this is the part in the book not returned
where i'm going to come and save the day
did you miss me?
did you miss me?
yes, i'm back!
and kenny, an old friend, 'double dog' dared me to start with courtney love's 'hero' (off her america's sweetheart cd -- put in so kat and c.i. don't rag my ass over leaving that out).
well what's what guys and gals?
is elaine not the total bomb? did she not blow you away? i knew she would.
she did an amazing job so give it up for my girl Lanie!
i'm doing my best to get her off her lazy ass and doing her own site.
when i got back yesterday, i read some of the e-mails and 1 of the funniest was from a guy who felt that elaine and i couldn't be friends because we're so damn different.
well mr. know it all, you're right, we aren't friends. we're best friends.
and we're not all that different but whatever.
elaine's the coolest and she has a standing invite to blog here whenever she feels the need. (but mike, i am really pushing her to do her own site.)
let me blow mike's upcoming exclusive interview by explaining that elaine doesn't think she has the time to blog every day. that's her big concern guys. she's not talking 7 days a week, she means monday through friday.
so let her know that's not a problem. and that it's no big deal if she does a long entry or just a paragraph when she writes.
i'm back and you can write her care of sexandpoliticsandscreeds@yahoo.com or you can write her care of common_ills@yahoo.com and she'll get it. (or if you wrote while i was on vacation, you do have her personal e-mail address because she wrote everyone back so use that.) i told her we need more voices (yeah, i stole from c.i.).
at the party today, i followed a suggestion mike made on the phone last night and made sure the tv was on when democracy now! was on. there was a lot of discussion about the show so hopefully we made some converts today.
what did i do on my break? i lay by the beach, i drank fruit drinks (with and without alcohol), i got a great tan, i did some deep thinking, i followed the news through this incredible community that we are all apart of by checking the common ills, mikey likes it!, thomas friedman is a great man, kat's korner and the third estate sunday review. (i also checked cedric's site but i have news on that at the end so hold on there.)
sometimes, if i saw something that i needed more on from democracy now! on one of the sites, i'd go there and listen. i couldn't watch because there was a streaming problem that was probably my laptop.
and knuckle heads, it wasn't like i was gone the whole time. elaine posted a message from me and passed on things, i participated in a roundtable at the common ills, and i helped out the third estate sunday review. so to tommy who feels i just blew off the 'entire summer,' i wish!
did you catch 'nyt: what can the times do about todd s. purdum's smelly jock strap?'? elaine saw that 1st. i was checking the crab cakes and making sure everything was ready when she hollers for me to come over to the computer. we howled until our eyes were running. it's hilarious.
i'm working my way through all the e-mails so give me time. i will note what i already had here thanks to elaine posting it: the wrong men are wearing speedos. if you got a jelly belly that hangs over, speedos are not the look, guys. if you look as though your testicles have not yet descended, speedos are not the look.
don't they have mirrors in the changing rooms? in the women's stores you can't avoid those mirrors. maybe they make you were your underwear underneath while you're trying them on and some how boxer legs flying out of the speedo leg holes confuses you?
here's my advice, if you don't have a 6 pack or a might impressive package 1, then you're better off choosing another swim suit. here's my other beef: bicycle shorts, though sexy, are not swim wear. but i prefer them to the thing 1 guy was wearing that resmembled the head to foot nonsense so many guys at the summer olympics wore.
i'm really not into rubber. some people are. if you're dressing for your partner or mate and she or he likes your outfit (even a speedo you can't carry off) continue to do so. but if you're unattached, you might want to put a little more thought into your outfit.
i was hit on repeatedly and the first guys i eliminated were the 1s who didn't know how to dress on the beach. it's 1 piece of clothing. if you can't figure what 1 piece of clothing you should wear, how are we ever going to go out to eat?
i'm not 1 of those women who has time to take on a man as a project. i don't play mommy and pick your clothes for you. if you're that lost, and don't have the magnetism to pull it off as your own personal style, i don't have the time. so think about that the next time you rush into target or whever on your way to the beach to grab a swim suit.
i'm not saying you can't find something that suits you at target. you probably can. but it's not going to be the 1st thing you pull off the racks. put a little thought into it.
here's another tip. the ocean, though water based, is not a bath tub. it does not take the place of a morning shower. more importantly, since you're not carrying a bar of soap into the ocean with you, it only dampens your smell, it does not remove it. there was 1 guy who was about four years younger than me who hit on me every day for a week. and every day you could tell he showed up at the beach after tumbling out of bed after a hard night of partying. you could tell that by looking at him, you could tell that by the smell wafting from him. he was a good looking guy. (he was from england, not france before someone goes stereotypical and assumes it was a french guy.) booze, b.o. and cigarette smoke wafted from him.
not only did he mistake the ocean for a bath tub, he also twice asked me to put suntan lotion on him. suntan lotion on top of his stink. (i passed.)
so that's my next tip. before you go to a pool or the ocean, take a shower.
i have tips a plenty actually. when a woman tells you she's reading a book, she's reading a book. you've not interested her enough for her to put the book down. but these two men (americans) both thought that asking me 'what's the book about?' was some how the magic line. (i told them for 50 bucks i'd type them up a report and hand it to them tomorrow.)
here's a tip for the women. don't accept drinks from guys you aren't interested in. there was this woman from ohio who was so angry that a guy would not go away and she'd accepted 3 drinks from him 1 afternoon.
i don't buy into the nonsense of you buy me dinner, i put out. but i do think if you're accepting drinks, you are saying you are open to conversation. if you're not, send the drink back.
here's another tip for women. asking another women you've never met if 'those are real?' doesn't begin a beautiful friendship. 4 different women asked me 4 different times were 'they' real? yes, they are. but just as i expect a guy to look me in the eyes when he's talking to me, i expect a woman to open with hello, possibly throw in some chit-chat, before asking if 'they' are real.
here's another tip for women, that might help them avoid asking that question, if i'm flat on my back and my boobs are still in the same position, they would be fake. that's the thing about implants.
i think i'm out of tips so i'll just note the incredible editorial that the third estate sunday review did. i would've loved to have helped them this weekend but i was in the air during at least part of their session.
"Editorial: Let's play politics"
Like a really bad road company Rizzo, forgetting her blocking and stumbling around stage, Bully Boy spent most of last week singing "There Are Worse Things I Could Do" repeatedly and hitting the same three sour notes constantly.
As Lucy Bannerman notes in The Scotland Herald, "Bush pleads 'don't play politics' as blame lands at Washington." Bully Boy pleads it and a whiner calling into C-Span's Washington Journal all but spat at The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel of "being 90% negative." Ironically, vanden Heuvel had taken the high road (and remained on it).
We won't high road it here. It is playing politics? Is the truth political?
The truth is very political in any period but especially in a time when "up" is called "down," when fiction is passed off as reality.
How do you play the truth game in these distorted times? We'll do it by spitting out the obvious, Bully Boy is no leader. He can marshall the usual subjects to chant "we have to pull together!!!"
Those who see him as King George are more than happy to be loyal subjects.
Us, we've never forgotten that he's supposed to be working for us. And we'll pull together -- behind the truth. We won't, however, (to paraphrase Susan Sontag) all be stupid together.
What we saw last week was a national disaster hit New Orleans. And, just like on 9/11, the nation was left to await the Bully Boy's actions. And wait and wait. No one expected that he'd grab a shovel and dig in, please that family doesn't work (well, dirty work . . .) But we did expect that the former cheerleader would grab the pom-poms in some attempt to comfort the nation.
Didn't happen. We waited. We waited. And saw the dull witted Bully Boy respond in slow mo yet again. Which, by the way, is why we were never surprised to learn about the years of planning that went into the invasion of Iraq.
So truth telling involves stating the obvious, while the nation was in shock, while Americans were in disbelief that their own citizens could be referred to as "refugees." The nation's jaw dropped further as footage from New Orleans dominated the news cycles.
Truth telling involves faulting him for his lack of response to the nation and to the areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Unlike Bill Clinton, he does not feel your pain, nor is he concerned with it.
Also slow in response was our national agencies. FEMA was rightly noted for its disgraceful behavior by Terry Ebbert, head of emergency operations in New Orleans, and for its late to dinner appearance in Mississippi. FEMA's response was a disgrace. Homeland Security, the much ballyhooed agency created under the Bully Boy's watch wasn't any better. So who's responsible?
We realize that basic question is a "political" one. It always is. But especially when you're dealing with an administration that's refused accountability regardless of the situation. Lies that took us into war? "Didn't happen." Smears against those who told the truth (and in the case of Valerie Plame, the spouse of someone who told the truth)? "It wasn't us." And when it turns out that, yes, indeed it was them? "We can't comment due to the ongoing investigation." 9/11?"No one could have guessed . . ." Condi's statement is the fallback for everything apparently."No one could have guessed."
And here's where it gets especially ugly, this truth telling, because in the case of the devastation that followed Hurricane Katrina, it could have been guessed, in fact it was predicted.
Bully Boy's not responsible for the hurricane hitting the United States. He is responsible for the lack of preperation, for the slow response and for ignoring the needs of the areas hit throughout his previous term.
Playing "politics?" Isn't that what got us into our current crisis?
Politics, not the hurricane is at the root of the current crisis. Politics determined who headed the agencies that should have been responding immediately. Politics determined which monies went where and which priorities were recognized and which weren't. Politics determined that the Bully Boy yet again pushing his privatization of Social Security in a state not hit by the hurricane was more important than his demonstrating to the public that he was actually on the job.
A natural disaster (the hurricane) hit the United States. That's about the only issue in this tragedy that's nonpolitical. The ignoring of preparation, the misguided budget policies, the lack of leadership and the lack of response are all political issues.
The Bully Boy's not beyond playing politics (he excells especially in dirty politics) but watch the goon squad come out and try to hush the questions and try to distort the truth. Why? Because the emperor has no clothes. After 9/11, they were able to silence important questions. They can't do it this time. The nation has grown weary of the politics coming out of the White House and we're not in the mood to play follow the faltering leader.
It's time for some accountability and that's the ugly truth.
[This editorial was written by the following: The Third Estate Sunday Review's Ty, Jess, Dona, Jim and Ava, C.I. of The Common Ills, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Kat of Kat's Korner, Elaine substituting for Rebecca at Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude and Mike of Mikey Likes It!]
great job! i love it. i laughed (rizzo! i love grease!) and i nodded in agreement.
let me note this from the common ills:
Roberts has yet to be confirmed (hearings start tomorrow -- and as Ruth noted Saturday, they will be carried live on Pacifica radio). Only a Bully Boy would think that Roberts is entitled to be elevated to Supreme Court Justice when he's yet to serve on the Court. It's the sort of thinking that allows a weak governor of a state where the governor's of little importance to think he's got the know how to run the nation -- and haven't we all seen how that's turned out?
tomorrow begins the slow crawl of the senate spineless. what? you thought i'd say march? to march, you need to be upright and, for that, you need a spine.
now for the cedric news. for those who wonder why i didn't note his site above it's because he's moved cedric's big mix as of today. i'll put it in the blog roll. check it out.
