Ohio, unless you consider the Ohio River a big body of water. The Ohio is only a little less muddy than the mighty Mississippi. On any given day it looks like you could walk across it with all the dirt and silt and not get wet.

Having the straight shot route from Ohio, I got here first and found the campsite, by talking with the locals. I then guided them to our location using what little cell power we had. Make no mistake, we are in the back woods and Verizon hasn't discovered this place yet.

While waiting for them, I spotted what I thought was a lonely little fawn who hadn't yet learned to camouflage effectively. Yet when a Harley Davidson soft tail drove by, the whole herd spooked. I was actually watching at least 8 or 9 deer that I counted before they leapt away up the side of the hill.

Once we got settled, we trekked out to quaint Mentone city or town for something to eat. It was only 7:30 but the sidewalks had been rolled up. We settled on the bbq grill for some ribs, pulled pork and chicken and a grilled cheese.

The food was delicious, the hospitality wonderful. We were exhausted and trekked back up the mountain top to get into the hot tub and or Jacuzzi. A little TV and were ready for bed.

Shopping begins tomorrow....

Time off.........

This is my birthday month...yes I celebrate the whole month...I've earned it...so my posts will be a bit sporadic.

My first celebration stop is a cabin in the mountains close enough to the Worlds longest yard sale for some heavy duty antique shopping. I'm redoing my kitchen...

Happy birthday to me....happy birthday to me.......................

Why are We Surprised

By the anti semitic antics of Mel Gibson?
His Daddy raised him to not believe the holocaust happened.

It's not the first time he has shown himself to be a bigot. Just ask anyone in the LGBT community about Mel and his homophobic ways.

And please, please, enough with the "mea culpa" as he disappears into rehab.

Stars screwing up and checking into rehab is like criminals getting busted and finding jesus after they get locked up for life.

So hypocritical.