new

old

write me

d*land

recent experiments:

shock and awe indeed. - 2:26 PM , Friday, Sept. 02, 2005

I grow old, but I prefer my trousers unrolled. - 9:30 AM , Monday, Aug. 22, 2005

it's all about the iPod - 10:00 AM , Thursday, Aug. 11, 2005

uncountable in showers of crimson rubies - 4:43 PM , Monday, Jul. 18, 2005

and I know it aches, and your heart it breaks... - 1:12 PM , Friday, Jul. 08, 2005

if you're this close, introduce yourself.

or, leave me a note.

shock and awe indeed.

Friday, Sept. 02, 2005 ... 2:26 PM

Now Playing:


*~*

I wrote the following paragraphs three days ago, and since then a lot has happened ( for one thing, Cindy Sheehan now says she's very grateful that the president never met with her. *eyeroll*)

I'm not sure what my point is in saying this except, well, a lot has happened, and just� wow.

*~*

Here's a question: why is the media making so much of the fact that the president flew over the Gulf Coast on his way back to Washington? I am not impressed. Sure, he cut (2 days of) his (month-long) vacation to come home and oversee relief efforts, but with the technology we have today, he could have done most of it from Texas anyway, so it's nothing but a token gesture. And he had the pilot of his luxury private jet fly over the area so that he could witness the devastation from his fully reclining leather seat. This man, despite his ability to make people believe that he's just regular folk, has lived his entire life in the lap of luxury, gone to Ivy league schools and vacationed at the family compound in costal Maine. He has absolutely no concept of real human suffering. [1] I just can't bring myself to believe that he cares any more than the rest of the country does.

*~*

The prez is not the only one I am disgusted with these days. Until a few days ago, I totally supported what Cindy Sheehan was doing in Texas. Then I heard her interviewed on Talk of the Nation. First I heard her talking about her son and how great he was. She explained that he'd joined the army essentially because "he was lied to," but wouldn't say what that meant, really. I also thought it was kind of odd that this perfect son of hers joined the Army without even talking to his parents about it. Still, I thought, "you go, Cindy." Then Neil Conan asked about the previous meeting she'd had with Bush�apparently some time ago, she met him as part of a group of people who'd lost sons or daughters in the war. Conan asked what Bush had said to her then, and instead of answering, she sighed and said, "I've talked about that a lot �do we have to talk about that? Do you have any questions about what's going on right now, or what we're going to do in the future?" Then she mumbled something to someone else and came back to say, "I have 2 minutes" to talk. She rattled off a couple of dismissive answers to the rest of his questions and then said she had to go. Thank you, buh-bye. Conan was understandably flustered as they'd apparently made plans with her to speak for a whole segment, and she flaked out and left after 5 minutes.

The worst part, I think, was her answer one of to the last questions asked: what she would say to Bush if he did agree to meet with her. "What was the noble cause he sent my son to die for, and why are our soldiers still fighting over there when we know this war was based on lies?"

Does she not realize that this guy has speechwriters? And that he's heard those same words eighty million times and has slick answers that would probably make even me break down and salute something. If you've got the ear of the president for 2 minutes, you'd better come at him hard and fast with something better than that! He has answers to those questions. You'd get nowhere with that. You'd get a pat on the head and a "poor, grieving mother." You'd get patronized yet again, and I'm starting to think you deserve it.

*~*

I wouldn't go so far as to say what some people are saying�that it's not really about her son, and she's doing this to further her own agenda. But I do think she's a bad, bad representative of this movement and I sort of wish she'd shut the hell up. If you listen to the TOTN segment past her part, you discover that other people's interactions with her have been just as flaky and erratic.

*~*

So basically, I have nothing good to say today.

*~*

[1] nor do I, but I did not ask a nation to entrust me with their future based on how folksy and down-to-earth I am, either.