Halloween night

Too full of candy and cake, aaaahhhh, must go to bed. Life is grand, though.

Birthday wish

Here's my birthday wish......
Thanks Kos for the image.

Kathleen

Fourth grade was a very long time ago. Fourth grade starting at the Catholic school with all new kids, 50 kids in the class and new rules was a shock to me. But out of the horrors of Catholic school came a life long friend, Ms Kathleen.

Some of us are lucky enough to have one really good friend and I have two, Kathleen and Julie.

She occupies a place in my heart where there are no others. Someone who endured the whole trauma of that particular classroom, that particular group of kids so we have a special history together. She has known me almost as long as my family and understands that place where we grew up. Her parents are buried in the row next to my father.

Recently I was across the street from our old church. I saw a funeral ending and people leaving the church. I suddenly remembered it was the mother of one of our old classmates. I immediately called her and even though she wasn't home, I gave her the play by play of the people leaving and the cars driving to the cemetery. Yes, it is a strange and wonderful relationship.
We reconncected after one of her sisters died and I read the obituary in the paper. I sent her a letter and one night in December I got a phone call from her. We caught up, shared our lives and my life has been better since that call. Her generosity of spirit is amazing. I look forward to our long talks and even longer laughs.

What a joy to know I have a friend for life who makes me laugh and understands my tears. Happy Birthday. You will always be a day older than me, old thing.

And for you, once again, the headless nun.

Julie

MMMHHH, Gayle's Bakery lemon poppyseed cake for dessert. Must be birthday season.

I have two incredibly wonderful women in my life who both have birthdays right around now. I thought I would share a little bit about them and celebrate their birthdays, too.

Julie's birthday is Oct 27. She came into my life 11 years ago when she helped me recover use of my shoulder after an operation. What an incredibly generous heart she has! She is not the typical vindicative, I'll-remember-everything-you-ever-did-to-me Scorpio like I am. Julie is helpful, gentle and let's me tease her all the time. We used to work out together in the gym for quite a while but she started her own physical therapy business so we couldn't keep our standing dates. She was the last one at my house when I left Santa Fe.

One time I was having a really hard time and was visiting her at work. She just sat down with me and gave me a cookie. Nothing more complicated than a friend sharing a moment of kindness.

I am so lucky to have her as my friend all these years. Nothing complicated, just the essence of true friendship and love. I am blessed.

The Mummy

I am just in the Halloween mood these days, hence the Halloween titles. The air is not crisp yet in this part of California. I was in shorts all day and the top was down on the car. But there are plenty of decorations everywhere I went so I am feeling more festive daily. Plus tomorrow is the start of birthday weekend and I can be relieved of the burden of no job.

I also don't have to pay attention to Darth Cheney, the idiot in chief or "just back off" Rumsfeld. Changing one letter in that description of Rumsfeld is a much better description of him, don't you think?

After watching another episode of Ugly Betty tonight, I am glad to see the mean people starting to show a little humanity. The gay gay is not quite so snarky. The gorgeous Vanessa Williams is a lot less nasty and I continue to just love Betty. She is my new idol. Betty is getting better comebacks and a lot more sassy. You go, girl, make us all proud.

Autumn also brings out such vivid memories of days past, lives lost and worst of all, bakeries closed. The bakery of my childhood closed this week, the week before my birthday. There went the chocolate cake with real whipped cream for my cake. No more sitting in the parking lot eating a chocolate eclair. I can't get Ms Marinucci her favorite cookies as a treat. Gone, all gone. Such a loss.

This caught my eye today. I think former NJ Gov Jim McGreevey is a lesbian. He announced he wanted to marry his partner if and when marriage becomes totally legal in NJ. He is doing lesbian dating, complete with the U-Haul on the second date. Minor detail - if he wants to get married he has divorce his second wife first.

I just want to add that Rush Limbaugh is a boil on the butt of humanity for making fun of Michael J Fox and his disability. So is that jackass Congresswoman in Wyoming for threatening one of her opponents who is in a wheel chair. I shared the WY story with my friends from the after school program, both of whom are in chairs. All that afternoon we kept saying to each other, "If you weren't in a wheel chair, I'd slap you." Or "If you were in a wheel chair, I would slap you." Limbaugh, you pitiful excuse for a human being, you should be so lucky to be around such wonderful people.

The Headless Nun

I went to Catholic school. This may explain my salty use of the language. I can cuss in English and Spanish with a nasty word in Navajo thrown in.

I am still great friends with Kathleen whose birthday is the day before mine. We have known each other since the 4th grade. I had to share this picture with her one time because I done some Photoshop thingies to it and inserted the name of our 8th grade nun into the photo. It was great!

Catholic school in 1968 was a horrible place. We were subjected to whacks with rulers, fasting before mass, inspection by the flying monkey nuns to make sure we had blue rubber bands in our hair to match the uniforms. We had no art, barely any PE, too many kids in a classroom and abusive teachers. We had fellow students who would faint during Mass because they were so hungry. So what did the nuns do to punish them? Didn't let them eat after Mass.

Am I bitter? Noooo. That's why I have kept the headless nun. My friend Kathleen's sister, has a collection of nun things. I have a couple of nun dolls that have flames shooting out of their mouths. But this is my favorite.

No beatings, no abuse, no head. Peace at last.

Monster mash

Counting down to election day, I am glad I have a form of TIVO so I can watch Jon Stewart and not the accompanying commercials. Cheney actually admitted today he was Darth and Bush assured us he is an idiot. "We're not going to stay the course because we are flexible but we are going to stay there forever. Hehehe." Imagine Jon Stewart's impersonation.

This picture is a bit of Latino surreality. I took it when I was with my mom and aunt at the cousin's birthday party. It is a mariachi singing in front of a giant TV at the rest home. On the screen is none other than Desi Arnaz, famous Cuban. So there are Latinos, front and back, one a real one and one a real one on TV. It was too much for me to take in so I just sang along.

Here's a good one from over at DailyKos from Novak:

New Mexico-1: Rep. Heather Wilson (R) is down in the polls and showing alarmingly soft support among the suburban Hispanic constituency that was key to her victories in the past. Her recent ad touting her vote to override President Bush's stem-cell veto is a huge miscalculation -- the stem-cell issue is good only for Democrats, it can only hurt Republicans, whichever side they fall on. Atty. Gen. Patricia Madrid (D) has superceded the scandal surrounding her prosecution of federal witnesses in a major corruption trial in New Mexico, and Republicans fear that Wilson, a tough campaigner, may be at the end of her rope. Likely Democratic Takeover.

I am warming up to dance on Heather's campaign in less than 2 weeks. What a concept, a Hispanic woman representing state which is majority minority. What next? The NM Governor running for President?

I just read a post on the SF Chronicle's political blog. A blogg used a phrase calling this administration "devoid of content." Such a brilliant phrase. Too bad it is true.

What world will we wake up to on Nov 8? I can only dream of blue skies, bright stars and Congressional offices calling moving companies to get their shit outta there. Not a minute too soon for the world.

NJ

Whoa! Marriage is on the way in New Jersey. All kinds of links here, Blabbeando, Pam's House Blend and needless to say there is plenty bubbling up everywhere about this news. Pam's place also has quotes from the Freepi as they nut out over the demise of western civilization.

It is less than two weeks away to the election. Do not get distracted. It is about Iraq not marriage, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. Pay no attention to the closet cases trying to distract you.

Los Alamos,NM

More news from the Land of Enchantment... Los Alamos, New Mexico is the birthplace of the nuclear bomb. Los Alamos labs or The Lab as it is known in northern New Mexico, sits on a plateau about 45 minutes northwest of Santa Fe. On clear days it is easy to see the water tower that has sat there since the famous Dr Oppenheimer roamed around up there.

It is a nuclear lab that doubles as a sieve. Stuff comes out of there that you wouldn't believe. Wen Ho Lee spent about a year in solitary confinement for trumped up charges. The Feds screwed him so much that the judge who freed him apologized on behalf of the American people for the way he was treated.

There have been investigations showing people suing lab credit cards to buy BBQ's, among other things, for themselves. There have been reports of rampant sex in secure facilities. Then there was a hard drive that disappeared only to turn up months later behind a copy machine.

So today there are reports of lab secrets turning up in a meth lab. That would be classified documents in the hands of people processing meth with explosive chemicals. Well I guess better in their hands than Rumsfeld. But there is going to be a lot of 'splaining to do on this one.

Why I oughta...

I am wondering how vile the good ol' US of A can get before election day. After Kevin Tillman's blog on Truthdig evoked some of Rush's nastiest zombies on to him, then Rush accused Michael J Fox of going off his meds in order to do an ad for Clare McKaskill, now the woman who holds Wyoming's on seat in Congress threatened to slap one of her opponents. The only thing holding her up from that bitch slap? He is in a wheel chair.

What pray tell did the candidate, Thomas Rankin, say during the debate that caused such a disturbance on the dark side? He accused her of taking money from Jack Abramoff. In fact she took $22K from Tom Delay but he hasn't been convicted. Of all the nerve confusing Tom Delay and Abramoff.

The ReThug also made a slur against him as a disabled person which I really find offensive. Since today is my day to work with the kids in wheel chairs I am particularly agitated over this one. Read the whole harrowing account here.

Why?

Why does Bush have a job and I don't?

I know what the internets are, I am using it right now. I know what Google is, I am using it right now. I even live close to Google. I can read and write and even understand what I read and write. I don't need much translation when people talk to me. I don't chew with my mouth open in public.

I won't wear a dress though. Well, neither does Bush. I am fairly clear in my thought and speech. I am not responsible for the downfall of two countries. I don't get one bit of advice from Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld or Alberto Gonzales. I don't torture.

So why does Bush have a job and I don't?

Now what?

Today I went to Santa Cruz. I know, there are worse things than to have to drive through the redwoods and go to the ocean. But I can feel the closeness to Halloween now. By going back to where most of my ghosts remain, I can feel their presence and remember their lives.

I drove by the cemetery where Carmella's ashes lay. I went to the ocean where we threw Jay's ashes in between bouts of sea sickness. I drove by the old Santa Cruz AIDS Project office and remembered how many times I had been there, when so many of my friends were still alive. I heard their laughs and felt my sorrow.

It was not a pleasant stroll down memory lane. That lane is too filled with seeing pain and death, seeing and smelling bodies covered in cancer, bodies too weak to continue, no laughs left. They were all too young, we were all too young to see them die.

On the way out of town, I drove by the Denny's. Back in the day, Denny's would give people a free meal on their birthday. Since Gary and I had the same birthday, we would go over there in the afternoon and talk shit about everybody. We would laugh, tell dirty jokes and enjoy our day together. I can't do that anymore. Denny's doesn't offer a free meal and Gary left to be with Chet. And Jay, Gary, the Pineapple Princess, Margaret, Vickie, Randy.

To make it an even better day, I was given the "thanks but no thanks" response to a job I had really hoped to get. I now had a perfect climate for weeping and cleaning, a Mexican holiday.

Tomorrow I will try again on the job market. This sucks. But the Sharks won and Jeffrey Skilling got sentenced to 24 years for his part in Enron. I still have a place to live, everyone is healthy and eventually someone will give me a job. Time to light another candle.

More Tillman

Please read this article written by Pat Tillman's brother, Kevin, at Truthdig. You may remember Pat Tillman as the guy who walked away from the NFL to go serve in the army. Kevin and Pat enlisted together and this is the first time one of the family has spoken out about the war. I had posted earlier about Tillman becuase he was such an anomaly, a thinking man in war.

Guest blogging

I am guest blogging at Pam's House Blend today. Run on over there for a quick hit of adrenaline.

This keeps getting better

I must be the stupidest woman on the planet. Oh wait, Kathy at Birmingham Blues tells us about Twinkle, the little star of Alabama politics. She is much more stupid. Anyway, I had been thinking that over the last two hundred years that the US has been in existence, the government was for and by the people. Thus, my stupidity. Not in the last six years, sister.

According to a new judicial ruling, the White House must turn over all the visitor logs from the office of Darth, the vice-president. How could this be happening that it takes a court order to find out who was visiting the vice-president? Lily Tomlin had the answer years ago, "We don't care and we don't have to."

According to Editor and Publisher, the Washington Post requested the logs back in June. The ruling came today and the judge was not happy. Even better, it was a Latino judge, Ricardo Urbina, who ordered the Secret Service to turn over the logs by Friday, Oct 20. Yup, give those logs up so we can see who has had access to Cheney for the last two years.

Who is this on 400 different occasions, Jack Abramoff and his little friend, Ralph Reed? Ken Lay was here, gosh could you have been talking about energy policies behind our backs? Nah, couldn't happen.

Well it did happen and now we are all going to know about the level of corruption coming out the stinky Naval Observatory and the Old Executive Office building. (That's where Cheney lives and works.) I am starting to feel like the asthma attack I have been having for the last six years is coming to an end.

Paybacks are a bitch, fellas. And we are all on the side of the road watching this payback come in buckets.

Thar she blows

The tidal wave is starting! In my former state of New Mexico. Raw Story uncovered, or rather found a long lost story of one Heather Wilson, NM-1. As they say in New Mexico, eeeeeee. Yes, that's a word there. And it has multiple sylables to it. Anyway, I digress.

Some background first for this juicy gossip. Heather was the Cabinet officer for the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department-CYFD. According to Raw, on her third day there as head of the department, she removed a file regarding HER HUSBAND. Yes it seems there is a weak Foley tie-in here because her husband supposedly touched a 16 year old inappropriately. When confronted with this behavior, she denied it on camera from a local TV station. Then when told they were going to run the story she confessed. Ok read the whole story at Raw.

This is the same woman who broke down crying when talking about Janet Jackson's boob being revealed at a Super Bowl halftime. This same woman who was on the page committee in Congress when Foley was showing up at the page dorms all likkered up but has shed no tears over the behavior of her colleague.

This is Heather, rhymes with leather who is notoriously homophobic and marches to Bush's tune. The tidal wave is crashing in New Mexico and the country and Albuquerque will be better off without this woman in DC. Yeah baby!

Five things

I have been tagged by Ms Julie Enszner to identify five things that feminism has done for me. Since Julie is one of the smartest women I know, I must follow down this path she has directed me to.

1. I found my voice.

2. I heard other women's voices and didn't feel so alone.

3. Gave me moments when I actually saw that I was equal to men.

4. Let me play sports with total glee.

5. And....this took me a while but feminism gave me the right to never wear a dress again.

No way!

As further proof we are going to hell, it is now possible to get either your coffin or urn with Major League Baseball colors and logos. As a former fervent baseball fan, I could have, at one point in my life, imagined my next chapter decorated in the Giants orange and black. But since the Barry Bonds is a big cheater fiasco known as the current Giants, I would have to pass on that one.

Which leads me to wonder, what happens if you bury a steriod user in one of these decorated vessels? Does it eventually blow up, expand at a ridiculous rate and eventually look totally distorted and freakish? Just wondering.

Pathetic

Tyrone Garner who was half of the duo challenging sodomy laws which eventually were over turned by the Supreme Court died 37 days ago. But his family did not have funds to pay for a funeral. His body has been turned over to the state so that it can do a free cremation.

Apparently there was a fund established to help the family pay for his funeral expenses. So far it has pulled in a whopping $225. For the man who helped get rid of the sodomy laws in this country, people have only given $250. The family needs $430 to put him in an urn. If he was the white half of the duo would this be happening? And where are the national orgs on this with their multi million dollar budgets? This is nothing short of pathetic. Where are our priorities?

Please look to Keith Boykin and Jasmyne Cannick for more of the details and where you can send some money.

Kibbles and bits

This is sad. Former Congressman Gerry Studds died over the weekend. He was the first openly gay member of Congress. His has left a widower behind who is not eligible for the federal pensions that every other widow and widower get. The same battle over and over again, whether it is the gay lesbian partners of people killed on 9/11 or police and service members killed in action, we just don't count for federal benefits. When my father died, my mother got his social security and so did the kids. If my partner dies, I get nada.

In the Weds Washington Post, there is an article about what would happen to the Bush presidency when we win in 20 days and take back one or both houses of Congress.

On desks around the West Wing sit digital clocks counting down the days and hours left in the Bush presidency, reminders to the White House staff to use the time left as effectively as possible. As of 8 a.m. today, those clocks will read 825 days, four hours. But if the elections go the way pollsters and pundits predict, they might as well read 20 days.

Oh please god let it happen, let it become reality!

I haven't saide anything about Ms. Marinucci lately so I thought I would post her latest blog about Clinton coming to SF to raise money. She also lists the other stars to be on stage with him. Maybe I can be her photographer that night. Yeah and maybe I will wake up 5'4".

For those of you who missed Frank Rich's fabulous column last Sunday in the Times, here it is. No subscription needed.

And one last item, the Sharks shut out one of the last unbeaten teams in the NHL tonight, the Dallas Stars, 2-0. Nabby was unbelieveable. Nothing like a Sharks win to make the night perfect.

An essay from a dead woman

An essay from the murdered Anna Politskovkaya in the Washington Post.

Anna Politkovskaya

Anna Politkovskaya was murdered in the elevator of her Moscow apartment as she was bringing groceries home. As is the usual case for Russian journalists who piss off the Vladamir Putin, her murder will go unsolved. There have been

I don't pretend to be Condi in terms of being a Russia expert. I am studying the language and have spent a fair amount of time reading Russian history and studying Russian culture. But I am such an expert that I didn't know about Anna Politkovskaya until she was brutally shot down last week. Now after reading about her bravery, I feel compelled to honor a sister warrior.

Ms. Politkovskaya was born in the United States to diplomat parents. She returned to the Soviet Union to study. She became a journalist and had published several books very critical of Putin. Ms. Politkovskaya was writing for Novaya Gazeta, a biweekly paper in Moscow, at the time of her murder.

Anna Politkovskaya knew what she was doing in Putin's Russia. She was writing almost exclusively about the war in Chechnya and documenting the torture suffered by ordinary citizens at the hands of the Kremlin sponsored government. She was so highly regarded for telling the truth, when the Chechens took over the school in Beslan, she had been requested to return to Chechnya to help negotiate the standoff. There was apparently an attempt on her life during her trip to Beslan when she became unconscious after drinking tea. She was violently ill from this episode and never made it to Beslan. The Russians eventually killed 125 hostages and all the Chechens by storming the school.

Reading other accounts of her bravery and committment to fairness while poking her finger in the eye of the Kremlin makes me incredibly sad that we have lost such a warrior.

From the Guardian:

Her seriousness is not just her frown, her severe glasses and full head of grey hair. It's the tension, anger and impatience in her whole body, making clear that her sense of the continual injustice being perpetrated in her homeland never leaves her, that she can't shut it out in a way almost all British journalists, even the campaigning, radical kind, can.

In her words:

"To this day there's torture in any FSB branch in Chechnya, like the so-called 'telephone', where they pass an electric current through a person's body. I've seen hundreds of people who've been through this torture. Some have been tortured in such an intricate way that it's hard for me to believe that it was done by people who went to the same sort of schools that I did, who read the same textbooks."

No wonder Bush is best friends with Putin. They both like to torture people.

Anna Politskavaya apparently was doing a wonderful job for a small newspaper with limited readership in country that covers 11 time zones. She had pissed off the Kremlin/Putin, the Kremlin back thug boss of Chechnya, Kadyrov, the security forces in Russia to name a few. She was unrelenting in her critcism of Putin and has called him out for use of Bush's war on terror. Putin has tried his own smoke screen, linking his invasion of Chechnya to the global war on terror. Any wonder the results are the same? Rebellion, home made terrorists, torture and lies. And if there are any questions about Putin's heavy hand, there have been 21 murders of journalists in Russia since Putin took office.

I think I am hearing Janis Joplin "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

Rest in peace, hermana. You served the world well.


Read more here and here.

Gus

Ever have a day with minimal brain cells firing? That was my day today. It was easier to walk the dogs and not think than to read the paper and catch up on the weekly mags. So since I have nothing to add to the worldly conversation, here is a picture of Gus, the man of the house.

NCOD

I hope everyone had a nice National Coming Out Day. I forgot to leave the house let alone come out of the house. H/t to Pam at the House Blend for actually reminding us about coming out. And Shakes Sis added to the discussion from the ally side. So former Congressman how was your first coming out day? And I don't mean your peepee coming out of your pants.

Ruby

My Ruby, hard at work in the house. Her job? To look cute like this. Actually she has discovered the next door neighbors so when she hears them pull up, she hops on the fence and races over so they can pet her. I am obviously not enough human for her.

Same crap, different year

Now here is a stunner. Most Americans think the Rethugs did nothing about Foley because they put politics before the safety of the pages. Does anyone think Bush is doing the same thing with our troops in Iraq? See any similarities here?

Yes and because these same thugs can't talk about recent history or their records, they are dredging up history from the 60's, 70's and 80's. We are seeing a parade of past escandalos including Chappaquiddick and former Congressman Gerry Studds repeated as if they happened last week. What next, bell bottoms, disco balls and Gloria Gaynor?

I can dredge stuff up, literally, from last week. This picture was taken by my friend, Sarah, in New Orleans last week. She was down there doing something all these asses should be doing, helping rebuild New Orleans.

But you can't hold a hammer when you are covering your ass with both hands.

Selena

Selena is lounging on my bed. She is going to have knee surgery on Friday so she can full use of all four legs again. Don't ask me how a dog blows out a knee.

Ah the joy

With our national IQ plummeting daily at an astonishing rate, I am lucky enough to get a break once a week from the insanity of the state of the union. I have a volunteer commitment with the Bay Area Women's Sports Initiative (BAWSI) to work on an after school sports program for girls in wheel chairs. We are the BAWSI Rollers. What a dose of joy and reality all in one hour and a half slot.

There have been between 9 and 11 kids the last two weeks. They get a t-shirt, a water bottle and a journal as part of the program. There are four components, with discussion about key sports concepts like respect and leadership. The kids are asked to wear their shirts to the program and to bring their journals and water bottles. We are playing baseball, basketball and bowling.

Some of the children are highly functional, some are not. To see these kids interact with each other is to see our humanity. They help each other with their tasks: filling their water bottles, setting the brakes on their wheel chairs, passing the ball to one another.

The pure delight on their faces when they accomplish something new is enough to make me cry. And remind me again of the joy of life.

Today we played baseball. The kids were cruising around the bases, scoring runs, hitting the ball, tagging each other out. When B. scored as we were all yelling for him, he had nothing but total bliss on his perfect little face.

One child, A., had gotten on the bus this morning to come to school. A. made the bus driver go back home because she needed her shirt and water bottle. Her mom happily recounted this story to us today.

One little guy, S., was up to bat when he noticed his father had come to get him. He pointed out his father to me then promptly walloped the ball and chugged along to first base. His dad ran over and gave him a high five. Pure joy, I tell you.

Now thanks to these children, I can no longer feel sorry for anything in my life. No job? Oh well. Feeling bad about myself, get over it.

Think you don't have much, give it away to a child. You'll get it back times a million.

Chula

New camera, new animal pics. Here's Chula under my desk.

Ick

Ick, I had forgotten how much I detest the conquerer's holiday which is mostly known to the conquerers as Columbus Day. Then I ran into a santera initiate in Santa Cruz and she was getting ready to put some revolutionary music on the turntables. But even better, I just looked at someone's blog who said this was a holiday. Nope not for me, nor for most Chicanas/os. I guess it is hard to grasp life outside DC. Nothing to celebrate here.

Gary

I am so sick of Foleyitis I could scream. I feel like I now know the complete meaning of painful rectal itch. Of course I was on the radio tonight in Santa Cruz talking about the escandalo but the fear and loathing is getting to be a bit much for me now.

So I will start telling stories about my friend Gary with whom I share a birthday, Halloween.

Gary was the total Christmas queen. The house that he shared with his partner Chet, always looked like a Christmas blizzrd had hit it. They had a Christmas village, every kind of light both inside and out, fabulous ornaments. They put out the Christmas silverware, the Christmas plates, the Spode dishes. It was gay Christmas in that house.

Plus they always did a Christmas party. A ridiculous amount of food, especially Gary's famous cheesecake. He cheesecake recipe is lost to the ages now. Funny the things that come to mind thinking about him.

One year at their party, they had both started new meds, DDT or something. The meds gave him REALLY bad gas. So he warned me if I saw him walk away really quickly from somewhere, clear the area. What a friend. There will never be another one like him. I miss him every day.

True faith

In the midst of the madness in DC, I have been following the murders of the Amish girls in Pennsylvania.

I have been watching the responses to these deaths. For a community that has chosen to cut itself off from the rest of the country, I think they provide an excellent example to the rest of us. From what I have read, they, as any human being would be, are grief stricken with their losses. But they have also shown profound, very real faith not only in their words but truly in their actions.

How many of us would invite the wife of a man who murdered a family member to a meal within days of the deaths? How many of us could show that level of forgiveness and so quickly? This is just an amazing display of faith in action to me.

Money has been pouring in to this community in a show of shared grief and loss. Last I heard, there was over half a million dollars that had come in to the agency handling the money. Do you know what they are doing? They are sharing the money with the wife and children of the man who killed their children.

Now compare this to the behavior of the alleged Christians on TV, in government and in the blogosphere. I know who the real followers of the Bible are now. And it ain't Pat Robertson or George Bush.

Mo caca

This Foley stuff has me whupped. My neck hurts from zooming to so many blogs and web sites. What do you think this country would be like if the MSM had put half as much energy into looking at the shit that comes out of the White House?

Now apparently there is a homo list of gay GOP aides. H/T to Pam for pointing me toDavid Corn for publishing an article about the list. Unfortunately he didn't name names.

I wonder how long til they are purged from the GOP. In an interview with Newsweek today, out Congressman Barney Frank has, as always interesting thoughts about the current storm which includes his thoughts that the Log Cabin Republicans could be banished soon. Not that they were ever welcomed with open arms in the past but this could make a bad situation even worse. OK, I'm done feeling bad for the Logs.

The gubernatorial election is pretty much over in California. Arnold is going to banish to the dog poop pile in November. According to the latest polling, Angelides is sitting at a paltry 33% with five weeks left to go. Dude, it's totally over.

Alright, hockey season started tonight and I was flipping back and forth between CNN and hockey games. Violence versus verbage, skating on ice versus skating on thin ice. Talking smack with a mouthful of teeth versus talking smack with hardly any teeth. What a decision to make! Ok, I'm going to the Sharks opener, thanks to cousin Steve.

more

Foley allegedly showed up, all likkered up, at the page dorm one night. Oh no, he's not an alcoholic.

Bus accident

There seems to be a lot of people thrown under buses this week. The latest, Kirk Fordham, the chief of staff of Tom Reynolds.

Squish, squish, squish goes the trolley. Bang, bang, bang over bodies. OK I'm a lesbian not a gay man who knows Judy Garland tunes by heart.

More of the train wreck

Oh my lawd in heaven, I can't believe this train wreck of a government scandal. I feel like I am watching one train car after another jump the tracks.

Let me see if I can sort any of this out:

1. All male homos are pedophiles according to the usual suspects on the right. Since the majority of pedophiles are heteros, how does this work out? Oh wait, it's not about telling the truth just blaming others.

2. Democrats cannot be trusted to run the government, according to the idiot in chief. Um, right. You've done such a good job, too.

3. Democrats released all the emails and IM's from Foley. Well actually, no, according to Brian Ross, the ABC reporter. It was all Republicans spilling the beans. Is this a plea for help? Stop us before we lie again.

4. Alcoholism is a convenient excuse for everything. Foley was a closet drinker. That's not the only thing in his closet. Matter of fact, he was so far in the closet, he was in danger of becoming a garment bag.

5. For you 12 steppers out there, Foley went into rehab 24 hours ago and has apparently done his 4th step already.

6. Tom Reynolds, head of the Republican Congressional campaign, held a press conference today surrounded by small children. When the reporters asked him to clear the stage so they could ask some adult questions, he refused to do so.

7. I can't make this shit up.

8. For the many who wish Bushco was going to be derailed for their other crimes against humanity, be glad we are going to win at all. Sometimes we just have to get to finish line first. Then we dance.

9. Foley was molested as a child by a priest. See? There is that Catholic/Republican connection again.

10. Alcoholism is never an excuse to harm others. It's not an excuse, period.

Nice

I can't stand it. ABC has uncovered more. Seems Mr Foley left the House floor during a vote on the war to go have internet sex. Nice to see such focused leadership.

Monday, Monday

Yeah I have had it for today with the Congress, particularly closet case Mark Foley. And Dennis Hastert. And John Boehner. OK, pretty much all of them. All the blogs on my side of the aisle are breathlessly sharing all the shit the former Congressman did, including driving 17 year old pages around DC in his BMW convertible. H/T to TPM Muckraker.

Can't resist this one, Rice may be cooked. According to the WaPo and Bob Woodward's new book, Condi was briefed by CIA head George Tenet about the possibility of an Al Qaeda attack back in July, 2001. She says it never happened. The 9/11 Commission says they didn't know about it and everyone else is pointing fingers saying someone else knew. Everyone except the idiot in chief, apparently.

The perfect storm is fast approaching and with it we could see the downfall of the Republicans. The skies in DC will open up again with sunshine. The evil pall that has been hanging over the district will lift. The people in fur coats will go back to wherever they came from, never to darken out shores again. Well I can hope anyway.

I am just wondering, too, if anyone else out there is feeling like the world is spinning out of control. Thousands of people are being killed weekly in Iraq. Yes, that would include counting Iraqis as well as Americans. The people in charge of the country are either too power hungry or too stupid to care about young people entrusted in their care. The poor continue to struggle, women's choices are becoming more limited every day. We LGBT citizens are no closer to our equal rights than we were 5 years ago. Immigrants continue to be treated as second class citizens and a suspect class of law breakers.

I continue to light my candles in hope of change for the better in the world. And maybe even a job.

Oct 1

So the birthday countdown has begun. I am one of the very lucky people to have a Halloween birthday. That's not so good during an election year, which seems to be every year because of the inability for people to party for my birthday. Since I don't drink, partying just means whip cream and chocolate cake. But getting folks to do anything fun has to be at the end of the election.

It is also a time of great sadness for me. My friend, Gary McMillin and I used to share the same birthday, same day, same year. October 31, 1954. He died of AIDS in 2001. I never got a chance to say goodbye.

I hope to be able to write more about him as the month progresses but sometimes I am so overwhelmed with sadness I am almost paralyzed. So I will try in bits and pieces to describe what a jewel he was in my life. And to see if I can describe the profound loss that AIDS has inflicted on me.