tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20798951131253752442024-03-19T02:05:19.398-07:00MOUSE MUSINGSNonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-62551162255458064122012-03-02T23:35:00.002-08:002012-03-02T23:47:29.553-08:00Miss Manners for Republicans<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVhAQNDZQaqsDUbK8w45GpqqYjkYpKDx59AI_s0veUq5L5H2ZRGum2AH3v-ep37kWfPGGS1vA_4hpRCNAMY5CAZVsGdDNB-3bR0sMDexmjcNH53QjgLc1zMlyu0nVJ5nx1xgETBzWRXiM/s1600/obama-brewerx-large.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVhAQNDZQaqsDUbK8w45GpqqYjkYpKDx59AI_s0veUq5L5H2ZRGum2AH3v-ep37kWfPGGS1vA_4hpRCNAMY5CAZVsGdDNB-3bR0sMDexmjcNH53QjgLc1zMlyu0nVJ5nx1xgETBzWRXiM/s320/obama-brewerx-large.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715571818971602850" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: 18pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; "></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#010101;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt; mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">(with sincere apologies to Judith Martin)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#010101;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt; mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#010101;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt; mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#010101;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt; mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#010101;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt; mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#010101;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt; mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#010101;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt; mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">D</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">EAR MISS MANNERS: I am a young woman in my early 20s, a law student at Georgetown University, and I recently testified on Capitol Hill after being denied the opportunity of appearing before a Senate Committee </span><a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/02/16/issa_s_first_panel_of_witnesses_on_contraception_hearings_included_no_women_.html"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">consisting only of men</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> from conservative religious organizations on the proposed contraceptive mandate. Because of this, </span><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/media/2012/02/29/435082/limbaugh-calls-student-denied-spot-at-contraception-hearing-a-slut/"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">a well-known conservative talk show host</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> has targeted me for public abuse, calling me a “slut” and a “prostitute” and demanding I make sex tapes so he can view them on-line. I’m stunned and outraged, what should I do?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">GENTLE READER: As Miss Manners understands it, the talk-show host in question is notorious for his disgraceful behaviour, and is openly enjoying the appalled reaction by civilized people as being </span><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/media/2012/03/01/435729/limbaugh-fluke-sex-tape/"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">“absolutely hilarious.” </span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> Such people are impervious to well-meaning attempts to impart good manners, nevermind instill any sense of humanity or decency. Your best course of action is to continue holding yourself to the standards of civil discourse, and conduct yourself with the same grace and dignity as you have been against misogynistic, vitriolic attacks.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; color:#010101;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ;mso-bidi-font-weight: bold">D</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">EAR MISS MANNERS: I am a Republican presidential candidate who has long been a supporter of a conservative talk show host who recently has been making public denunciations of a young law student who is becoming a champion for women’s health care rights. My demographics with women is flagging, and I’m actively </span><a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Woman-social-issues/2012/03/01/id/431113"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">trying to woo the little lady vote. </span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> But I don’t want to offend my good friend, the talk show host. I’ve said that he’s </span><a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/gop-presidential-primary/213895-santorum-calls-limbaughs-slut-comments-absurd"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">being absurd</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">, but that, you know... an entertainer can be absurd. He’s in a very different business than I am. Do you think this response is enough? <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">GENTLE READER: Miss Manners considers slandering a young woman in the most offensive way possible because your ideology is different from hers deserves a far stronger response than calling it “absurd” and following even that weak criticism with the excuse that the talk show host is an “entertainer” and thus somehow exempt from the same expectations of decent behaviour as the rest of us. Unfortunately, I think this reaction shows you are somewhat less than sincere about your disapproval of such egregious behaviour, and most well-bred and sensible women are intelligent enough to realise this. I’m afraid you may struggle in your attempts to persuade women to vote for you, given the lack of genuine ethics and character you continue to exhibit.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; color:#010101;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ;mso-bidi-font-weight: bold">D</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">EAR MISS MANNERS: I am also a Republican presidential candidate and supporter of the conservative talk show host who humiliated and slandered that young prostit...er... law student. Unlike my Republican Presidential opponents, I’ve chosen to remain above the fray, and have stayed </span><a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/02/romney-silent-to-cnn-on-limbaugh/"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">conspicuously silent, </span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">particularly since every time I open my mouth, my foot seems to reflexively get stuck between my teeth. But I’m being pressured by Democratic colleagues and even television journalists to speak out against my old, dear friend, and defend some sex-crazed slut I’ve never met and am never likely to meet, considering the vast abyss that exists between my own elite social group and the majority of the unwashed American hoi polloi I’m forced to pretend to empathise with. Is avoiding any further </span><a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/02/politics/romney-gaffes/index.html"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">embarrassing gaffes</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> and my “do no harm” strategy likely to help me win my bid to be the Republican challenger?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">GENTLE READER: Miss Manners has always regarded a “do no harm” attitude to be advisable, but in this particular case, I feel you aren’t so much doing no harm as you are doing nothing at all. Standing by and keeping one’s mouth shut while allowing a member of your social group to savagely abuse an innocent woman is not commendable behaviour, much as watching a thief mug someone in an back alley but doing nothing to help, not even call the police, is not admirable either. It is, in fact, at best a mark of cowardice and at worst a form of tacit approval, which does not bode well for anyone who is seriously considering running for the most important position in our great country. The absence of good manners is as serious a breach of etiquette as blatant bad manners, and shows a lack of judgment on a par with shoving the family dog into a kennel tied to the roof of your car. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">DEAR MISS MANNERS: I hold a senior position in the government, and am quite proud of my </span><a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/click/0711/Boehners_repeat_potty_mouth.html"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">reputation for being brusque</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">, telling my colleagues to “get your ass in line” whenever they disagree with me, or calling the financial rescue plan a “crap sandwich,” the climate bill a “pile of shit,” or letting the President know I was “pissed” he wouldn’t cave in to overhauling the tax code to my liking. I was seriously annoyed by a recent letter by House Democrats urging me to condemn some controversial comment made by my BFF, a conservative talk show host. I had to think about it for a good couple days before I decided to release a press statement through my spokeman saying that I believe the use of those words was inappropriate, as is trying to raise money off the situation. I didn’t even use any swear words, either. So isn’t that good enough? <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">GENTLE READER: Miss Manners is naturally not a big fan of profanity, and considers a recurrent potty-mouth to be juvenile behaviour unbecoming a leading member of Congress. But I’d like to address a much more serious failing than your chronic vulgarity; a condemnation of an offending party that then turns it into an attack those defending the injured party is not a condemnation at all. A mealy-mouthed, pathetically feeble reprimand followed on by a </span><a href="http://www.examiner.com/liberal-in-baltimore/speaker-s-spox-calls-limbaugh-remarks-inappropriate-however"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">hypocritical</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> accusation is not a quality required of a political leader. Perhaps you should consider another line of work where such boorishness is better suited. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’m the </span><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-01-26/brewer-obama-letter/52807280/1"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">governor of Arizona who officially greeted President Obama</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> at the airport and handed him a nice letter I wrote myself in my very best handwriting on fancy Executive Office stationery, explaining that while we fundamentally disagree on just about everything I’d like to show him the error of his ways by taking him on a tour of the border, and even said I’d pick up the tab for lunch while we talked about jobs and the economy. But then he brought up my book, in which I repeatedly took potshots at him, writing he publicly mocked our great state, lectured me about immigration reform and he was condescending and patronizing. He said that he didn’t feel I’d treated him cordially! How thin-skinned is that? So, y’know what I did? I told him, </span><a href="http://janpac.com/email/email.php?ID=9"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">“You have one more year!” </span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> He’s gonna be a one-term president if I’ve got anything to do with it. That uppity man needed to be reminded he’s not a king lording it over state governors, how dare he have the audacity to sue me and Arizona in my efforts to protect our country from brown peopl... er... illegal immigrants! Then some pesky photographer took a picture of me jabbing my finger in the President’s face while we were talking, before he just up and walked away from me in mid-sentence! Well, I would never have walked away from anyone having a conversation like that, it was just so disrespectful! And I even felt a bit threatened, because I mean, y’know how scary black folks get when they’re mad. Now he’s got the chutzpah to say it was no big deal, that it was all just a publicity stunt! How do I tell him this really hurt my feelings, and that he’s a mean, mean man?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">GENTLE READER: Miss Manners is somewhat at a loss. Although I agree that some startlingly impolite dialogue did occur, I think it would likely fall on deaf ears should I point out a gracious hostess does not stick fingers in the face of a guest, or that President Obama behaved with remarkable restraint, all things considered. But somehow I think the concerns you’ve described are beyond the purview of an etiquette expert. Perhaps you might want to seek out the services of a good psychiatrist? <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’m a </span><a href="http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/gop-rep-ill-personally-have-to-kill-some-senators-to-get-a-budget-passed-audio.php?ref=fpb"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">Republican Congressman from Oklahoma</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> who recently said that I’d like to hold a gun to the heads of my political opponents in the House and maybe kill a couple of them, even emphasising my comment by making a gun with my fingers in case anyone didn’t get what I was saying. I, like the Speaker of the House, used an intermediary and sent my spokeman to deliver an apology. He said I offered my sincere apologies to anyone I offended and for using a poor choice of words to make my point – which is that Senate Democrats are refusing to pass a budget while I’m feeling the pain of millions of Americans. But I’m still catching flak. Why won’t anyone accept my apology?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">GENTLE READER: Because it wasn’t a real apology! Miss Manners is deeply puzzled why that’s such a hard concept for some people to grasp. When Kansas House Speaker </span><a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/06/kansas-house-speaker-apologizes-for-calling-first-lady-mrs-yomama/"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">Mike O’Neal apologised</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> for comparing Michelle Obama to the Grinch, he said ‘to those I have offended, I am sorry, that was not my intent.’ <u>That is not an apology!</u> One apologises for having committed an offence, not for how it makes someone else feel! <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’m a chief judge in Montana who recently circulated a racist joke emailed from my official courthouse address to my friends and family, likening President Obama to a dog and deeply insulting to his late mother. I’ve sent apologies via a couple local newspapers, but I’m not really racist, just anti-Obama, and besides, it’s just politics. Hey, I’ve said I’m sorry, do I really deserve calls to step down? I mean, c’mon, it was funny, right? <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">GENTLE READER: You did <i>what?</i> </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Oh, for pete’s sake... Miss Manners will try yet again to explain</span><a href="http://www.chocolatecity.cc/2011/08/29/the-non-apology-apology/"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">, that wasn’t actually an apology. </span></a><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> An apology takes responsibility for the harm you’ve done, rather than trying to explain why it wasn’t really wrong, and deflecting the blame. Telling racist, misogynist jokes is the act of a racist misogynist, not a matter of “politics.” The President and his mother have done nothing, personally or politically, to deserve being ridiculed in such an offensive manner. Moreover, you’re a representative of the federal government, and as such have a duty to behave in a manner befitting a member of the court rather than a sniggering 15-year-old yob telling off-colour jokes to his bonehead friends. The utter lack of prudence, as well as overt disrespect for the office of the President of the United States, clearly demonstrates your lack of impartiality necessary to remain in a position with the power to pass legal or moral judgment on anyone else, if not at outright violation of federal codes of conduct for which you certainly should resign. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’m an unsuccessful GOP candidate for governor in Iowa and a Christian conservative leader who wrote a pledge promoting the sanctity of marriage vows and offered to endorse any Republican candidates who would sign it, as many did, including </span><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/oshadavidson/2011/07/08/michele-bachmann-salutes-the-upside-to-slavery/"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">Michelle Bachman</span></a><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ"> and </span><a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/11/gop-candidates-caught-in-slavery-controversy/"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">Rick Santorum</span></a><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">. But it took some flak over a section that claimed </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/conservative-marriage-pledge-group-apologizes-for-slavery-reference/2011/07/09/gIQANT3C6H_story.html"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">black people born into slavery</span></a><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ"> were more likely to be raised in a two-parent family than an African-American baby born after the election of Barack Obama. I had my spokesman from Family Leaders </span><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/58631.html"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">issue an apology</span></a><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">, saying we agree that the statement referencing children born into slavery can be “misconstrued”, which detracts from our much more important mission to declare marriage should be only between one man and one woman. We sincerely apologised for any negative feelings this caused. But them gosh-durned liberals and feminists and gay rights bunch are still complaining! Why are they being so stubborn?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">GENTLE READER: <i>Because it wasn’t a real apology!</i> <i>You</i> made a totally inappropriate statement, <i>they</i> didn’t “misconstrue” anything! It’s not a genuine apology if you’re not really sorry, and just keep right on... oh, never mind. Miss Manners knows when she’s flogging a dead horse. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">DEAR MISS MANNERS: Hello, again. It’s me, the Republican front-runner. I’ve been thinking about your advice on not denouncing my friend for saying mean things about some sex-crazed co-ed, and I’ve decided to come out strongly after all, speaking with passion and conviction from the heart, and said it’s </span><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/romney-on-rush-not-the-language-i-would-have-used/"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">not the language I would have used</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">, but I’d rather focus on, like, the issues and jobs and, y’know, other stuff. Will that work?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">GENTLE READER: No. Go away. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p></p>Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-50644963782826270082012-03-01T16:51:00.009-08:002012-03-01T17:15:02.614-08:00It's Time to Stop Rush Limbaugh<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiMtzNHnTblMI5qszpIhbTrcUHAyz4P1Gh7PNjRHexKT6fZlnU2wWRWbNWgJ55y7EYBNQsvK8C0uRcrfRoBNejejFQNvQgOdjgzdqT2ORVbyHX4qXKnKjvcW3eIVPKwoFsUO7KVWMGBXE/s1600/nohte1.gif" style="font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; "><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 316px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiMtzNHnTblMI5qszpIhbTrcUHAyz4P1Gh7PNjRHexKT6fZlnU2wWRWbNWgJ55y7EYBNQsvK8C0uRcrfRoBNejejFQNvQgOdjgzdqT2ORVbyHX4qXKnKjvcW3eIVPKwoFsUO7KVWMGBXE/s320/nohte1.gif" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715096168982488018" /></a><br /><div style="font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; "><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; "></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; "><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; "><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; "><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; font-size: 100%; "><span><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; font-size: 100%; "></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Rush Limbaugh has made his considerable fortune from espousing extreme rightwing views and attacking opponents with hate-filled, vitriolic rhetoric for years. A large portion of the American radio audience has long found it entertaining, although those numbers are starting to wane considerably. The nation’s <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/05/12/rush-limbaugh-and-right-wing-talk-radio-flame-out-as-listeners-tune-to-independents.html">first all-conservative talk radio station</a>, KVI in Seattle, switched back to its classic rock format shortly after the elections in 2010, after 17 years of supporting rightwing talk shows. An <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/rush-limbaugh-hannity-imus-radio-ratings-2011-5#ixzz1NNAfVgZM">Arbitron</a> report released less than a year ago showed rating for Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity had fallen sharply, down 33% and 28% respectively. Premiere Radio Networks, which syndicates both shows, expressed their lack of concern for the report, saying even with such a sharp drop Limbaugh and Hannity “continue to be No. 1 and No. 2.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Such unmitigated support has allowed Limbaugh to really pull out all the stops in recent days and release his inner psychotic, unleashing an attack on Sandra Fluke, who testified before Congress about the problem of women’s lack of access to contraceptions, that bordered on if not downright was legally slanderous, calling the Georgetown University Law School student a “slut” and a “prostitute.”.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Who bought your condoms in sixth grade?” Limbaugh said, “Who bought your contraceptive pills in high school?" Then he mocked her in much the same way he mocked <a href="http://youtu.be/xpFC9uziVhE">Michael J. Fox’s</a> battle with Parkinson’s disease, impersonating Fluke in baby voice and pretending to cry. “I'm going broke having sex. I need government to provide me condoms and contraception. It's not fair.” He then took it one disgusting step further, calling for Miss Fluke, “and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. We want you to post the videos online, so we can all watch.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">You only wish, you narrow-minded Oxycontin- popping pervert. This, from the guy who along with four of his best buddies, most of them from Fox, flew to the Dominican Republic for a “stag party” on a Gulfstream IV jet owned by Premiere Radio Networks, which syndicates his radio program, along with <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-1753947.html">29 100mg pills of Viagra</a> issued in someone else’s name. Methinks it’s not Georgetown law students who are abnormally obsessed with sex. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">His remarks have left genuine journalists such as Martin Bashir and Jonathan Capehart <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/01/martin-bashir-rush-limbaugh-sandra-fluke_n_1314569.html?ref=media.%20%20%20http:/www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/01/martin-bashir-rush-limbaugh-sandra-fluke_n_1314569.html?ref=media">speechless</a> with shock, and set off a backlash of anger from House Democrats, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Representative Carolyn Maloney (D – NY), and <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/201101200051">Judy Chu</a> (D – CA). Rush Limbaugh reacted to the outrage by finding the “conniption fit” of Democrats “absolutely hilarious,” enjoying the response he </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">generated much like a sadistic little boy enjoys pouring lighter fluid down an anthill and lighting it, laughing as the ants scurry around helplessly. If only Congress were more like a hornet’s nest, with some real sting to their disapproval. Th</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">e Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has drafted a sent a <a href="http://images.politico.com/global/2012/03/limbaugh_letter_-_030112.pdf">letter of protest</a> to Speaker John Boehner and circulated a petition, which you can find <a href="http://dccc.org/pages/denounce-rush">here</a>, demanding Republican leaders likewise condemn Limbaugh “repulsive attacks on women,” and for “Republican leaders to stand up and say they don’t want him to defend them anymore.” But while more than 75 Democratic House Members have so far signed a letter to House Speaker John Boehner on Thursday urging him to condemn Limbaugh’s remarks, there seems, however, to be a singular lack of signatures, and a deafening silence, from the Republican side of the House. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">But that’s what Limbaugh is counting on. The Republican’s tacit approval of his behaviour, as well as the not-so-silent encouragement from other rightwing media hacks, such as Megyn Kelly and Trace Gallager, who <a href="file:///C:/Users/Ory/Desktop/%3cobject%20width='320'%20height='240'%3e%3cparam%20name='movie'%20value='http:/cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/flash/pl59.swf'%3e%3c/param%3e%3cparam%20name='flashvars'%20value='config=http:/mediamatters.org/embed/cfg3?id=201202290020'%3e%3c/param%3e%3cparam%20name='allowscriptaccess'">yucked it up with glee</a> on Fox’s America Live, Gallager saying, “I was going to go to law school, but I thought all you did was study at law school... what’s going on at Georgetown, when do they study?” and Monica Crowley sneering, ‘Cry me a river,” at the steep financial burden of attending law school making it difficult to afford contraceptives. “Now the American people are supposed to be paying for someone to have sex?” Dana Loesch denounced anyone using contraceptives as “acting like nymphos. That’s what they act like.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">How astoundingly facile, and how outrageously spiteful, of these conservative talking heads to completely, and deliberately, ignore those women who need contraceptives for <a href="http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/Beyond-Birth-Control.pdf#page=4">other purposes than “recreational” sex</a>. Oral contraceptives are widely used to treat the symptoms of dysmenorrhea, severe menstrual pain, as well as excessive menstrual bleeding, or menorrhagia, which can lead to anaemia – something up to 40% of all adult women have experienced, with pain and bleeding acute enough to prevent a woman from attending school or going to work. I know this personally, because I was one of those 40%, prescribed oral contraceptives as a teenager for just this problem long before I became sexually active as an adult. It also had a beneficial side effect, which oral contraceptives are regularly used to treat, in reducing acne outbreaks, so severe before treatment that it left me with permanent scars on my face. It is also used in the treatment of hormone imbalances that can lead to excess hair growth, menstrual-related migraines, and pelvic pain from endometriosis and bleeding from uterine fibroids. In other words, oral contraceptives isn’t just for those “nymphos” and “sex-crazed co-eds” making imaginary sex tapes Rush Limbaugh dreams about getting his Viagra bolstered rocks off while watching. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Luckily, Limbaugh and the rest of the lock-step bimbos on Fox working as his own personal pep squad are picking on someone who has more grace, class and courage under fire than they’re used to. Sandra Fluke has already demonstrated amazing strength in testifying before Congress, and has <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/201203010017">released a statement</a> calling these personal attacks on her and on women in general “egregious” and declaring that those who speak out for comprehensive women’s health care “will not be silenced.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Nor should anyone who is sick and tired of these despicable tactics by rightwing extremists like Rush Limbaugh. It’s time we ants became hornets, and start stinging where it hurts them the most – in the pocketbook. It’s well past time to stop Rush Limbaugh. Time to tell Premiere Radio Networks and their owners, Clear Channel the shameful antics of Limbaugh and Hannity, like Glen Beck, are not beneficial to America. Contact them <a href="http://www.clearchannel.com/Corporate/PressRelease.aspx?PressReleaseID=1169&p=hidden">here</a>, tell them what you think of their support for bigotry and hatred being espoused by Rush Limbaugh. Tell those advertisers who pay for Limbaugh’s endorsement that you won’t be buying products from people who help promote this sort of intolerance against women. We can start with Carbonite, endorced by “El Rushbo”, and no stranger to dodgy business practices themselves, already caught using their employees to <a href="http://gigaom.com/apple/mozy-vs-carbonite-mac-backup-smackdown/">rig Amazon reviews</a>. Contact them <a href="http://www.carbonite.com/en/about/contact-us">here</a>. Give Apple a bite, tell them their Limbaugh app is full of worms. Contact them <a href="file:///C:/Users/Ory/Desktop/.%20%20http:/www.apple.com/contact/">here</a>. Tell <a href="http://www.proflowers.com/rush-limbaugh-codes.aspx">ProFlowers</a> their Limbaugh bouquets stink. Tell <a href="http://www.oreck.com/Customer-Service">Oreck Upright Vacuum Cleaners</a> their support of Limbaugh sucks. Tell the <a href="http://myafn.dodmedia.osd.mil/Email.aspx">American Forces Network</a> to give our men and women in uniform more respect and a better reason to defend their country than Limbaugh’s unpatriotic rantings. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Feel free to visit this <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boycott-Rush-Limbaughs-Sponsors-to-SHUT-HIM-DOWN/253645602134">Facebook page</a> and <a href="http://www.topplebush.com/boycott_rush.shtml">this website</a>, which has more companies to chose from, as well as contact details for the Chairman and CEO, the President and COO, and other executives at Clear Channel and other network affliations that support the Rush Limbaugh radio show. And if you don’t think this sort of thing works, why not send a note of thanks to those <a href="http://www.topplebush.com/boycott_rush_removed.shtml">companies who have chosen to withdraw their support</a>, like <a href="https://info.dominos.com/dominos_pizza/contact.nsf/frmContact?openform">Dominos Pizza,</a> and Ted Ward of <a href="mailto:tward@geico.com">Geico</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">We can get rid of this malicious chauvinist pervert. We just have to speak out loudly enough. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; font-size: 100%; "><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; font-size: 100%; "></p><p style="line-height: normal; font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; "></p></div>Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-12140696838578293902012-02-20T17:36:00.001-08:002012-02-20T22:48:16.667-08:00The Lamentable Demise of the Republican Party<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKyHjJLzU5j4uyZnF9x-k4oIuPk0yWGrzxDHs1Pn4hPd1KGiCkdezIhTvvZap1ZZdQwcAmVAWnmjDi0l5ohWvHYg8Lb9-Aq0vgpVxJmfeDVC0wUAHyFnkGo7KnJqIc6dRu5x5-C0rWa3k/s1600/republican-zombies-republican-zombies-political-poster-1290808412.jpg" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; "><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 226px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKyHjJLzU5j4uyZnF9x-k4oIuPk0yWGrzxDHs1Pn4hPd1KGiCkdezIhTvvZap1ZZdQwcAmVAWnmjDi0l5ohWvHYg8Lb9-Aq0vgpVxJmfeDVC0wUAHyFnkGo7KnJqIc6dRu5x5-C0rWa3k/s320/republican-zombies-republican-zombies-political-poster-1290808412.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5711397034165041202" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I enjoy reading <a href="http://www.theonion.com/">The Onion,</a> even more so when those it lampoons <a href="http://intoxination.net/jamie/rep-john-fleming-r-duhhhhh-pans-onion-news">don't get the joke</a>. But while satire is meant to be amusing, it quite often reflects a more serious state of affairs. A recent Onion post on a <a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-breeding-program-aimed-at-keeping-moderate-rep,27371/">captive breeding programme</a> designed to save the critically endangered moderate Republican had me laughing, before it had me thinking. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Because, actually... they’re right. The Republican Party truly is dying. For all intents and purposes, it’s already dead, the only impression of life being the lurching about of animated zombies eating their own brains, leaving the traditional mainstream moderate Republican conservative embarrassed and frustrated. The traditional mainstream moderate conservatives aren’t even in reality Republicans any longer, as the party itself has deteriorated from the rot of tea party fanaticism, and Koch Brother corruption, and the constant barrage Fox propaganda posing as journalism, and hate-filled blustering talk shows spewing hydrophobic nonsense, and the jaw-droppingly atrocious bunch of incompetent idiots posing as GOP Presidential candidates. All that is left of a once respectable political party is the name “Republican” for nostalgic conservatives to cling to. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Which is <u>so</u> not good for our country. </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">If disaffected Republicans ever managed to purge themselves of the zombies and the tea partiers and the Limbaughs and Fox and regrouped as something else, much like New Labour rebranded itself in the UK (although New Labour turned out to be just Tory Lite rather than any sort of improved Labour party), Democrats might finally have genuine opponents again - which would be both a bit scary and a bit hopeful. A nation runs best when there's an honourable opposition to keep the ruling party honest, regardless of what party is in power. An honourable opposition represents a very large proportion of the nation’s citizenship, and gives that citizenship a strong voice. An honourable opposition works harder at designing and proposing alternative ideas in the hope that the good they can do will garner them enough votes next go-round at the polls. I’d like to see an honourable opposition again. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">Right now, that just doesn't exist, and it's not good for either side. Right now, we have a Republican party usurped by loons and goons whose only goal is to </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">bring down President Obama, regardless of the cost to the country, regardless of the damage. Oh, they have a few other ulterior motives, like imposing an authoritarian religious regime on the country that would give hardline Sharia law a run for its money, revoking decades of progressive advancement and what little civil liberties we’ve got left after the Bush administration was through. But repairing our badly damaged and crumbling roads, our airports, bridges, dams, levees, schools, hospitals, national parks, our electrical and water grids? Creating badly needed jobs and strengthening an economy teetering on the edge of collapse? No, that’s not even a blip on their radar, too busy preaching tax cuts for the rich and “austerity” and “sacrifice” for everyone else, like a fat man telling someone dying of starvation the way to get better is to eat even less. And as a result, we have a Democratic Party gradually starting to lose its way as well, rife with DINOs and Blue Dogs and the incompetent or lazy or co-opted. Without an honourable opposition, we have very little with which to keep our party honest. We <u>need</u> a strong, healthy, honourable Republican Party to stay strong, healthy and honourable ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">The Republican Party was once a champion of civil rights, personal responsibility and a regulated government, and engendered people like Abraham Lincoln , Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. Today, Mitt Romney’s father would not recognise the Republican Party his son would like to head, Ronald Reagan’s son says his father would be furious with what the Republican party has become - a party utterly dominated by the rich, the religious fanatic, the psychotic, and the jingoistic bigot. The last remnants of the decent, honourable Old Time Republican party are either senile or dead, what’s left is vitriolic, mean-spirited and downright stupid. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">There is no Republican Party any longer. It has the name, but it long ago lost its mind before it lost its soul. And I, for one, truly do mourn its passing.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; "></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-48915179038119274922012-02-11T15:05:00.000-08:002012-02-12T12:26:28.785-08:00When Parody Becomes Reality<a href="http://rlv.zcache.com/every_sperm_is_sacred_poster-r61acce7499534d9ebbba46a0429674a0_wxt_400.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="http://rlv.zcache.com/every_sperm_is_sacred_poster-r61acce7499534d9ebbba46a0429674a0_wxt_400.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><a href="http://crooksandliars.com/nonny-mouse/when-parody-becomes-reality-spilled-se#comments">cross-posted at C&L:</a> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">When the Republican dominated Virginia senate proposed a bill requiring women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion, one of their own finally had had enough. Sen. Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) </span><a href="http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/va-state-senator-stands-gender-equality-ant"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">attached an amendment</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> to the bill that would require men to have a rectal exam and cardiac stress test before being prescribed Viagra for erectile dysfunction. "We need some gender equality here."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">She didn't get it. While her amendment failed, the rest of the bill passed. Rush Limbaugh can be reassured Virginia will protect </span><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/27/national/main1753947.shtml"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">his God-given right to a stiffy</span></a><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height: 115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> while making sure the women of their fair state will be forced to pay for an unnecessary and expensive ultrasound and view images of the fetus before an abortion can be performed. This particularly cruel act proves yet again that Republicans consider women to be very little more than walking wombs without the same rights over their own bodies that men enjoy over theirs. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">But it started a trend. When Republican Senator Brian Crain of Tulsa, Oklahoma, introduced Bill SB 1433, otherwise known as the "Personhood" bill, seeking to legally define human life as beginning at conception, even before implantation in the womb, and offering more legal protection to a one-celled zygote than its fully grown adult mother, Democratic Senator Constance Johnson had had enough - she introduced an amendment declaring</span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/feb/09/spilled-semen-amendment-oklahoma-personhood-bill"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> every sperm must be likewise sacred</span></a><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">. "</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">Any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child."<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">"As a woman and a 31-year veteran of the legislative process in Oklahoma," she wrote, "I am increasingly offended by state law trends that solely focus on the female's role in the reproductive process. With Oklahoma's new, never-before-experienced Republican majority, we are seeing enactment of more and more measures that adversely affect women and their rights to access safe medical procedures when making reproductive healthcare decisions.<br /><!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br /><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">My action to amend the so-called 'Personhood' bill - SB 1433, introduced by Senator Brian Crain (Republican, Tulsa) – represents the culmination of my and many other Oklahomans' frustration regarding the ridiculousness of our reproductive policy initiatives in Oklahoma. I have received overwhelmingly positive responses from men and women in Oklahoma – and worldwide. The Personhood bill would potentially allow governmental intrusion into families' personal lives by policing what happens to a woman's eggs without any similar thought to what happens to a man's sperm.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">My amendment seeks to draw attention to the absurdity, duplicity and lack of balance inherent in the policies of this state in regard to women. Oklahoma already incarcerates more women than any other place in the world. Under the latest provisions, a woman in Oklahoma may now face additional criminal charges and potential incarceration for biological functions that produce or, in some cases, destroy eggs or embryos, such as a miscarriage. In vitro fertilization, involving the fertilization outside the womb for implantation into the womb, would also potentially represent a violation of the proposed Personhood statute.<br /><br />Finally, this amendment seeks to draw humorous attention to the hypocrisy and inconsistency of this proposal – from the Republican perspective of down-sized government and less government intrusion into people's private affairs. Despite the great challenges our state faces, it is far more important that we address issues such as affordable healthcare to help improve our state's ranking of 48th in health status; to create good, secure jobs that grow our economy; and ensure that all citizens have access to quality, affordable education."<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">Nor was the outrage felt only by women - in solidarity with his colleague, Democrat Jim Wilson proposed an additional amendment to the bill that would make the </span><a href="http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=336&articleid=20120207_16_A5_OKLAHO862914"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">father of an unborn child financially responsible</span></a><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ"> for its mother's health care, housing, transportation and nourishment while she is pregnant. Unsurprisingly, Wilson's amendment also failed in a Republican dominated Senate. While Oklahoma Republicans seek to control women's bodies, they hypocritically also wish to excuse men from any responsibility whatsoever for their contribution to the creation of an unborn child. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">Thankfully, a similar bill to the Oklahoma "Personhood" 1433 bill was defeated at the polls in Mississippi last November. But this insidious movement, supported by almost every Republican Presidential candidate, aims to overthrow the 1973 Roe vs Wade ruling, the Supreme Court decision legalizing a woman's right to chose a safe medical abortion, and is gaining momentum with nearly every single Republican presidential candidate signing on to the so-called "Personhood Pledge" vowing to make abortion illegal, for any reason whatsoever.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">Rightwing Republicans do not give a damn about women, not their human rights, not their bodies, not their health or welfare. We're just biological incubators to them. Nor do they really care about the unborn, either - once that blastocystic blob of cells with all the rights under the 14th amendment becomes an actual living, breathing baby, it's on its own, in a country with the </span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22191192"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language:EN-NZ">worst infant mortality and poverty levels</span></a><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ"> in the western world. So while it is nice to see politicians like </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Janet Howell, Constance Johnson and Jim Wilson finding creative ways to highlight Republican dishonesty and push back against the misogynistic and even misanthropic power-hungry hypocrites in the Republican party, it's going to take a lot more than amusing amendments to truly malicious bills to stop the rightwing from turning back the clock even further than they've already managed to do. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-16127285943956646842012-01-23T16:50:00.000-08:002012-01-25T13:55:48.005-08:00The (Sur)real Cupcake War<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwBURUn3Wp8NppIkz061aoiaFeFpvcwcBpnDusfwaEcyR5Lni8ZAwyZ8j4WR4xirca_3RsSYaIYGKWrY9prUdQqN6sixlXL65UTw5A5ovyfVmXb-DYiPJpTJbrFdT7WAZdz9rnoMnNNNQ/s1600/Cupcakes.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 245px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwBURUn3Wp8NppIkz061aoiaFeFpvcwcBpnDusfwaEcyR5Lni8ZAwyZ8j4WR4xirca_3RsSYaIYGKWrY9prUdQqN6sixlXL65UTw5A5ovyfVmXb-DYiPJpTJbrFdT7WAZdz9rnoMnNNNQ/s320/Cupcakes.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5700997654594681122" /></a>cross-posted at<a href="http://crooksandliars.com/nonny-mouse/surreal-cupcake-war#comments"> C&L</a><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">By now, the story of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.wmbfnews.com/story/16500382/mass-woman-disputes-tsa-portrayal-of-her-cupcake"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Rebecca Hains's frosted cupcake confiscated</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "> </span></span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">by an overly zealous (or possibly just hungry) TSA Security Officer at a Los Vegas airport has gone viral, leading to a</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iebqnpUFwQA"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">satirical song</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">, and the sudden burst in popularity</span><a href="http://www.wickedgoodcupcakes.com/shop/wicked-good-to-go.aspx"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">at the bakery</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "> </span></span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">which creates this 'traditional style red velvet cake with Madagascar Bourbon vanilla cream cheese buttercream frosting' cupcake in a jar, now redubbed the National (Security) Velvet Cupcake (with the packaging redesigned to make it safe for air travel). Possibly the only dangerous thing about this cupcake is what it might do to your cholesterol levels.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">The rationale - if one can use that word here without sniggering - behind the confiscation of a cupcake is the Transportation Security Administration's rule enforcing the 3-ounce limit for gels in carry-on luggage, ostensibly to prevent terrorists sneaking explosive aboard an airplane. But once we're finished with shaking our heads in disbelief and having a bit of a laugh... it might be advisable to look at this incident from a slightly more serious angle.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">The Transport Security Administration was created as part of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act sponsored by Republican Congressman Don 'Bridge to Nowhere' Young, signed into law barely a month after the 9/11 attacks, and transferred out of the US Department of Transportation and into the Department of Homeland Security itself in 2003. The<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.tsa.gov/who_we_are/mission.shtm"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">stated mission</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">of the Transport Security Administration is to protect 'the Nation's [sic] transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce.' Yet since its inception, the TSA has been the focus of one idiotic bungle after another, supposedly in the name of fighting terrorism, making freedom of movement for people and commerce far harder than it's ever been - for everyone, including politicians. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Rand Paul is hardly the first US politician to finally start objecting to the TSA's intrusive security searches, although he might be one of the most hypocritical, as he was on his way to Washington DC to </span><a href="http://www.care2.com/causes/rand-paul-detained-by-tsa-on-way-to-anti-abortion-march.html"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">speak at an anti-abortion March for Life rally</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">. Don't anyone dare even think about touching <i>his</i> body, but he has no problem with government telling women what they can and cannot do with <i>theirs</i>. Representative Sharon Cissna (D-Alaska) endured far more than what Mr Paul suffered, after refusing an 'enhanced' full-body pat-down last year after the TSA in Seattle decided her mastectomy and gel-filled prosthetic breast insert required further investigation, the second time<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/24/nation/la-na-tsa-screening-20110225-1"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Ms Cissna was subjected to a pat-down</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">. She took a ferry instead from Prince Rupert, BC to Juneau rather than fly, and had been a champion for the rights of travellers since. 'The freedom of travel should never come at the price of basic human dignity and pride,' she said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">So far, Congress's only idea of a solution is to pass the <a href="http://www.travelagentcentral.com/government-regulations/house-passes-apec-business-travel-card-legislation-31667">APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) Business Travel Card bill</a>, allowing security-vetted businessmen, politicians and other such more important people than the general public to use special designated immigration lanes to fast track their entry and exit at airports (currently only designated for flight crews) along with special visa exemptions as well But for the rest of us mere mortals, the </span>examples of TSA affronts to normal human dignity and pride are copious. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">How about the Kafkaesque incident of a confiscated knife... taken from the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.salon.com/2008/07/11/askthepilot283/"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">pilot of the airplane</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">, a small butterknife from a set of silverware he'd routinely carried in his flightdeck carry-on... issued<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>by the airline itself,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>the same silverware that accompanies meals on long-haul flights. It even had the airline's logo stamped on it.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Or how the TSA completely missed a fairly hefty four-inch knife locking Swiss Army knife in a passenger's backpack, too busy confiscating his potentially life-threatening unopened packet of</span><a href="http://consumerist.com/2007/08/tsa-confiscates-pudding-misses-knife.html"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Hunts Pudding Snack</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Or Jill Flipovic, travelling from New Jersey to Ireland, who discovered a note in her baggage left by the TSA agent who found a 'personal item' - the battery operated kind popular with ladies - which read, '</span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2053074/Jill-Flipovic-US-airport-TSA-staff-leave-lewd-note-sex-toy-bag.html"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Get your freak on girl'</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">No weapon is too small to consider potentially lethal, either, as British tourist Judy Powell found out when she tried to bring an 11-inch<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-131596/Disarmed-Airport-staff-seize-gun-toy-soldier.html#ixzz1k9044Yjt"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">GI Joe action doll</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">, a gift for her grandson, still in its unopened box through security at LAX. The TSA confiscated Joe's 2 inch plastic gun, and actually asked if there were any toy plastic grenades with the doll. Little George was not impressed, who declared his nana's explanation of events as 'silly.' Out of the mouths of babes.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">And then there's the Dallas hairdresser incensed by TSA security officers digging their fingers into her scalp,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/21/isis-brantley-dallas-woma_n_973787.html"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">searching her Afro for weapons</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">But far too many incidents are not quite as amusing. The frantic mother of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>17-year old Virginia Gibbs didn't find it very funny to have to drive from Jacksonville to Orlando to pick up her daughter after the girl was held as a security risk so long she missed her flight, all because the TSA took exception to Virginia's leather handbag with<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/02/travel/air-passenger-gun-purse/index.html?hpt=tr_c2"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">an embroidered handgun</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "> </span></span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">on it as decoration, a handbag the girl had carried through the airport several times before without incident.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Nor was the 88-year-old great-grandmother of seven amused when two TSA agents demanded to know what the suspicious bulge in her trousers was - and told to drop her jogging pants to show them<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/now-grandmas-strip-searched-jfk/story?id=15095796#.TxyHDG-skz4"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">her colostomy bag</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "> </span></span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">. Or the 66-year old diabetic strip searched after the insulin pump on one leg and the glucose monitor on the other set off the metal detector. Or the woman forced to pull down both her slacks and underwear after she asked to forgo the full-body scan out of concern it would interfere with her heart defibrillator. Or the former bladder cancer patient soaked in his own urine when a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://news.travel.aol.com/2011/07/25/thomas-sawyer-cancer-survivor-gets-soaked-by-his-own-urine-aga/"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">TSA agent burst his urostomy bag</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "> </span></span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">during a pat-down - not once, but twice. Or the 95-year-old woman stricken with leukaemia<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2011-06-26/us/florida.tsa.incident_1_pat-down-tsa-pat-downs-tsa-officer?_s=PM:US"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">forcibly stripped</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "> </span></span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">of her 'suspiciously wet and firm' Depends adult diaper at a Florida airport, leaving her without a spare, or any other underwear, with which to travel.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Not too funny, is it?</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">There's the couple with a 10-month old baby travelling in winter between two cities notorious for weather delays who brought extra baby food, just in case, only to be told<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/business/19road.html?ex=1361163600&en=bbd87517757c17d5&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">they'd brought too much</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">. The TSA confiscated a jar of potentially lethal prunes, one of hazardous mashed bananas, and a bottle of suspicious baby formula. To bring that much food on board, they would need a doctor's note. Both parents<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>are</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>doctors.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Of course,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.nowpublic.com/nightmare_at_reagan_national_airport_a_security_story_to_end_all_security_stories"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Monica Emmerson</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "> </span></span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">had to do them one better; her 19-month-old toddler's sippy cup was confiscated by the TSA at Ronald Reagan Airport because it contained... water. To prove it was only water, Ms Emmerson offered to drink from the sippy cup herself, and spilled it. TSA security officers demanded she clean up the mess, which she did on hands and knees, and threatened her with arrest, mostly for 'disrespecting' the officers, and held her so long she missed her flight. The kicker? Monica Emmerson is a former law enforcement officer herself with the US Secret Service.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">How about 14-year-old Elliot Gosko, who was<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=314c0b59-1375-485e-b68d-98623fdcc123"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">forced to drink pond water</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "> </span></span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">he was carrying for a school science experiment, who unsurprisingly became quite ill afterwards - not to mention the possibility he could contract giardia in the next twenty years as a result, as those parasites are hard to diagnose in the early states.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white;vertical-align: baseline"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; ">Or the tired 57-year old Haitian who had just arrived at Kennedy airport and was looking for a cab, mistakenly opening an emergency exit... setting off alarms and sirens, which one assumes a real terrorist would have been keen to avoid. The entire terminal was evacuated for more than two hours while police swept the building with dogs and SWAT teams, stranding inbound planes and delaying departures for several hours.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-01-18/news/17945477_1_haitian-kennedy-airport-court-papers"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; ">Jules Bouloute</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; "> </span></span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; ">was arraigned on charges of first-degree criminal tampering and third degree criminal trespass, punishable by up to seven years in prison. For opening a door.</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white;vertical-align: baseline"><span><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white;vertical-align: baseline"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; ">Those are just the stories that are reported in the news. It doesn't take a very extensive search on the internet to find one anecdote after another on forums and in comments about the asinine treatment and confiscations being routinely done by the TSA. A group of tourists who had taken a tour of the Louisville Slugger factory, who were prevented from taking souvenir mini-baseball bats on board - so gave them away to a couple of National Guardsmen on security detail, bemused by what possible Punch and Judy hijack scenario the TSA imagined possible with teeny tiny baseball bats.</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">A woman with a three year old at Ronald Reagan airport, stuck on a plane for over an hour waiting to take off, who asked a flight attendant her child could go to the bathroom. She was told it was not allowed, and offered a blanket for the child to pee on instead, in her clothing, in front of other passengers. The girl refused and cried until the plane finally took off and she was allowed to use the restroom.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">A snowglobe given to a five-year-old as a Christmas present from her grandparents confiscated from the distraught child's backpack and thrown away, while the TSA scolded<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>the child</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>because it could be used to 'make a bomb.'</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">The frequent-flyer woman, concerned about the possible ramifications of radiation to her fertility, who refused to submit to the back-scatter x-ray machine and opted for the pat-down instead... and was shocked when the TSA officer pulled on the waistband of her pants to peer down into her clothing front and back - she won't be wearing a thong again to the airport.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">The passenger who'd forgotten to drink everything in his $15 drink bottle, and told by a TSA security officer that he couldn't just drink what was left and go through, but he could leave the security area, then drink the water, and return to the back of the line where he'd probably wait so long he'd miss his flight.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">One of our own staffers on C&L had her child's apple-scented hand lotion confiscated on a flight from California to New York, and her toothpaste confiscated on the way back. But the pepper spray keychain at the bottom of her handbag sailed through unnoticed.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">I could go on and on and on, and that's sort of the point. Just about anyone who flies in the States ends up being able to tell their own horror story with the TSA, some funny, some very much not so funny. TSA agents have been accused of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/18/tsa-10-years-old-none-the_n_1093289.html#s420116"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">sexually harassing passengers</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "> </span></span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">during invasive screening procedures, including<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1385207/Baby-bomb-threat-Outrage-toddler-given-frisking-TSA-agents.html"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">touching the genitals of children</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "> </span></span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">and forcing a woman to remove her nipple ring with a pair of pliers. Same-gender pat-downs are no guarantee against sexual molestation, and parents are finding it increasingly distasteful to have to chose between their families being digitally naked, irradiated, or<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLvgzrqF9eo"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">physically groped</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">. While I'm not a big fan of celebrity gossip, I also find it somewhat curious how many 'random' searches end up being on people like former<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/susie-castillo-tsa-pat-miss-usa-leads-youtube/story?id=13565765"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Miss Americas</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">, or the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/40554529/ns/today-entertainment/t/khloe-kardashian-says-tsa-screening-rape/#.TxyaQ2-skz4">Khardashian sisters</a>, or<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31749_162-20025011-10391698.html"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Donna d'Errico</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">, former Baywatch actress and Playboy pin-up, who when she asked why she, rather than her husband or son, had been selected to go through the full-body scan was told by the male TSA agent at LAX airport, 'because you caught my eye.' She noticed that the agent who pulled her out of line for the scan then smirking and whispering with two other TSA agents. How professional.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">The 'Terror Watch List' has more than a million names on it, many of them absurdly in error, such as the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17073-2004Aug19.html"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">late Senator Ted Kennedy</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">. Or<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12284855/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/no-fly-list-delays-marines-iraq-homecoming/"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Daniel Brown</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">, a Marine Staff sergeant, who found himself on the no-fly list when returning to the States from serving in Iraq, still in full uniform. Or<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2068957n"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Robert Johnson</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">, a former US Army lieutenant colonel who ran as a Democrat against Republican John McHugh. Or US Representative John Lewis (D-Ga), or Ozzie and Harriet actor David Nelson, or Jesselyn Radack, a former ethics advisor for the US DoJ, or even Nelson Mandela, of all people. Or, perhaps most absurdly of all,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2008-08-19/us/tsa.watch.list_1_terror-watch-list-airline-pilot-terrorist-screening-database?_s=PM:US"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">James Robinson</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">, a commercial airline pilot mistakenly on the no-fly list.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">As a result, in the past decade since the creation of the TSA, the public has increasingly become <i>less</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>safe than they were before, terrorists or no terrorists. Cornell University studies have shown that road fatalities have risen as a direct consequence of travellers preferring to drive long and tiring distances rather than risk unreasonable airport security. A 2007 study concluded this draconian airport security is costing the airline industry $1.1 billion a year as people are choosing not to fly if there are any other means available. TSA airport security is directly responsible for the decreasing numbers of tourists to the US, not just those who would come and visit the United States, but those - like myself - who quite deliberately book any necessary lay-overs in any other country than the States. Why fly via LAX, where I was kept standing for hours with fellow transit passengers flying from Heathrow to Auckland, in a sweltering corridor, without water, without seats, without being allowed to use the restroom, while TSA agents fingerprinted and photographed passengers who<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>weren't even disembarking in the United States</i>, when I can fly via Singapore instead, with an airport that caters to lay-over passengers with a swimming pool or a relaxing Chinese massage?</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">The TSA itself is quite aware the department and its security officers have become not only objects of ridicule, but despised and hated by the general public. A few do understand real security depends on the good will and cooperation of people being screened, and some progress is being made to counteract this 'security theatre' of the absurd.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">The TSA is now working to replace all 241 offensive millimetre-wave body scanning machines currently in use at 40 US airports that digitally strip search passengers with pornographic precision with<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.securityinfowatch.com/blog/10474441/the-tsa-finally-gets-something-right"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">stick-figure androgenous</span></a> <span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">representations of a generic human body still capable of detecting guns and knives, etc., by the end of 2012. It also probably doesn't help the reputation of body scanning machines that the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-airport-full-body-scanners-unreliable-germany/story?id=14428581#.TxyLF2-skz4"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">German government</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "> </span></span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">recently announced they are stopping the use of the machines due to far too many false alarms, as high as 49%, caused by nervous sweaty armpits. The machines are not only intrusive, they're practically useless.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has announced US passengers will soon see future travel that doesn't require<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/napolitanos-future-airline-passengers-shoes/story?id=14457655#.TxyJG2-skz4"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">removing their shoes</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">. 'We are moving towards an intelligence and risk-based approach to how we screen,' she said. Great - I can stop wearing flip-flops to the airport in winter, then.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">But while that's a good start, it's hardly enough. Given the TSA's incredibly poor record for its handling of searches, its notorious lapses in security, and its<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/19/eveningnews/main6500349.shtml"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">complete failure to catch a single terrorist</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">, this will be an uphill, if not impossible battle to win. While I'm not quite so gung-ho about<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/abolish-tsa-and-use-its-monstrous-budget-fund-more-sophisticated-less-intrusive-counter-terrorism/c7L94bFB"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">abolishing the TSA outright</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">, perhaps the department should scrap its current rulebook and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>start over from scratch, hopefully with a bit more common sense and civility applied to airline travel security.</span></span><o:p></o:p></p><p></p></div>Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-30441611823055486802011-12-25T20:10:00.000-08:002011-12-26T12:25:23.686-08:00A Clear and Present Danger: Tom Clancy and Occupy Xbox<a href="http://www.popularairsoft.com/files/images/rainbowsix_patriots_trailer_screencap.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 700px; height: 500px;" src="http://www.popularairsoft.com/files/images/rainbowsix_patriots_trailer_screencap.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white">(cross-posted at C&L)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white">Tom Clancy’s fiction has never really been my cup of tea, and his rightwing ideology even less so. Clancy, a gun-toting NRA member who <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/528810/posts">famously blamed 9/11 on left wing politicians</a>, has made a vast fortune writing military thrillers. But like a lot of rightwing military fans, Clancy never served in the military, enrolling at Loyola College at the height of the Vietnam War to earn a bachelor’s in English Literature before becoming an insurance broker. His wife of nearly thirty years divorced him after she discovered his affair with Katherine Huang, an assistant district attorney in New York he’d met on-line. He then married Alexandra Llewellyn, twenty years his junior and a cousin to Colin Powell who introduced them when Clancy was still married to his first wife while having an affair with his mistress. Charming.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white">His personal ethics are reflected in his fiction, not only by its literary content but by the questionable professional practices of its author. His novels gleefully espouse torture such as waterboarding and inducing heart attacks, where every liberal character is an idiot and a buffoon snorting cocaine, scarfing tofu, and determined to raise taxes on the wealthy (the bastards!), and all the conservative characters are heroic patriots with impeccable principles. Then again, Clancy can’t actually be considered a real writer anymore, since he’s far too busy milking his various cash cows to ever sit down at a keyboard. It might be because since 2002 and the release of <u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Red-Rabbit-Tom-Clancy/dp/0399148701">Red Rabbit</a> </u>the quality of his novels has greatly deteriorated. “If you haven’t read the new Jack Ryan novel yet, do yourself a favour. <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2002-09-24/entertainment/review.clancy_1_red-rabbit-character-jack-ryan?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ">Don’t</a>,” read one particularly acrid critic. The following year, his book, <u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Teeth-Tiger-Tom-Clancy/dp/039915079X">The Teeth of the Tiger</a></u> (where the so-called “good-guys” are an FBI agent who murders a suspect in cold blood, and his cousin, Jack Ryan Junior, a lacklustre foul-mouthed frat-boy with the intellectual acuity of roadkill) was likewise savaged in reviews; the Washington Post calling it a “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A40294-2003Sep7&notFound=true">bloated, boring, silly novel</a>” with “inane dialogue, gossamer characterizations, endless repetition and bumper-sticker politics.” </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white">Ouch. On the other hand, Putnam paid him a cool $50 million for the two new books, which I’m sure did much to assuage any bruising to the ego. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white">Even so, Clancy didn’t come out with another Jack Ryan novel until 2010, which he didn’t even write – instead, it was written by Grant Blackwood, with his two follow-up novels, <u>Against All Enemies</u> and <u>Locked On</u> written by Peter Telep and Mark Greaney, respectively. That the true authors’ names appear on the cover in squintingly teeny-tiny print dwarfed under Tom Clancy’s name in huge typeface is actually quite remarkable, since Clancy didn’t even previously acknowledge his novels were being ghostwritten by other people past a brief mention in the acknowledgments to their “invaluable contribution to the manuscript.” Raymond Benson and David Michaels wrote the first two books in his <u>Splinter Cell</u> franchise, for which Clancy received millions from his publishers. No idea how much Benson and Michaels got for their work-for-hire hackery. The only thing Tom Clancy has to write these days to ensure a bestseller is two words: his name.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white">Clancy has instead spent much of his creative energy (if that’s what you want to call it) working on producing video games based on his franchised universe. In 2008, software publisher <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2468769">Ubisoft bought his Red Storm</a> video game business in a mega-deal that has been estimated to be around $100 million dollars. Clancy is definitely a card-carrying member of the 1% club. Which makes his newest video game both morally repugnant and enormously hypocritical. The upcoming version of his long-running video game series, Rainbow Six, is a thinly disguised<span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; "> <a href="http://www.westernjournalism.com/new-clancy-video-game-captures-americas-rage/">revenge fantasy</a> against American bankers, but with a bizarre and loathsome twist. The terrorists are… Occupy Wall Street activists. In suits and ties, with shaved heads, and carrying Kalashnikovs. Yeah, right.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="background-color: white; ">In Ubisoft’s Press Release, Team Rainbow (good guys) face a new threat called True Patriots (bad guys), a “highly-trained, well-organized group of militias.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">The True Patriots are capitalizing on the growing sense of frustration and anger in a modern day America that they feel is irrevocably corrupted by greedy politicians and corporate special interests.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">Lead by a calculating figurehead named Tredway, this grassroots, homespun, terrorist organization will stop at nothing to overthrow the government and financial institutions to reclaim their country.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">Capturing the reality of modern-day terrorism, players will take on the role of a new Team Rainbow member as they face critical scenarios that will require them to make tough ethical decisions in order to stop this new breed of terrorists.”</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="background-color: white; ">Got that?</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">It's all about making “tough ethical decisions.”</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">Like this one:</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">In the video game’s trailer, Occupy Wall Street </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMz8PKe5RFU" style="background-color: white; ">operatives murder Wall Street fat cats</a><span style="background-color: white; ">, kicking down the office door of a banker who looks remarkably like Jamie Dimon, beating the crap out of him before strapping explosives to him and tossing him out the window of a New York skyscraper, detonating the bomb just as the banker smashes into the traffic many stories below.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="background-color: white; ">“This is for the jobs you’ve streamlined, the debts you collected,” the Occupy Wall Street baddies mutter. “This is for the homes you foreclosed on, the bailouts you took. You may not answer to the governments, but you will answer to us.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">We are the true patriots.”</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1pFFBUycSM&feature=related" style="background-color: white; ">A conceptual video</a><span style="background-color: white; "> released by Ubisoft to give potential punters an idea of what the game might be like to play (while containing no actual gameplay footage) is quite revolting enough.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">A banker about to enjoy a sexy birthday treat from his wife is interrupted by home invaders, Occupy Wall Street terrorists/True Patriots.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">One of them, threatening to field-dress the banker’s wife like a deer, and his baby too, tells the banker, “Very nice place you’ve got here.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">You really did cash in on everyone else getting foreclosed, didn’t you?”</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">The banker is strapped with an explosive belt and told to hold down the deadman switch or he’ll explode, then driven into the city toward Times Square. The terrorists and their victim are stopped on what looks like the Verrazano Bridge by the so-called good guys, one of which I gather is the player as the first-person shooter.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">The good guys kill the OWS terrorists as well as cold-bloodedly shooting a police officer (the moral justification apparently being you have to kill the cop who is about to shoot the suicide bomber/banker to prevent even more deaths) along with any other random civilians who happen to be in the way.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">When they finally reach the banker, realizing the Bomb Squad won’t arrive in time, they bodily pick up the banker who’s begging them to save his wife and baby and toss him into the river where he explodes.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">They do have the courtesy to apologise first, of course, being good guys.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="background-color: white; ">And this, it seems, is what is passing for moral ambiguity and complex ethical dilemmas in video games.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">Right-wing style.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="background-color: white; ">Don’t get me wrong, I play video games myself.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">I’m a long-time fan of Lara Croft, and up until recently played World of Warcraft for a bit of mindless relaxation and fun.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">Tomb Raider has its fair share of shoot-em-up storylines, but there’s also quite a lot of humour and puzzle-solving.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">World of Warcraft, up until the last few expansions bored the crap out of me, likewise was based largely on the concept of kill silly monsters and steal their stuff.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">But being a MMORPG, part of the attraction of the game was playing in teams and chatting with other players.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">I’m not sure how ethically challenged I might find killing a three headed giant wasp with a magic wand so I can bag myself a Dwarven Helm of the Twilight Moonpie, or some such imaginary treasure only useful in a make-believe world.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">Sure, I’m aware video games, particularly violent games, are designed to be addictive and too often create </span><a href="http://www.ethicapublishing.com/ethical/3CH12.pdf" style="background-color: white; ">harmful emotional arousal</a><span style="background-color: white; "> while decreasing self-control, inhibition and attention spans.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">But adventure games, strategic games, puzzle games can have positive effects, teaching logic and problem solving skills.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">Engineering.com is a favourite site for just such games, such as </span><a href="http://www.engineering.com/GamesPuzzles/CargoBridgeXmas.aspx" style="background-color: white; ">Cargo Bridge</a><span style="background-color: white; "> or </span><a href="http://www.engineering.com/GamesPuzzles/FaultLine.aspx" style="background-color: white; ">Fault Line</a><span style="background-color: white; ">.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">There are game designers with intelligence, a sense of fun, and a moral conscience.</span><span style="background-color: white; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; ">That doesn’t seem to be Ubisoft, however.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; ">Rainbow Six – Patriot pays scant lip-service in trying to qualify for any of these more beneficial results. It’s an unabashed blood-fest, with zero ethical content – worse, it’s blatantly morally depraved. I seriously doubt Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes could have imagined this in his wildest dreams back in 1919 when he insisted only a “clear and present danger” could justify Congressional interference with freedom of speech. </span>Clancy has gone a step beyond simple rightwing wingnuttery in his badly (largely ghost) written fiction. Rainbow Six – Patriot seeks to twist the reality of a peaceful protest movement, cynically subvert public perception of OWS activists from ordinary Americans exercising their constitutional right to dissent to a sinister fantasy where terrorists are increasingly defined anyone who threatens the status quo of the 1%, and tap into that latent ersatz bloodlust in violent video games to advocate this despicable and corrupt political agenda. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white">There’s not much to like about Tom Clancy. Or his fiction. But Rainbow Six – Patriot really scrapes the bottom of a morally bankrupt soul, and exposes at its black heart the greed, rage and inhumanity inherent in so much of the right-wing’s political perspective. Ubisoft doesn’t give a toss – like most profit-driven corporations, they’re just out to make money, and it doesn’t matter if that means casting innocent and well-meaning peaceful protesters as villains and encouraging players to murder them, at least on a video screen. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white">There is indeed a clear and present danger, and Tom Clancy and his warped video game couldn’t provide us with a better window into that right-wing mindset. </p>Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-44868881445542815312009-10-25T14:24:00.000-07:002009-10-27T00:03:36.451-07:00Dead Tired<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGwPztQovaTchnL2deK8BwPzg_L_AtR4-TUW2LgDNXaiSiMsz0XxNGBaKgJjqJFHxFyaKfRmvk7fvsg4ADfo5cVzwBwPG2CE8JmUJCyFkr-9hCvYICgWY-Uq2JporYhXQWQ37RcbU40r0/s1600-h/sleeping+pilot.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 283px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 197px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396652300310911522" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGwPztQovaTchnL2deK8BwPzg_L_AtR4-TUW2LgDNXaiSiMsz0XxNGBaKgJjqJFHxFyaKfRmvk7fvsg4ADfo5cVzwBwPG2CE8JmUJCyFkr-9hCvYICgWY-Uq2JporYhXQWQ37RcbU40r0/s320/sleeping+pilot.jpg" /></a><br /><div><em>cross-posted at C&L</em></div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Since the Bush administration’s legacy left the country suffering the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, <a href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm">the number of unemployed</a> has increased by 7.6 million to 15.1, and the official unemployment rate is just under 10%, For so many, just having a job – any crappy, horrible, badly-paid job – is better than no job at all. So few people are paying much attention to what is happening, and has been happening for quite some time, to those who are employed in what should be ‘good’ jobs; the increasing pressure on workers to work longer and harder, for less and less. <em>Or else</em>.<br /><br />But sometimes the ‘or else’ isn’t just about losing your job. Let’s face it; there are some jobs where chronic fatigue and burnout are more hazardous than others. Flying for an airline for one. A few days ago, Northwest Flight 188 from San Diego to Minneapolis overflew the airport by more than 150 miles, out of radio contact with air traffic controllers for 80 minutes. <em>Something</em> sure as hell went very wrong 37,000 feet in the air with 147 unsuspecting passengers sitting in the back seats, and speculation is running rife about how two experienced and highly qualified pilots could possibly fly past their destination without either noticing. The chatter on just about every airline pilot forum is the same – suspicion falling on the most likely reason – the pilots simply… fell asleep. Luckily, no one died, except possibly two pilots’ careers.<br /><br />Would be nice to think this was a one-off aberration. It’s not. A couple weeks ago, a Delta 767 with 195 passengers and crew <a href="http://www.ajc.com/news/delta-flight-lands-on-167519.html">landed in Atlanta on a taxiway</a> instead of the runway, and investigators suspect fatigue as a factor; the crew had flown 10 hours and was landing at night. The third pilot, doing a checkride, had become ill during the flight, and was being cared for in the cabin as the other two pilots, distracted and tired, landed the jet on the wrong strip of asphalt. Not exactly the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7uzzh07YOY">checkride</a> they were hoping for.<br /><br />Nor is it the first time a flight crew has fallen asleep at the controls. Both the pilot and co-pilot of a go! airline flight dozed off at 21,000 feet <a href="http://blogs.usatoday.com/sky/2008/02/go.html">while flying to Hilo</a> last year, with air traffic controllers trying to contact the plane for 25 minutes before the pilots woke up, realized they’d overshot the airport and were heading out to sea. Both pilots lost their jobs. Yet complaints of pilot fatigue is not new for go!’s parent company, Mesa Air in Phoenix. Dallas television station WFAA-TV reported as far back as 2006 that flight schedules were so tight pilots were exhausted, some even camping in their aircraft to catch a few hours of sleep.<br /><br />Last year, after a Shuttle America regional <a href="http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/04/21/223070/inquiry-cites-fatigue-in-shuttle-america-overrun-at.html">jet slid off the end of a snowy runway</a> in Cleveland, investigators cited the captain’s fatigue as a crucial factor. The National Transport Safety Board criticized the captain for not removing himself from duty, despite suffering from fatigue… but as we’ve read here before, <a href="http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/michael-moore-do-you-want-airline-pil">Michael Moore</a> was handed a letter sent to the F/O on his flight, the airline warning the pilot he’d taken three sick days in the past year, and had better not take another. <em>Or else</em>. It isn’t just financial need forcing pilots to fly past their physical limits, it’s their bosses.<br /><br />It seems the industry is still struggling with the lessons of <a href="http://www.eturbonews.com/10621/colgan-air-crash-pilots-complained-about-low-pay-sickness">Colgan Air Flight 3407</a>. 24-year-old co-pilot Rebecca Shaw had travelled all night as a passenger on FedEx planes from Seattle to Newark – she was so tired she complained of feeling ill, but with only earning $15,800 the year before, she couldn’t afford not to fly. Even while working as a pilot, she had moonlighted as a waitress in a Virgina coffee shop. The captain, Marvin Renslow, had napped on a sofa in the airport crew lounge before the flight. Both pilots were overtired, underpaid and unprepared for the weather conditions as the airline had considered the simulator training too expensive. Shaw, Renslow and 49 passengers died when the plane’s wings iced up and dropped them onto a house in Buffalo, New York.<br /><br />Would be nice to think this might just be a problem for pilots. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/10/controller.fatigue/index.html">It’s not</a>. In March, 2006, an air traffic controller in Chicago with only four hours sleep between shifts cleared two jets for take-off on the same runway. The pilots managed to spot each other in time. In 2004, an ATC in Los Angeles with only five hours of sleep between shifts did the same thing, with the plane on approach pulling up 12 seconds before it would have collided with one on the ground. In Denver, two weeks after 9/11, an ATC with less than two hours sleep between shifts cleared a Boeing 757 for take off… on a runway that had been closed for construction. Three months before, an ATC working his third shift in two days cleared two planes for the same runway, the pilot in the landing plane slamming on the brakes to avoid colliding with a jet crossing the runway. No one died.<br /><br />But it was only a matter of time. In 2006, a lone air traffic controller in Lexington, Kentucky with only a two-hour nap between shifts cleared Comair Flight 5191 for take-off. He wasn’t watching when it turned onto the wrong, fatally short, runway. In the dark, the pilot didn’t realize and crashed into trees, killing 49 people on board. ‘Controllers are absolutely more tired now than they have ever been, and it's because they are forced to work overtime,’ said Doug Church, spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. ‘This is an understaffed system, and the FAA is lying when they say it's not.’ Record numbers of ATCs are quitting, with the remainder making up staffing shortages. A <a href="http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/12/24/tired-overstressed-air-traffic-controllers-got-no-relief-in-2007/">GAO report cites ATC fatigue</a> as a major reason for the sharp increase in near catastrophic mistakes.<br /><br />It would be nice to think this is just a problem for the airlines. <a href="http://www.thefreelibrary.com/BUS+DRIVER+FATIGUE+GOES+UNCHECKED,+AUDIT+SAYS.-a079092836">It’s not</a>. MTA bus drivers are moonlighting with second jobs, working over the allowed 10 hours a day, getting traffic tickets without their employers finding out. Four drivers were involved in incidents on days they worked over 10 hours. Three drivers who held second jobs had avoidable crashes. And in April this year, <a href="http://www.ktvu.com/news/19095020/detail.html">a bus crash</a> in California’s Sierra Nevada killed one person and injured twenty-four, with investigators suspecting driver fatigue may have contributed to the fatal accident.<br /><br />It would be nice to think maybe it’s just the transport industry in general with the problem. <a href="http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/just+fatigue+stressed+doctors+mess/2024818/story.html">It’s not</a>. Doctors, unions and other medical experts have been urging hospitals to cut down on the compulsory hours for residents working at least 80 hours a week at most training hospitals, many 30 hours straight without a break. Doctors in training who fall asleep during surgery or while examining patients make four times more errors that cause deaths than their better-rested colleagues. ‘The evidence demonstrates that <a href="http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/12.14/99-fatigue.html">academic medicine is failing both doctors and patients</a> by routinely requiring exhausted doctors to work marathon shifts,’ says Charles Czeisler, Baldino Professor of Sleep Medicine. ‘The human brain simply does not perform reliably for 24 consecutive hours without sleep.’<br /><br />It’s <a href="http://www.musc.edu/catalyst/archive/2004/co7-16fighting.htm">not just doctors</a>. University of Pennsylvania researchers tracked 393 hospital nurses and found about 40 percent were working shifts on average in excess of 12 and a half hours, every nurse working at least 55 minutes longer than scheduled, and a third working overtime every single day over the four week study. Fatigue in nursing staff considerably raised the risk of dispensing the wrong medicine or the wrong dosage.<br /><br />But the crushing hours worked by doctors and nurses in hospitals is unlikely to change any time soon. A study commissioned by the Rand Corporation has claimed that giving new doctors enough rest to avoid chronic fatigue while they train <a href="http://www.acr.org/SecondaryMainMenuCategories/NewsPublications/FeaturedCategories/CurrentHealthCareNews/More/FightingDoctorFatigue.aspx.">would cost hospitals $1.6 billion dollars</a>, as extra personnel would have to be hired to fill in for them. It’s just not ‘cost-effective.’ Besides, says Dr. Teryl Nuckols, most errors don’t actually harm a patient. I guess she didn’t read the U.S. Institute of Medicine report in 1999 on between 48,000 and 98,000 Americans dying each year from preventable medical errors ranging from drug overdoses to nosocomial infections, due in large part to resident doctors exhausted and overwhelmed by long hours, mental fatigue and high levels of stress.<br /><br />Emergency dispatchers are also falling asleep on the job, the most notable public scrutiny falling on <a href="http://www.journal-news.com/news/crime/dispatcher-accused-of-sleeping-at-work-suspended-362291.html?cxtype=rss_local-news/">dispatcher Ron Kronenberger</a>, who answered a 911 call from Ryan Widmer, accused of killing his wife. In the 911 call, Kronenburger sounded as if he were groggy, at one point asking Widmer if he were his wife’s mother. The county’s investigation found Kronenberger habitually slept on duty, as did another Warren County dispatcher, Shawn Mason. People don’t normally sleep on the job because they’re lazy, or they’ve got nothing better to do. They fall asleep because they’re tired.<br /><br />And it’s a <a href="http://www.policeone.com/police-products/vehicles/articles/1678097-Police-driver-fatigue-Our-dirty-little-secret/">problem for the police</a>. A survey of police found 85 percent have inadvertently fallen asleep while on duty due to lack of sleep. The normal 8-hour shift is rare in any police force, most police officers working ten, eleven, even twelve hour shifts, often without a break. <a href="http://www.policeone.com/patrol-issues/articles/1672390">A sheriff’s deputy fell asleep at the wheel</a> during a 12 and a half hour shift, veered across a lane to run into and kill two bicyclists in Cupertino and severely injure a third. ‘Our cops are ticking time bombs for lack of sleep,’ says retired CHP captain Gordon Graham.<br /><br />And it’s a <a href="http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0530firesurvey0526.html?&wired">problem for firemen</a>. Fire Station No. 203 at Standage and University Drive is one of the busiest in the country, but like too many firestations have seen the city cut services as the budget tightens, firefighters stretched longer hours and doing more with fewer resources, leading to chronic fatigue. ‘When you get overstressed with your resources and are extended you are going to lose,’ Mesa fire Capt. Ralph Churchman said. ‘And in this business, it is lives.’<br /><br />And it’s a <a href="http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/10/navy_leanmanning_101909w/">problem for the military</a>. Recently, the Navy had a ship run aground because the captain had barely slept in days and the two qualified lookouts who were supposed to be with him were busy elsewhere helping out a woefully undermanned crew. Sailors are routinely standing a watch, then going to work, then standing another watch, with most junior officers getting only three to four hours of sleep a day.<br /><br />Actually, it’s a <a href="http://www.trconsultinggroup.com/safety/jan2002.html">problem for all of us. </a>Nearly 40 percent of all US workers are fatigued, costing billions of dollars in lost productivity. For U.S. employers, the overall cost for lost productivity due to fatigue is more than $136 billion per year, with 84% of that lost productivity not due to absenteeism, but simply reduced performance while at work. Employers squeezing more work out of their employees, and employees willing to work harder, for longer, and for less, have resulted in 70 million U.S. workers being clinically exhausted. The estimated cost of accidents where workers could not remain alert or awake ranged from $50 billion to over $100 billion annually. For some, the cost is more than money - in one incident, a worker fell asleep in a crane cab while working the third of three consecutive 13 hour shifts. When he woke up, he exited from the wrong side of the cab and fell 35 feet to his death.<br /><br />You’d think that business might understand that overly tired employees are hurting their bottom line. But times are tough, jobs are scarce, and big business is not in the business of seeing human beings as anything more than interchangeable cogs in a machine to be used and discarded at will. Worker protections hard-won by unions – minimum wages, maximum hours, health and safety on the job – have been systematically dismantled, from Reagan breaking the spirit of air traffic controllers in the 1970s to WalMart breaking the backs of workers not allowed to unionize today. So while I have the greatest sympathy for the growing number of those with no jobs, it’s possibly more critical that we recognize there’s a lethal cancer invading the vast majority of those who do have jobs, as the top 1% of the Have Mores wring more and more blood out of those Americans who actually make things and make things work. And that’s not just making us tired.<br /><br />It’s making us <em>dead</em> tired.<br /><br /><br /><em><span style="color:#ff0000;">Update:</span> The NTSB has issued an update on the investigation into Flight 188 that overflew the Minneapolis airport. The pilots were extensively interviewed, denying they had fallen asleep, or were involved in any altercation; instead, it appears both pilots were using personal laptops to discuss the new monthly crew flight scheduling system in effect as a result of the airline merger, and became so engrossed that they lost track of time. The use of personal</em> <em>computers on the flight deck is prohibited by company policy. The co-pilot, Richard Cole, has since made yet another error in judgement, attempting to downplay the incident as <a href="http://www.startribune.com/local/65913402.html">‘innocuous’.</a></em><em> Personally, I'd rather not be a passenger</em> <em>with pilots so busy trying to figure out a complicated company schedule that they forget they're actually flying a plane, which I think goes slightly beyond 'innocuous'; on the other hand, what sort of scheduling is so complicated it baffles even the people who have to use it? But any way you slice it, these guys are toast.</em> </div><div></div>Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-83773929477038601592009-07-18T18:05:00.000-07:002009-07-19T02:49:23.518-07:00Surviving Mom Jeans<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhArc8z75qKdRAGbEreOKX1fXyXeHxXPcFeCF3yI6CvW1484KDnRfyu2L7i-Wq9LQp78qK7wrRzsFTKluWUbNa5YXtp0gBgbUWP5rEkFufaccM8xM-3xYmYsdObFs0GDTFiAkUl8by_SoA/s1600-h/momjeans.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 300px; HEIGHT: 232px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5360058204982333010" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhArc8z75qKdRAGbEreOKX1fXyXeHxXPcFeCF3yI6CvW1484KDnRfyu2L7i-Wq9LQp78qK7wrRzsFTKluWUbNa5YXtp0gBgbUWP5rEkFufaccM8xM-3xYmYsdObFs0GDTFiAkUl8by_SoA/s320/momjeans.jpg" /></a><br /><div>Life is hard enough and the mainstream media has a lot to answer for in making it so much harder –financial ‘experts’ like <a href="http://watching-tv.ew.com/2009/03/jon-stewart-jim.html">Jim Cramer </a>spreading Wall Street rumours and urging viewers to buy Bear Stearns stock just before the investment bank collapsed, the <a href="http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332548165656854">Investor’s Business Daily’s</a> scare-mongering with false claims the health care reform bill would make private medical insurance ‘illegal’, Lou Dobbs and his incessantly <a href="http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/lou-dobbs-tonight-double-dose-birther-crazies">silly conspiracy theory </a>over Obama’s birth certificate, <a href="http://www.newshounds.us/2006/06/15/foxs_gibson_still_repeating_misinformation_valerie_plame_responsible_for_sending_husband_joe_wilson_to_niger.php">Hardball’s </a>collaboration with Karl Rove in the intentional misleading coverage of the Plame CIA leak, the non-stop maudlin eulogies for <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,530361,00.html">Michael Jackson </a>drowning out any other more boring news like, oh say, more soldiers killed in Afghanistan, Glen Beck’s <a href="http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907150016">high-pitched hysterical assault</a> on our (largely medically uninsured) eardrums, and now... </div><br /><div></div><div>… Mom Jeans. </div><br /><div></div><div>This is big news, according to Greg Gutfeld and the immaculately bleached and botoxed and blown-dry Laura Ingraham on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDw1tv79ncg">Fox’s O’Reilly Factor </a>as the first ‘dork’ President of the United States has appeared in public wearing Mom Jeans, bought with a gift certificate, apparently, from the now bankrupted Mervyn’s. Americans should be scared – <em>scared</em>, I tell ya – that the POTUS dresses like a band teacher. Greg Gutfeld barely cracks a smile as he warns us ‘this isn’t going to intimidate Putin’ and ‘our adversaries in Iran will not take [him] seriously,’ especially since he also throws a baseball ‘like a little girl’… all symbols of something ‘deeper and more sinister’…</div><br /><div></div><div>I kid you not. I wish I did. CNN’s <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/obamas-mom-jeans">Jeanne Moos </a>has also had a good laugh at the President’s expense as well, linking Mr Obama’s fashion faux pas to that other political heavyweight, Jessica Simpson, who was even shown being hounded by the media for her stylistic stumble. Moos brings on celebrity fashionista Robert Verdi (wearing horizontal orange striped shirt, wrinkled khaki chinos and a pair of oversized white rimmed sunglasses down low on his forehead) for an in-depth <em>queer eye for the straight guy</em> study of the President’s pants. ‘Too short, frumpy, two big tree trunk legs, terrible – they’re Mom Jeans, for sure.’</div><br /><div></div><div>All in good fun, right? Well… maybe not so much. </div><br /><div></div><div>Karl Frisch of Media Matters sure isn’t amused. ‘What is being brought to the table here?’ he asks. ‘Conversations about candidates’ names and cleavage? Or things that people actually care about, like health care and the war in Iraq? Funny or not, when Jeanne Moos does these types of fluff pieces, she is advancing these attacks, doing real damage. This is CNN, not Comedy Central.’</div><br /><div></div><div>It’s also a matter of <em>who</em> is yucking it up over the Barack O’Mama jeans to understand the <em>why</em>. The last time a fashion icon spit the dummy over a President’s lack of style, <a href="http://shoeblogs.com/2007/06/12/impeach-him/">Manolo </a>Blahnik called for Dubya to be impeached for the unforgivable High Crime of wearing crocs. (Check out this photo - why he didn’t mention these hideous baggy shorts, I have no idea, not being a fashionista myself). But that particular gaffe went nearly unnoticed…</div><br /><div></div><div>…at least in the official reality proscribed by FOX and like-minded conservatively slanted news organizations, who had their hands full on a daily basis just trying to manage the damage control for this poseur POTUS. </div><br /><div></div><div>Barack Obama epitomises the kind of class, intelligence, self-respect, and stately dignity that the White House has not seen in a very, <em>very</em> long time. The message always has more power when the messenger is seen to be trustworthy and honourable, which makes fighting the message a lot harder for those whose ideology can’t stand competition on a fair playing field. </div><br /><div></div><div>So the MSM – in order to undermine the message – undermines the messenger. Ridicules him. Mocks him. Yucks it up. Pokes some fun. Oh, c’mon, lighten up, it’s just for a little laugh, folks, nothing serious. Har, har. </div><br /><div></div><div>Really? Once upon a time, Joseph McCarthy was the most feared man in America. Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, along with a number of other political satirists, defied the House Committee on Un-American Activities with humour – dressing up as Santa Claus and Revolutionary War soldiers, blowing bubblegum, and openly mocking the committee. Zero Mostel before them had fired the first shot, defending his right to portray a butterfly at rest anywhere he chose and making the committee look foolish. It was in large part open mockery that defused the near absolute power of HUAC and led to Joe McCarthy’s eventual downfall and disgrace. The power of humour is still a force to be feared – Jon Stewart may arguable be the most influential political authority in the media today. </div><br /><div></div><div>It’s not just humour, however. <em>It’s the jeans</em>. It’s something MSM understands all too well – the insidious power of image over substance. There’s a reason so many female FOX anchors look like Ingraham clones, all those bleached blonde, botoxed, boob-jobbed, blow-dried, braindead bimboes. There’s a reason for so many programmes like <em>Make Me A Supermodel</em>, and <em>10 Years Younger</em>, and <em>Dr. 90210</em>, and <em>Extreme Makeover</em> promoting clothing and radical plastic surgery as the panacea to women’s (and even sometime men’s) self-esteem. There’s a reason magazines routinely Photoshop already stunning models into inhuman perfection and publish diets and advice for those desperate to fit into a size zero, something the French (who the MSM has told us repeatedly we are supposed to hate, remember) have <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-559881/France-makes-illegal-magazines-websites-encourage-anorexia.html">outlawed</a>. There’s a reason why producers can slap braces and a pair of funny glasses onto the drop dead gorgeous America Ferrara to instantly transform her into ‘ugly’. There’s a reason for the sharp rise in <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/HealthyWoman/story?id=808891&page=1">anorexia in women over 40</a> – it’s not just a teenage disease anymore – when faced with the constant barrage of ultra-skinny Callista Flockharts and Victoria Beckhams and Terri Hatchers.</div><br /><div></div><div>We have become a nation obsessed with image, and the MSM has profited quite handsomely from it; reality tv rules. It understands the huge power the media can exert over the fragile self-image of viewers who constantly compare themselves to what they see on television as being the ‘norm’ and grieve over falling so short – and rush out to buy the clothes, the make-up, the exercise machines, the drugs they see advertised between that testosterone oozing O’Reilly and Miss America’s Gretchen Carlson. It's a vicious money machine. </div><br /><div></div><div>It also understands the power of Mom Jeans. I’d never heard of Mom Jeans before Obama threw out a baseball while dressed in what looked to me like a perfectly acceptable pair of jeans, maybe a bit loose but then he’s got all that body armour underneath to worry about. But instantly – <em>instantly!</em> – I started worrying about… Mom Jeans. All my jeans are well over ten years old, and since for health reasons I’ve dropped 20 kilos over the last year and a half – down from 85 to 65 (that’s 187 lbs to 143 lbs, not exactly a size zero) – they’re even more baggy and comfortable than they were before. In an admittedly knee-jerk reaction, I scrambled for advice, <a href="http://www.focusonstyle.com/ageappropriatejeans">finding this website</a> to instruct me on how to wear jeans ‘appropriate’ for my age... </div><br /><div></div><div>...Yeah, right. If the model in that picture is my age, I’m bloody Angelina Jolie. I’ve come back down to Planet Reality again, thankfully, where I know most normal men of my acquaintance are completely baffled by this obsession over fashion and do not give a toss about my jeans… unless they’re gay. Which kinda defeats the purpose. </div><br /><div></div><div>Two weeks ago, I’d never heard of Mom Jeans, didn’t give a hoot if my jeans had nine-inch zippers and pleats or made my bum look flat. So why should I care if President Obama wears Mom Jeans? </div><br /><div></div><div>...Because if I can be so easily seduced into worrying about my own self-image, lured into that quagmire trap of disappointment and dejection, then maybe I can be suckered into believing Barack Obama is likewise not quite good enough as well. He’s not going to be one of those perfect people I only ever see on television with whom I compare myself. He’s going to be like me… aging… unattractive… ordinary and pedestrian. If I can be so easily convinced my hair, my make-up, my wrinkles, my weight, my jeans make me undesirable and unworthy, then maybe I can be convinced that Obama isn’t such hot stuff, either.</div><br /><div></div><div>But like quite a lot of what you see on MSM these days, this may just backfire. If Obama can survive Mom Jeans… </div><br /><div></div><div>...then so can I. </div>Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-37465024410460190222009-07-17T17:43:00.000-07:002009-07-17T22:19:04.702-07:00Smile When Your Heart Is Breaking… Yeah, Right.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_STEz4mPR2x_W8i2pYF-uI7Ci7Lu3VjiKQ0JhL2IGHJ-8_Pc6z5TdqWD_fDaswisZYOPyd8cKDSqsAtpZspn-c3wAb9ILRJlp58wVgjWBcvJkiiqMkJP5b-BnDiZZwzKAzwDm3LpseXw/s1600-h/childinTGD.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 300px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 247px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5359595434430913042" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_STEz4mPR2x_W8i2pYF-uI7Ci7Lu3VjiKQ0JhL2IGHJ-8_Pc6z5TdqWD_fDaswisZYOPyd8cKDSqsAtpZspn-c3wAb9ILRJlp58wVgjWBcvJkiiqMkJP5b-BnDiZZwzKAzwDm3LpseXw/s320/childinTGD.jpg" /></a><br /><div><br /><div>Whatever you want to call it - recession, depression, major economic clusterf*ck - there are very few people anywhere that haven’t been affected, and not in a good way. I’ve been writing and selling novels for over two decades, just had my seventh novel out last year. It’s been increasing tough for mid-list writers for quite some time, and I sold my seventh novel for about a third of the advance as I earned on my very first – to add insult to injury, I was told by my agent that I’m actually one of the ‘lucky’ writers – I’m still selling books when so many of my fellow novelists, all talented and seasoned professionals, have seen their careers disintegrate into oblivion. But this year, pitching a new novel to my agent and editors has been far harder than ever before, and I’m wondering if I’ve now joined the ranks of these erstwhile colleagues.<br /><br />My books have always been kinda dark. The current novel nearly completed is a black comedy about domestic violence. ‘Nobody wants dark books,’ my agent admonished me in our last conversation. ‘It’s not a good time for gloomy stories. People are struggling with their own lives, they don’t want to read about other people in the same sinking boat. Readers want to escape from their miserable existence right now – they want upbeat escapism and happy endings, they want fairytale historical romance, they want lightweight fluff to read on the beach – think you can write that?’<br /><br />‘Guess this means the murder mystery with the Neo-Nazi serial killer paedophile as a pharmaceutical lobbyist anti-hero is out of the question.’<br /><br />‘Quite.’<br /><br />This insistence on promulgating the ‘feel-good’ factor despite the realities of life seems to be endemic. Catchy little upbeat messages on over a <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/surviving-the-recession/news/article.cfm?c_id=1502812&objectid=10585189">thousand billboards </a>are popping up across the States, dubbed ‘Recession 101’, designed by Charles Robb, founder of Charchin Creative in Florida, on behalf of an anonymous East Coast ‘donor’ – although with Members of the Outdoor Advertising Agency of America donating the space, printing materials and labour needed for the campaign, what exactly the anonymous donor is paying for is unclear. </div><div><br />‘Interesting fact about recessions,’ says one billboard in Rhode Island. ‘They end.’<br /><br />My, how profound. Most things do. <em>Eventually</em>. It’s that ‘eventually’ that is killing us. So these billboards better have a long shelf life, because Rhode Island’s 12.1 per cent unemployment rate in May tied with South Carolina for third-highest in the country, behind only Michigan and Oregon.<br /><br />It’s also doubtful these cheery little Pollyanna proverbs are making that much of an impact. Gail Robnett, 53, from Exeter, said she did not know anyone unaffected by the recession. ‘You're not paying attention to stuff like that when you're trying to put groceries on the table.’<br /><br />‘Bill Gates started Microsoft in a recession’, another billboard reminds us.<br /><br />Which didn’t do much to cheer up 24-year-old Ryan Korsak, who works for a Providence software company. ‘I appreciate the sentiment,’ he said, ‘but I'm kind of not Bill Gates.’ Exactly. Not many of us are. Or have any hope of ever being – we’re not dreaming of becoming fabulously wealthy anymore; we’re just hoping to hang on to what little we have left.<br /><br />‘Stop obsessing about the economy, you're scaring the children,’ says another big billboard.<br /><br />‘That's the overriding concept of the thing,’ says Robb, the brainchild behind the ‘God Speaks’ billboards in 1999 that threatened, ‘Keep using my name in vain and I'll make rush hour longer’. As if it's all our fault for not being Christian enough rather than driving hundreds of thousands of SUVs and not being willing to adequately fund public transport. Yup, why take any personal responsibility when it’s so much easier to blame the ‘godless’.<br /><br />And why should Americans expect any different? We’ve raised an entire <a href="http://parentingmethods.suite101.com/article.cfm/children_who_refuse_to_grow_up">Generation Y </a>of selfish, manipulative, consumer-driven, arrogant children to respect nothing - not teachers, not parents, not crushing debt, not bosses, not global warming. </div><div><br />Kids enter university after a lifetime of ‘esteem passing’ unable to write a coherent sentence or spell in anything other than text – 'trophy' kids rewarded for participation rather than any accomplishment, shuttled through the educational system regardless of ability or effort because not passing the little darlings might hurt their self-esteem.<br /><br />Oh, wait, Robb has a billboard for that – ‘Self worth is greater than net worth.’ Good thing, then, because we’ve produced a whole lot of people with nothing but self worth and no ability to produce any net worth, believing themselves ‘entitled’ to the world being handed to them on a silver platter.<br /><br />It is changing, which is good for those of us teaching English at universities, as the smarter of these trophy kids realise real life ain't so kind, and that to compete for the diminishing number of available musical chairs they need real skills. <a href="http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=3690767">Debbie Bougdanos </a>of the renowned advertising firm Leo Burnett, in charge of recruiting for the creative department, has seen a multitude of portfolios crossing her desk. Many of these Entitlement Generation applicants think they are ready for and deserving of the best jobs at the highest salaries straight out of college, but she’s equally adamant that the most definitely are not. ‘If I sense any of that attitude that arrogance, that expectation, that entitlement, that is an immediate turnoff.’ </div><div><br />In a tight job market, getting the most out of your work force is increasingly critical, which ironically enough is starting to benefit the aging Boomer generation as savvy employers are starting to hire older workers over the Generation Y’s. The stereotype of older workers is changing fast - ‘That they're more reliable, sick less often, and have a work ethic bar none? <a href="http://www.cleveland.com/help-wanted/index.ssf/2009/05/jobseeking_boomers_have_talent.html">Is that what you mean</a>?" said Stephanie FallCreek, president and CEO of Fairhill Partners.<br /><br />‘Mature age staff not only bring valuable experience to the workplace but also are more flexible with working hours,’ <a href="http://www.deewr.gov.au/Employment/Programs/Jobwise/Employers/Pages/case01.aspx">says an optometrist </a>who replaced two of her younger staff members with two mature women. ‘We find that mature aged staff often have a better work ethic and body of experience,’ says a café owner. ‘This translates into better service for our customers and a better team dynamic.’<br /><br />‘Peek into the cockpit as you board your next commercial flight. Chances are you are putting your life in the hands of one of the 70,000 airline pilots that are over 50 years old,’ says <a href="http://heavyhittersales.typepad.com/heavy_hitter_sales_sales_/2009/06/the-truth-about-older-50-salespeople.html">Steve W. Martin</a>.<br /><br />Mark Bauerlein of Emory University has written a book, ‘<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/05/AR2008120502601.html">The Dumbest Generation </a>- How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future’, objectively assessing the data to identify that slice of the population that, compared to every other generation, has performed the worst on standardized exams, acquired the fewest educational degrees and been the least attracted to professional careers. Not young college kids in their twenties, much as all too many have exhibited an inherited sense of entitlement. Not those raising families and starting out in careers in their thirties, although too many are learning far too late the dangers of overstretched credit. Not us boomers with fond memories of Woodstock in our fifties and sixties.<br /><br />It’s far too many of those in their mid-forties - the truly ‘lost’ generation that entered the workforce in the heady feeding frenzy days of Bonfire of the Vanities and embraced the pervasive ‘Me First, Fuck You’ attitude that in very large part contributed to the downfall of the American economy and have shown no shame in flaunting their unwarranted bonuses and flying private jets to Washington to demand government bail-outs in true arrogantly entitlement style. But back in Pollyanna’s billboard paradise, another billboard has been erected. ‘This will end long before those who caused it are paroled’… as if all that many who deserve to be bunking with Bernie Maddoff will ever see the inside of a courtroom never mind a jail cell.</div><div><br /><em>Stop obsessing about the economy, you're scaring the children??</em><br /><br />I should bloody well hope so. I hope we’re scaring the holy crap out of the next generation of kids, because we will not survive one more generation of MFFY’s. </div></div>Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-33199661714838678612009-07-07T19:21:00.000-07:002009-07-19T00:31:35.539-07:00The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL9IpdSYxs5ZOIaZboQs15SrP3Ep-7fmcTOEQAUm2eGwmLCbMUWSLLvr6XMIvyqjC6OyP37-WDV5yR01_SN430ddPCpAGM3zreM-9fOdfocL6FB39emCuq9HHBb8k_jixVoBnSI3uP3Xg/s1600-h/wheels_bus-300x248.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5355909374363248546" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 248px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL9IpdSYxs5ZOIaZboQs15SrP3Ep-7fmcTOEQAUm2eGwmLCbMUWSLLvr6XMIvyqjC6OyP37-WDV5yR01_SN430ddPCpAGM3zreM-9fOdfocL6FB39emCuq9HHBb8k_jixVoBnSI3uP3Xg/s320/wheels_bus-300x248.gif" border="0" /></a>I’ve only recently joined the <a href="http://twitter.com/nonnythemouse">Twitterati</a>, and not being the most technologically proficient of folks, accidently hit the ‘yes’ button to something that obviously must have read, ‘you don’t <em>have</em> any friends, you loser, so how about adding these twenty random people to your contact list?’ One of them, for some unfathomable reason, was Senator John McCain. I’ve managed to pare down my ‘friends’ list to… well… a few actual friends, but I’ve kept Sen. McCain on the list out of the same morbid curiosity that has me reading Red State’s emailed newsletter on a regular basis.<br /><br />This morning, my Twitter box had a tweet (give me a break, I’m still learning the slang!) from Sen. McCain which said, ‘Vote on my amendment to eliminate $6 mill in wasteful govt subsidy to private bus companies for GPS systems - need to stop wasteful spending.’<br /><br />Hmmm… thought I. Let’s go see what this is all about.<br /><br />Other than the mention on Twitter, I haven’t had much success, even on <a href="http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Issues.View&Issue_id=b3a8e8b2-187f-4776-ae38-fc0ad8a1d59e">the senator’s own website</a>, in finding much about an amendment to axe funding for GPS systems in buses. A general Google search pulled up a plea by Peter J. Pantuso, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the <a href="http://capwiz.com/buses/issues/alert/?alertid=13317731">American Bus Association</a>, urging his members to petition members of Congress to reject a White House budget proposal that would eliminate $10 million a year to private bus operators from a national security program. The Obama administration considers the cuts justifiable as ‘the awards are not based on risk assessment, and the homeland security investments in intercity bus security should be evaluated in the context of the risks faced and relative benefits to be gained.’<br /><br />But nothing <em>specifically</em> about Global Positioning Systems for buses.<br /><br />In March of 2006, Mr. Pantuso addressed the US House of Representatives <a href="http://www.buses.org/files/download/032906bussecuritypjpwritten.pdf">Committee on Transportation</a> regarding the perceived need for security measures for the bus industry, a transit system that carries more people in two weeks than Amtrak transports in a year, and nearly 800 million passengers a year, more than all the passengers of airlines and rail services combined. Obviously, our nation’s bus transit system, both public and private, is an important component in mass transportation – which I personally would like to see more government support for rather than subsidies and tax breaks for oil companies.<br /><br />But over the last decade, just about anything to do with government funding or subsidies of anything whatsoever for the benefit of the public sector had to be tied into that enormous sacred cow, ‘national security’: firefighters doing obligatory counter-terrorist training in order to qualify for funding for emergency communication systems or better rescue vehicles, night-vision cameras on police helicopters more useful to picking out carjackers than al Qaeda sneaking through the hedges in our backyards, and even the FBI has had to become creative in linking more mundane investigations like telemarketing fraud or tracking down meth labs or sports bribery to counter-terrorism and the War on Terror.<br /><br />Our public transportation system, like our health care system, is a sorry joke in comparison to those in too many other Western countries. And Mr. Pantuso is probably quite sincere in his plea for better security on our nation’s buses – but the bottom line is, even our public transportation system has to beg for funding by making that all important six degrees of separation connection to terrorism. So Mr. Pantuso did what everyone else who goes to Washington with cap in hand has had to do – he asked for money to fund training bus drivers, dispatchers and even mechanics in ‘threat assessment’ and ‘crisis management’, communication systems, driver shields, bus stop cameras, ‘wands’ to scan passengers, and – yes – GPS systems.<br /><br />The amount of money we’re talking about here isn’t all that significant in the grander scheme of things – a subsidy amounting to six cents per passenger in comparison to the subsidies granted to commercial airlines of $4.32 per passenger and $46.06 per Amtrak train passenger. However, I can see where CCTV at every bus stop in America or ‘wands’ to scan every bus passenger is not only unfeasible, it’s an intrusive invasion of privacy. A savings of $10 million may be just a drop in the vast ocean of debt the Obama administration is attempting to navigate, but it’s still $10 million that could be better spent elsewhere…<br /><br />…except for maybe the GPS system.<br /><br />Because while it may or may not be useful to national security for bus operators to know in real-time the status and location of all their motorcoaches, it is a significant factor in reducing financial costs to running a public transit system. With a GPS system, precise real-time arrivals at bus stops can be accurately computed, minimizing wait times for passengers, which would well be appreciated for those using public transport shivering at bus stops in winter, 11 degrees below freezing with a wind chill factor of a lot colder. For transit authorities, particularly those who operate on a rural on-demand system, a GPS information system is essential to designing a dynamically flexible bus schedule, improving operational efficiency as well as customer service, saving both time and fuel. GPS is a proven cost-effective way to overcome the limitations of the traditional static dead reckoning and signpost technologies. You can read an excellent study of the benefits of this system in the on-line edition of <em>GPS World</em>, dude, ‘<a href="http://www.gpsworld.com/gpsworld/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=102387">Where’s My Bus?</a>’ The article covers the practical applications of GPS but doesn’t mention counter-terrorism or national security, and is perhaps a bit heavy on the mathematical equations as it’s written by Professor Ahmed El-Rabbany, PhD, of the New Brunswick and York Universities and his research doctoral student, Mahmoud Abd El-Gelil of York University in Canada…<br /><br />… oh wait. Those are Arabic-sounding names. Even worse, they’re working for <em>Canadian</em> universities. That definitely isn’t going to fare well with the American obsession to tie everything into Homeland Security and counter-terrorism. Scratch that idea.<br /><br />A quick look at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=102666052396&comments&_fb_noscript=1">McCain’s Facebook page</a> ,and this bold, mavericky move to oppose GPS systems in buses is gaining followers, judging by such erudite and rational comments from readers as: “Well after all bus companies tend to cater to certain minorities that happen to be much more taken care of than the typical white person. Don’t you know, it’s a sin to be white,” (thus making GPS somehow a racial issue), and “They have managed for years without them, if they feel they need one, they can buy themselves one!” (the logic here verging on the same mentality that objects to subsidies to fund artificial limbs for Iraqi vets, just because I don’t happen to need one), to the more succinct and pithy, ‘Socialism at its finest!” and that all-time favourite trump card, “Obama SUCKS.”<br /><br />Yup, all very persuasive, ya betcha.<br /><br />Frankly, any savings that can be made in the national budget – big or small – is welcome. Cutting the $10 million subsidy for CCTV cameras and security ‘wands’? I don’t have a problem with that. But $6 million that would be spent on GPS systems for our public transportation system?<br /><br />It’s not glamorous. It’s not terribly controversial, even. It’s certainly not about counter-terrorism, but it is cost-effective and useful.<br /><br />So sorry, Senator McCain. I’ll keep you on my Twitter list. But on the issue of subsidizing GPS for buses, I’m afraid I’m all for keeping the wheels on my bus going round and round…<br /><br /><span style="color:#ff0000;">update</span>: It appears McCain's opposition has <a href="http://twitter.com/SenJohnMcCain">failed</a>, with the good senator twittering, 'Came pretty close, 47 to 51 - too bad 51 Senators (including 46 Dems) voted to keep a $6m program even the President thinks is wasteful.' Oh well. I'm sure there will be some other burning issue for him to be all mavericky over soon enough...Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-82013230165939480932008-08-02T20:03:00.000-07:002009-07-08T00:47:08.023-07:00How NOT to Move to New Zealand - Part Three (or 'bloody hell! It's three months later and I've survived! Who'da thunk it?')<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhd6mM8W6VjaV_EH_N4qzk0Dkv2xr5jmbowZd2ezphJviVthmcXou-80xpid3oIPfAonWGTPZrZnYzDJLVwtj1PBPyGxvU7S95ojeiMEufW_d-Ma4vz4Subesgl7EAlz3dHM2XDu5uB6Q/s1600-h/mist+in+the+valley.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5230152988419114642" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhd6mM8W6VjaV_EH_N4qzk0Dkv2xr5jmbowZd2ezphJviVthmcXou-80xpid3oIPfAonWGTPZrZnYzDJLVwtj1PBPyGxvU7S95ojeiMEufW_d-Ma4vz4Subesgl7EAlz3dHM2XDu5uB6Q/s320/mist+in+the+valley.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br />To my surprise, and a bit of embarrassment, it’s been months since my last blog entry. In my defence, I have been rather busy, frantically rewriting my doctoral proposal so many times I’ve lost count of how many versions it’s gone through. I also finished a novel I’ve been overdue on the contract for, turned it in last month. It’s scheduled for publication winter of 2009, and I’ve already seen the proposed cover art, quite nice. I’ve managed to write a few posts for John Amato and his much bigger blogsite, C&L, but not as many as I would normally have liked. I’ve become involved in the founding of a local writer’s group, dubbing ourselves ‘<em>Seven Kiwis ‘n’ a</em> <em>Yank’</em>. But mostly, I’ve been waiting to see if I would survive here, and be allowed to stay in New Zealand after all. It’s been a tense and traumatic six months since my world imploded and I found myself tossed out on the street, homeless and scared stiff, my options exceedingly limited. Time was running out, and I’d resigned myself to preparing for the worst – my home in the UK is long gone, and I would have had to lean upon the kindness and hospitality of relatives, which since my aunt is an absolutely lovely woman would admittedly have scarcely been <em>that</em> much of a hardship – I was almost disappointed I wasn’t ‘going home’ to the States when the Kiwi cavalry rode over the hill in the nick of time.<br /><br />A scant two weeks before the very last extension on my New Zealand Visitor’s Visa was to expire and I would have to leave the country forever, a pleasant young lady from Massey University pasted a blue sticker with a shiny silver hologram of a fern leaf into my passport which took up an entire page. I am now proudly (and with enormous relief) a bona fide holder of a Student Permit to study for my Doctor of Philosophy degree. Multiple entries allowed. Funds and outward passage waived. Part time work permit granted, full time during the summer. Sweating blood and sleepless nights no longer necessary.<br /><br />It was cutting it damned close, but I’m on safe and solid ground for at least the next year while starting work toward a long-cherished goal – my PhD. It’s a ground-breaker at that, being the first doctorate in Creative Writing ever to be offered in New Zealand. I have to write a novel (<em>hmm, not like that’s something I’ve never done before</em>), and – far more challenging – a supplementary critical component wherein I shall endeavour to examine in proper academic navel-gazing fashion the intellectual process of writing said novel. Should be fun. I actually do mean that.<br /><br />Meanwhile, my living situation has gone from tenuous vagrancy, periodically reduced to having to live out of my car and sleep in a tent on a beach, to the more stable and long-term decision of flatting with friends out on a small farm north of Auckland. I’ve lived out in the countryside in the UK, but rather than puttering genteelly about in an English style cottage veggie garden, this is closer to the real thing: rolling green hills, black and white Oreo cookie cows, a stroppy horse, a dozen sheep, pet tame chickens that lay eggs on your doorstep. The homekill butcher came out a couple weeks ago to shoot the two pigs, named Bacon and Sausage, now interred in the freezer as… bacon and sausage. This morning, one of the ewes had to be helped to deliver an overly large lamb, which unfortunately was born dead, the perils of winter lambing. The paddocks are a sea of trampled mud after several weeks of atrocious winter weather, two near-hurricane force storms wreaking havoc, some shattered glass and minor flooding, power outages and – since the farm survives on collected rainwater – no toilets or running water without a petrol generator to run the pumps. It made me appreciate how truly self-sustaining my solid stone and brick little 19th century miner’s cottage in Northumberland had been, with a boiler behind the fireplace for hot water, and the wood-fired 1920’s oven inset capable of baking hot casseroles and fresh bread. But the lack of internet access, television or video games brought back the fun of board and card games, charades, candle-lit dinners (albeit takeaway fish and chips) and the old-fashioned pursuit of conversation while the winds howl and the rain lashes down. And in the morning, rainbows and relentlessly cheerful Kiwis abound.<br /><br />I keep being asked by Kiwis with various degrees of perplexed expressions, of all the places I could choose to live, why <em>New Zealand</em>? Six months ago, I’m not sure I would have had that much of a coherent reasoning, other than one of sheer stubborn defiance – I refused to be cavalierly discarded like so much unwanted rubbish by an ex-employer in the expectation I would be forced to leave the country and thus solve any conundrum. But over the past six months, I’ve met the most amazing people, and made the most remarkable and wonderful friends here. I’ve travelled around the North Island and been astounded by the sheer physical beauty of this country – and I’m told that the South Island is even <em>more</em> spectacular. I’ve been overwhelmed by the innate decency, kindness and integrity of the vast majority of Kiwis.<br /><br />If I need to quantify it, though, it helped to read this morning in one of the various farming magazines that come in the post that out of 140 countries around the world, New Zealand has placed seventh by Yale and Columbia University’s Environmental Performance Index for its approach to the environment, health and governmental policies, and achieved a perfect score of 100 in water and sanitation. (The US placed a dismal 39th, behind the UK at 14th and Japan at 21st. Australia, surprisingly, ranked an even worse 46th, with low scores for water, pesticide regulation, climate change and emissions. Switzerland, unsurprisingly, came first on the list). On the opposite page from the article was another announcing <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.goodwater.org.nz">the greenest water bottle </a>on the planet being produced <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.natureworkssllc.com">right here in NZ</a>, made from corn starch but equally possible with potato starch, or rice or beetroot.<br /><br />This is one clean, green, progressive, healthy country. It’s a little country with a big heart and bigger ideas, full of vibrant, intelligent and creative people. It boasts some of the best scenery to be found anywhere in the world. And it’s allowing me to stay and chase my dream of a doctorate. I’m an extraordinarily lucky person, what more could anyone ask for? </div>Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-29699346456588148982008-04-01T23:17:00.000-07:002009-07-20T14:58:06.417-07:00Conquering Mountains<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijS3bDRIQYOTkvDv-Y3O40ij_W4ZngExn31owELOGl0RWO31OIMkFFy7WYcz8uXqXEe9dPRax70zbD8UtKWCnN9lfxRgIjb1avh_BvIqEus6z4STrgGkzAEPzy72QTKBCo1Dv_EckwRPc/s1600-h/mount-everest-north-face09cr.jpg"><span style="font-size:180%;"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; FLOAT: left; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5184532678887858578" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijS3bDRIQYOTkvDv-Y3O40ij_W4ZngExn31owELOGl0RWO31OIMkFFy7WYcz8uXqXEe9dPRax70zbD8UtKWCnN9lfxRgIjb1avh_BvIqEus6z4STrgGkzAEPzy72QTKBCo1Dv_EckwRPc/s320/mount-everest-north-face09cr.jpg" /></span></a><em>'Each of us has to discover his own path. Some paths will be spectacular, others peaceful and quiet'.</em><br />– Sir Edmund Hillary<br /><br /><br />One of the ways I’ve been keeping body and soul together after having been metaphorically shipwrecked on the shores of Auckland has been house-sitting. It’s had some unexpected, and mostly quite pleasant, side benefits. I met one of my now best friends this way, after house-sitting for her over Christmas, and through another house-sit connection had a great day out on a charter boat serving drinks to a contingent of the Olympic Committee while watching the women’s international Laser class yacht racing in the Auckland Harbour (both girls from the USA, I’m pleased to say, did rather well).<br /><br />I'm now house-sitting in this nice little place in a semi-posh suburb of Auckland (it's only recently become ‘posh’ in the past ten years or so, and still has a quite middle-class feel to it despite all the upmarket house construction going on). Most house-sits are more to take care of the resident pets than to ‘guard’ the property, and this one is no exception – I’m here to take care of a little black Lhasa Apso dog as well as the next door neighbour's cat. The lady who owns the house is 90, lives with her son, with her daughter and son-in-law living in the house next door, which I'm also keeping an eye on. I came early the day they all left for a month in the UK, was treated to a very nice G&T and lively conversation about Nepal and the Himalayas and Tensing's kids and the tiny Sherpa lady who wanted them to take bags of potatoes down in the helicopter and wasn’t that fun riding up the foothills of Everest on the back of a little horse... It slowly starts to dawn on me...<br /><br />‘Did you guys actually <em>know</em> Edmund Hillary?’ I ask rather naively.<br /><br />The 90-year-old lady laughs. ‘I'm his sister, June. We're off to Windsor for his memorial service, and I’m having an audience with the Queen after. That’s why we’re going to England, I thought you knew...’<br /><br />Um, no. Not really. I look around at the house. It’s a modest little house, with the kind of eclectic decoration you'd expect from any ordinary 90-year-old woman... until you start to notice the details.<br /><br />Hand-painted Nepalese watercolours and photographs of snowy mountain peaks amongst the old prints of English churches and Norfolk countryside. Sun-faded and crooked family photographs in picture frames so basic you wouldn’t look at them twice in a charity shop, just ordinary people doing ordinary things, boating and birthday parties and barbecues, and mugging for the camera… except that one of them looks rather familiar. So familiar, in fact, that it’s the face on the <a href="http://www.nzbanknotes.com/forum/npost.asp?tid=518&pn=1">New Zealand five-dollar banknote</a>.<br /><br />So, somewhat awe-struck, I sit and sip my G&T and listen to family gossip and what June plans to say to the Queen during her audience, practicing it to get it perfect, with a wicked twinkle in her eye as she winds up her kids <em>tut-tutting</em> over her other less than PC declarations, and think to myself how surreal and yet so normal this all seems.<br /><br />There’s no point in writing up too much of a thumbnail history of Sir Edmund Hillary here; far better works have been written on his life, and that’s not really what this post is about anyway. It’s about the perception vs. the reality of greatness.<br /><br />The perception – particularly the American forged perception – is that the great and the famous are from backgrounds very different from yours or mine. They live in remote fancy mansions surrounded by acres of sculpted gardens to isolate them from their nearest neighbours, museum quality art hangs on the walls, they have unlisted phone numbers and a surfeit of personal secretaries to keep the grubby public at bay. Even those who archetypically rise from abject poverty and overcome gruelling obstacles, they’re different than the rest of us - the great and the famous have personality traits far superior to us mere mortals, they’re innately more talented, born smarter, stronger, faster, sexier, more charismatic, they get all the bloody breaks, the bastards. You and I? Let’s face it; we’re never going to be great or famous.<br /><br />Then, there’s the reality. The reality is that Edmund Hillary was a painfully shy kid who – along with his brother Rex and sister June – had a pretty crap childhood not so much different from a whole lot of other peoples’ crap childhoods. He was lonely and unhappy, bullied by boys at school and dominated by his father at home. Academically, he was a terrible student, ranking at the bottom of his class, and dropping out of college after two failed years to work on the family beekeeping farm. Physically he was so skinny and unathletic his Physical Education teacher mocked him, calling him ‘deformed’. He was so bashful that his future bride’s mother had to propose marriage to her own daughter on his behalf over the phone. As a result, he suffered from an enduring sense of inadequacy and fear of failure that he struggled all his life to overcome.<br /><br />His sister June was an avid hiker, and her bored and restless younger brother tagged along for weekend hikes in the New Zealand foothills with her and her friends, sparking his interest in mountaineering. After a hike in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, he watched two climbers who had just returned from the summit of Mount Cook being showered with admiration and fawned over by adoring young women. He, too, compared his disappointingly dull life to theirs, looking at the great and the famous, and wrestled with the envy and crushing doubt that he would ever lead a life anywhere near as wonderful as he perceived theirs to be.<br /><br />It’s this – not being inherently better or confident or more exceptional than anyone else – that drove Edmund Hillary up the face of Everest. He harnessed his self-doubt and frustration into a force that wouldn’t allow him to quit. Ever.<br /><br />And once he was great and famous? He went up the mountain as an ordinary Kiwi, and came down it to discover to his horror he’d been knighted by the Queen of England – he wasn’t good enough to be ‘knightly material’. He settled back into Auckland with his new wife and, since he hadn’t been paid to climb mountains, made a living beekeeping with his brother Rex, and supported his growing family with endless speaking tours and writing books.<br /><br />So what do you do for an encore after you’ve just climbed the highest mountain in the world? Well, you go drive tractors across Antarctica, you go look for Yetis in the Himalayas, you build schools and hospitals for Nepalese Sherpa children. You trek down the entire length of Ganges River in India.<br /><br />When your beloved wife and youngest daughter are killed in a plane crash, you publicly put on a stoic face, while fighting black despair in private. When you have an attack of high altitude sickness that causes cerebral swelling and memory loss, preventing you from ever climbing above 14,000 feet again, you forge a new path, becoming a spokesman for the environment and conservation, human rights, fighting poverty and political corruption. You sign five-dollar bills with your face on them for school kids in classes where you’ve been talked yet again into giving a lecture, because you’re a genuinely nice guy and all of Auckland knows it. Your telephone number isn't even unlisted, <em>anyone</em> can ring you up.<br /><br />And if you’re truly great, you never lose sight of who you are. Just an ordinary person, like anyone else.<br /><br />Except that you’ve climbed a mountain. That’s it, really.<br /><br /><em>‘I’m not a hero at all. I firmly believe that I am the creation of the media and the public. I am a person of very modest abilities.’</em><br /><br />When I woke up this morning, I opened my eyes to a huge photograph of Mt. Everest, with a white Nepali silk scarf draped over it. And realized something – maybe something important. My mountains are quite a bit shorter than Sir Ed’s Everest, and so far – thank god – my tragedies less cruel. I’ll be happy enough if my path is more quiet and peaceful rather than spectacular. My self-doubt and frustration is probably no better or worse than anyone else’s. I don’t know if I’ll ever be great or famous (probably not), but whatever successes I do achieve in my life won’t be because I’m more talented, smarter, stronger, faster, sexier, or more charismatic than anyone else.<br /><br />It’s because I know my self-doubt and frustration won’t allow me to quit.<br /><br /><em>Ever</em>.Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-22606340363538465512008-03-04T15:58:00.000-08:002008-03-04T17:14:02.449-08:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieO9mSfM17eMxrXfec21iR0N7jo0eCoVoopEDZSC0ebaGlXvaNZ_alwZLJAlkeeQzf-DKGTvnLnZ571q8cKFgultH5XbqEKrmJMVYuOUbZLsIyFRXO5QimWngvFXd4nEbhEwNSvdDGikw/s1600-h/house+and+stairs,+upland+road.jpg"></a><div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDW6NY7VFXMeHbg02D7Ubcojr5Nu4N1cf_Wc-qfEwr_uC5eRq3LsC4Dnqni61vC00DIjm_karzeKGqsXG38xQqacrLV62_xtfLi7a78JHqGxwUqw4M_yHQX164YdUOMqAwCnGDkgmnF1A/s1600-h/newcamera+022.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174052565878033554" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDW6NY7VFXMeHbg02D7Ubcojr5Nu4N1cf_Wc-qfEwr_uC5eRq3LsC4Dnqni61vC00DIjm_karzeKGqsXG38xQqacrLV62_xtfLi7a78JHqGxwUqw4M_yHQX164YdUOMqAwCnGDkgmnF1A/s320/newcamera+022.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div><span style="font-size:130%;color:#009900;"><strong>How NOT To Move to New Zealand – Part Two</strong></span> </div><div></div><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#009900;"><span style="font-size:130%;">(or ‘Things To Do in New Zealand While You Wait to See If The Sky is About To Fall’)</span><br /></span></strong><br />Not too long ago, I learned some rather difficult lessons on how not to move to New Zealand, due to the capricious and unreasonable motives of a now former boss. It also has put me in a steep learning curve on Part Two of my personal saga, how to survive in a foreign country with no home, no job, and no work visa – on only limited personal resources of my own and the massive generosity of new friends and allies (some of those even in the New Zealand Immigration Department itself, I’m astonished, and incredibly grateful, to report), the majority of Kiwis I’ve met appalled that any of their fellow countrymen would ever do such a thing to anyone.<br /><br />It’s been complicated, finding inventive ways to survive without actually living out of the back of my car (the first thing I had to buy after I’d been unceremoniously chucked out on the street right before Christmas), and without either violating Immigration regulations or overtaxing the kindness of friends who’ve opened not just their hearts but their guest room doors for me. I highly recommend <a href="http://www.homesit.co.nz/">house sitting</a>. It’s not a permanent solution, and hardly a seamless or steady one, but it’s been a great way to live in lovely places all over New Zealand, rent free, allowing me to stretch my limited budget to the max. It's also been a conduit to some wonderful friendships as well.<br /><br />I recently spent a few weeks down in Wellington, and got to see the south end of the North Island, then bought a small tent and a sleeping bag, and a copy of Gay Kerr’s enormously helpful book, <a href="http://www.nzcamping.co.nz/">New Zealand Camping Guide</a>, before wending my way back up the east coast to Auckland. </div><br /><div></div><div>I stopped for a couple days in fabulous downtown Foxton, a small town on the west coast where a good mate from <a href="http://dancer.co.nz/aut/index.php">my Ceroc group </a>is renovating his house. There, I learned quite a lot about a popular Kiwi obsession – renovating houses for fun and profit. Who knows? Even in the current housing market crisis, there are hundreds of small towns with thousands of the distinctive New Zealand houses in need of a bit of paint and TLC; there might be one just waiting for me around the next corner...</div><div> </div><div>Napier was lovely, but I breezed through it far too quickly to do it justice – nowhere to park, as Tom Jones was in town for a concert at a local winery and half of the North Island seemed to have migrated to this gorgeous coastal town. I highly recommend a quick stop off at the <a href="http://www.crabfarmwinery.co.nz/">Crab Farm Winery</a> (a rival to the one hosting Mr Sex Machine) in Hawke’s Bay, just outside Napier, for a bottle of their Sauvignon blanc and a delicious Reserve Malbec.<br /><br />I stopped for a day on a nearly deserted beach on the Bay of Plenty, ate a steak seared to perfection on a BBQ, swam in the surf while watching the sun slowly set, then lay on my back with the tent flap open to stare up at a clear, night sky with more stars than I’ve seen since I was a kid. (And for a Certain Idiot in Britain who asked me didn’t I miss the stars, yes, dear, you can see the Milky Way in the Southern Hemisphere, as well as Orion and a couple other constellations I vaguely remember from Girl Scouts but can’t name. Still hunting for the Southern Cross, though…)<br /><br />I spent another incredible night huddled with two other refugees from a raging thunderstorm, wind and rain lashing down, sheltered in a quite comfortable <a href="http://www.nzcamping.co.nz/camp.php?id=210">backpacker’s camp in Te Araroa </a>at the tip of the East Cape – my own room, shared kitchen and bathrooms, and a very well-stocked library. One of my fellow 'backpackers' (which seems to mean something different in New Zealand than I thought) was a ranch hand/cowboy from North Dakota who had rented a car while on a break from <a href="http://www.kiwiexperience.com/backpackers-bus-pass.aspx?gclid=CJ30sfHZ9JECFQc-gwodFCRBxA">Kiwi Tours</a>, the other a biker lad from Islington. And a very pleasant evening was had by all.<br /><br />The next morning, the weather was still sullen, but safe to venture out in again. The storm had triggered several slips on the road, both rock slides onto the road, or the road simply washed away, all along the coastal motorway, making driving an – erm – interesting if rather slow experience. At one point, I noticed a large four-wheel-drive pickup that stopped behind me, the Maori driver waiting to be sure my little definitely-<em>not</em>-four-wheel-drive car actually made it onto the other side of a partial washed-out road before turning around and driving away with a smile and a wave. This is a place where the impulse to help thy neighbour is ingrained, a matter of mutual survival in a beautiful but often unpredictable countryside.<br /><br />I’m now back in Auckland, my transcripts have finally arrived from the UK, and I’m well on my way to filing my application to a PhD course with Massey University, having already met my supervisor who is almost as excited about my thesis as I am. I’m hoping to soon write Part Three of <strong>How NOT to Move to New Zealand</strong>, with a happy ending. So stayed tuned. There are worse ways to spend your time while biting your nails, isn’t there…?</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div></div></div>Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-32108479357829699552008-01-08T14:32:00.000-08:002008-01-08T15:08:50.717-08:00How NOT To Move to New Zealand - Part One<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih32a3bklhoER2YethyphenhyphenkvvN_2RDYxIBUYLVXy64KHCMR51UlShsTM42qryRFkfgQVsQNxjHjh4Ce1qGfnE7r3XNvULNO15QHs2RpAQIWIOSAll0KTW2380hEzgikaQot2sgp6on5qEfFU/s1600-h/homeless.jpg"><em><span style="font-size:78%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5153244564633801522" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih32a3bklhoER2YethyphenhyphenkvvN_2RDYxIBUYLVXy64KHCMR51UlShsTM42qryRFkfgQVsQNxjHjh4Ce1qGfnE7r3XNvULNO15QHs2RpAQIWIOSAll0KTW2380hEzgikaQot2sgp6on5qEfFU/s320/homeless.jpg" border="0" /></span></em></a><em><span style="font-size:78%;"> (photo credit: </span></em><a href="http://www.iconbar.com/"><em><span style="font-size:78%;">www.iconbar.com</span></em></a><em><span style="font-size:78%;">)</span></em><br /><br />Just a quick, and rather abbreviated update, for friends and family - I've had a recent crash course in how NOT to immigrate to a new country, learning the hard way. Lesson One - don't accept job offers off the internet, especially those without references, no matter how perfect it seems. If it seems too good to be true, believe me, it <em>is</em>. Lesson Two - don't be pressured to move to a new country so quickly for said dodgy job that you don't check out and follow immigration requirements <em>thoroughly</em>! And <em>don't</em> believe what they'll tell you at the New Zealand job fairs in the UK that it's quick and easy to get a visa and work permit in New Zealand, if you have a job offer. Depends very much on the 'job offer'. Lesson Three - don't be a woman and work for a single man with a jealous girlfriend. Lesson Four - make damned sure that you've got enough emotional strength, personal resources and good friends for when it all explodes on you and you discover yourself suddenly homeless, jobless, carless, and sponsorless in a foreign country where you've only been less than six months. Thankfully, I do. And thankfully, it's New Zealand.<br /><br />At the moment, it's likely to end up in some messy litigation, so that's about all I can really say about my situation, other than - although still homeless and jobless - I'm not as bad off as I could have found myself, and there is reason for me to be happy and hopeful. I will be okay. It's just going to take a lot more work and headaches than I anticipated.<br /><br />So posts on this blog will be sporadic at best for awhile. But please stay tuned...Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-87911277978739086792007-11-02T13:09:00.000-07:002007-11-03T15:55:56.135-07:00The Mouse Is Out<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfM8y0tC-0aIiaR0ZF5PFyvHtyj3rvUBKhhEFmMn3KuMj1VfGGuVQ1IUcf8rML63joo_C-NTM0ofoQKJQt7qWjFJKYlFUwqWgC8COCaozagtc5fw9QZYC3hCBLyA7VBwFddXP4IbWx-IM/s1600-h/Jackson+Redemption+Cover+3-9-2007.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5128351094771119074" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfM8y0tC-0aIiaR0ZF5PFyvHtyj3rvUBKhhEFmMn3KuMj1VfGGuVQ1IUcf8rML63joo_C-NTM0ofoQKJQt7qWjFJKYlFUwqWgC8COCaozagtc5fw9QZYC3hCBLyA7VBwFddXP4IbWx-IM/s320/Jackson+Redemption+Cover+3-9-2007.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>The Mouse has lost her Nonny-mous-ness, but I'm fine with that. For the past couple of years, I've done occasional guest posts for John Amato, editor of my other favourite blog, C&L (which is shorthand for <a href="http://www.crooksandliars.com/">crooksandliars.com </a>Yesterday, his blog returned the favour many times over by doing the first <a href="http://http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/11/01/redemption/">cyber-launch </a>of my new novel, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312363443/crooksandliar-20/ref=nosim">'Redemption'</a>, written by yours truly, Lee Jackson.<br /><br />C&L staffer Nicole Belle (who I affectionately refer to as Nicky B) wrote a nice presentation for the book, and said that she now realized that a lot of the post ideas and tips I sent in to the site came came from research for this book, which is partly true. It's also true that C&L was one of my major research resources as well - a huge help in both information and ideas. It is rightly one of the best political blogsites on the internet, as well one of the most fun and most social. The comments so far on the book received have been extraordinarily kind - and this before anyone reads it! C&L plans a second review and an author's salon in a week or so, where I'll have a chance to respond live to any questions, something I've done before but never on a blog! This may be one of the major ways forward for writers who, up to now, have depended primarily on newspapers and magazines and bookstore signings for publicity. So I'm very much looking forward to it.<br /><br />And as for losing my nonny-mous-ity?<br /><br />...Well...<br /><br />Lee Jackson is also a pseudonym, I'm afraid. I've published five other novels in the past under another name, one - a crime novel - by the same publisher, St. Martin's Press. My editor extraordinaire, Kelley Ragland, agreed that keeping my different genres separate would be a good idea. So, to honour my father - who had passionately argued with me over many of the themes in this novel, and who died the same evening I had the idea for the story blast its way into my imagination and started Page One - I chose his middle name for my pseudonym. It was probably a wiser decision than using the nickname I'd called him for the last twenty years of his life. Atheist though I am, a part of me longs for there to be some sort of consciousness in the afterlife, just so he could see what our heated ‘discussions' has wrought. But it doesn’t really matter – I know that he was enormously proud of both his daughters; the brainy little one who became a university professor, and the flighty creative big one who became a novelist.<br /><br />Ya done good, Old Fart. Ya done good.</div>Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-61963794021147054562007-10-14T20:29:00.000-07:002007-10-16T17:55:19.382-07:00NASCAR as seen from the left<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhapryzPg5g8HIajSsR8OOfwWKqrbVIYIivf5F2UARU-PjaBja_5WAgFn3wIo5hVjdRwLGJGGoYY_GMu-ES9WsjojKCSUjex66jDodJJg0QVjhbHKL6DxTQf9L58za8UG1W4U4pA9YFgn8/s1600-h/BofA500.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5121401485569153586" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhapryzPg5g8HIajSsR8OOfwWKqrbVIYIivf5F2UARU-PjaBja_5WAgFn3wIo5hVjdRwLGJGGoYY_GMu-ES9WsjojKCSUjex66jDodJJg0QVjhbHKL6DxTQf9L58za8UG1W4U4pA9YFgn8/s320/BofA500.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo credit: (AP Photo/Bob Jordan)</span><br /><br /><br />What is it about NASCAR that divides the left and the right possibly more bitterly than universal health care, Blackwater, or Fox News?<br /><br />Last month, a Democratic staffer with the House Committee on Homeland Security who works for committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss), <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071014/ap_on_re_us/nascar_political_plague">sent out an email</a> to colleagues regarding an ‘unusual need for whomever attending to be vaccinated against hepatitis A and B,’ as well as ‘the more normal things — tetanus, diphtheria, and of course, seasonal influenza,’ – more than is necessary to visit Haiti – advising them to be thoroughly immunized before heading south from Washington and into the Red State wilderness of NASCAR country to conduct research at Alabama's Talladega Superspeedway and North Carolina's Lowe's Motor Speedway, where the Bank of America 500 was run Saturday.<br /><br />This sparked a clash that has again highlighted the woeful ignorance of far too many on the left of just who it is they’re maligning, while feeding ammunition to the GOP keen to score points against their Democratic rivals. Representative Robin Hayes (R-Ala) retorted, ‘I have never heard of immunizations for domestic travel, and ... I feel compelled to ask why the heck the committee feels that immunizations are needed to travel to my hometown.’ Dr. David Weber, a professor of medicine and public health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (political affiliation unknown) asked, ‘What do they know about NASCAR that we don't?’<br /><br />Once again, the erroneous stereotype of NASCAR fans is being perpetuated as a rowdy mob of unwashed, unshaven, uncouth, uneducated, inbred, toothless, drunken, shirtless, Confederate flag tattooed, Chevy pickup drivin’, gun-totin’, tabakky-spittin’, beer-belly scratchin’ redneck hillbillies all yelling ‘show us yer tits’ at every woman who walks through the stands. Oh, and they <em>all</em> vote Republican, of course.<br /><br />Democrats like Representative Larry Seaquist of Washington State aren’t exactly helping the polarization, either. <a href="http://www.nascar.com/2007/news/opinion/03/06/jmenzer.washington.track/index.html">His opposition to a NASCAR racetrack proposal </a>just outside Seattle seems to be based on the argument that ‘these people are not the kind of people you would want living next door to you. They’d be the ones with junky cars in the front yard and would try to slip around the law’. Washington State Speaker of the House, Democrat Frank Chopp, added fuel to the fire; when asked about Richard Petty, a fairly well-known NASCAR driver then in Washington State to support the proposed track, Chopp promptly responded with the sneer, ‘You mean the guy who got picked up for DUI?’ (Petty doesn’t drink.)<br /><br />First, a personal perspective, then a few hard, cold facts about just who we NASCAR fans are. Our Kid is a university professor with an IQ off the charts, while mine is mere 140+. We both have postgraduate degrees, she speaks flawlessly fluent Spanish while I speak passable French, and after spending a decade in France, I can sip two glasses of red wine and tell you which one is the merlot and which is the pinot noir. I rather doubt that either of us fit the left’s standard characterization of ‘rube’, and we both love NASCAR racing. My late father might have been more representative of the stereotypical NASCAR rube, as he was the son of a South Carolina dirt farmer and his illiterate Tennessee hillbilly wife. My dad dropped out of school at the 3rd grade to help on the farm, then joined the Coast Guard at 16 (with special permission from his father to join that young). He got his high school diploma when I was 13, and his first college degree when I was 15 - my favourite photo is of him in his graduation gown holding Our Kid as a toddler in his arms while she's reaching for his mortarboard tassel. He taught his daughters to reach a hell of a lot further than he would ever be able to, and to keep on reaching. He was a life-long Democrat and brought us up on liberal values. And he loved NASCAR – enough that he even raced before he married my mother, a university-educated New England blue-blood, who made him stop. (Of course, that was all back in the days when NASCAR still used real stock cars, drove on dirt tracks, and you didn’t need a multi-million dollar sponsor and a high-tech crew to be a driver.)<br /><br />Our Kid and I grew up with names like Cale Yarborough, the Allison brothers, A. J. Foyt, Richard Petty (<em>boo-hiss</em>, we didn’t like him, because our dad thought he was too impatient and put his pit crew at risk), Buddy Baker, Mario Andretti, Dale Earnhardt (<em>yay</em>, we liked him - Senior <em>and</em> Junior - my dad named his dog Dale after them both). We were girls, and our dad – who believed strongly in equal opportunity regardless of sex – encouraged us to support female drivers as well, so we cheered on the ladies like Christine Becker, Robin McCall and my personal all-time favourite hero, Janet Guthrie, who got her pilot’s licence when she was 17, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Michigan, worked as a research and development engineer for NASA, became the first woman to qualify for and compete in the Indianapolis 500, and finished ninth place in 1978… <em>while</em> <em>driving with a broken wrist</em>. Now <em>there</em> was a role model for any little girl to have looked up to, and at a time when there were precious few role models for us little girls around. Now, thankfully, <a href="http://www.speedwaymedia.com/Articles/06/053006Madding.asp">there are more</a>, and may their numbers – and wins – ever increase.<br /><br />We went to racetracks as kids, sang the national anthem (enthusiastically, if badly), breathed in dust and gas fumes and the smell of burnt hotdogs, loved the vibrations in the pit of our stomachs from the roar of engines, guiltily hoped to see more spectacular car crashes while never wanting anyone hurt. We wandered through the back lots afterwards and talked to drivers and mechanics, clambered onto battered car hoods to have our photos taken with drivers, or pit crew, or anyone in a coverall with enough racing patches on it to be impressive. It’s an indelible part of my childhood, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.<br /><br />And I wouldn’t vote Republican if you held an NRA-approved gun to my head.<br /><br />Now, for a few more hard, cold facts about typical NASCAR fans: <a href="http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/news/nascar/stories/319_fans.html">An ESPN poll </a>taken in 2004 showed that 41 percent of NASCAR fans earned at least $50,000 a year, a figure that exactly mirrored national statistics. In every income category the study cites, NASCAR fans make nearly identical incomes to the rest of America. In other words, they’re exactly like… um, well… <em>us</em>, actually.<br /><br />For those who object to NASCAR races as wasteful, noisy and polluting, it might come as a surprise that <a href="http://www.40mpg.org/pdfs/031705_40mpg_survey_report.pdf">sixty-seven percent of NASCAR fans consider buying a fuel-efficient vehicle to be patriotic</a>, while eighty-five percent of NASCAR fans want the government to raise the average fuel-efficiency in U.S. vehicles to 40 mpg. Short tracks that run under NASCAR sanctions now require emission control devices, many use mufflers to comply with noise ordinances, and are compulsory in some Busch East, AutoZone West, and Whelen Modified races.<br /><br />So just who are these NASCAR fans?<br /><br />Well, one of them is Michael Marciuliano, a 50-year-old father with an accounting degree from Wagner College who works as an assistant vice president at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ in Jersey City. He has owned a semi-attached home for 24 years, wears suits to work and does not have a tattoo. Another would be <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/sports/othersports/09cheer.html?fta=y&pagewanted=all">Patrick Hickey</a>, a 52-year-old registered nurse, professor of nursing at the University of South Carolina, pilot, skydiver, founder of the Summit Scholarship for nursing students, a ‘seven summit’ mountain climber, and a die-hard NASCAR fan who planted a Nextel Cup flag amid the Tibetan prayer flags atop Mount Everest this last May. </div><div><br />NASCAR driver <a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCH/is_1_32/ai_109579101">Ryan Newman </a>is a Purdue graduate from South Bend, Indiana. The late Alan Kulwicki, a champion NASCAR driver, was also a college graduate with a degree in engineering. <a href="http://www.alfredstate.edu/articles/brett-bodine-class-of-79">Brett Bodine</a>, NASCAR Winston Cup driver, graduated in 1979 from Alfred State College, with three semesters on the Dean’s List. <a href="http://www.nascar.com/2007/news/headlines/cup/05/12/cmears.bkuebler.darlington.grad/index.html">Billy Kuebler </a>crews pit support for the No. 25 Hendrick Motorsports team and also helps out tire specialist Lisa Smokstad. He's also a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with a degree in engineering, and made the chancellor's list four straight semesters. Darian Grubb, crew chief for driver Casey Mears, holds a mechanical engineering degree from Virginia Tech. Sara Fisher, who scored four top-ten finishes in her first NASCAR West Series season in 2005 and placed 12th for the NASCAR Grand National Division, graduated in 1999 from Teays High School seventh in her class with honours and a 4.178 grade point average.<br /><br />All of them, as far as I know, have all their teeth, don’t spit tobacco, and know how to spell ‘articulate’.<br /><br />Rather than being the refuge of the ignorant and the wilfully stupid, NASCAR has encouraged many college and university students. ‘It used to be that growing up with your dad in the garage was good enough to get you through,’ said Don Radebaugh, spokesman for the ARCA (American Racing Car Association ) series. ‘But it requires more than turning wrenches in a garage. We’re seeing more and more drivers and crew members who are college graduates.’ College programmes turning out highly skilled crew members ‘gives any racing program a place to look for help,’ according to Bill Kimmel, crew chief for eight-time ARCA champion Frank Kimmel. ‘If you take a kid off the street, we have to show them every step of the way.’ The University of Northwestern Ohio runs a high-performance motor-sports programme, with around 1,000 students enrolled in two- and four-year degrees in business and technology. Motorsports students at Indiana University-Purdue in Indianapolis compete for internships with sport racing teams. Other colleges are following suit, including Lincoln Tech in Indianapolis and WyoTeck in Fremont, California.<br /><br />NASCAR is big, big business. It’s the second most popular professional American sport, ranking behind only the NFL in terms of television ratings. It holds seventeen of the top twenty attended sporting events in the U.S., with over 75 million fans purchasing 3 billion – <em>billion</em> – dollars in product sales annually. Fortune 500 companies sponsor NASCAR more than any other governing body.<br /><br />God knows there are plenty of excellent and valid reasons to despise the rightwing and the Republican Party. NASCAR isn’t one of them. So a word of advice to the Democrats, and to the left in general – pick your enemies more wisely…<br /><br />…Or risk becoming one of them. </div>Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-8594758316745176602007-09-30T17:16:00.000-07:002007-10-02T14:56:44.687-07:00Tightrope in the Air<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi05yXxnuBfWvvIqfZRfGiuBk8rCwJnLDfIS3_JW8KkMQq97maHdiOtmyrArN0ZNemMFksRl9AW8mL_-0AfYAEzIyGdva1Nc5l8LU88vyEYYISuGQC4hxQad4g0qBV598W-tOtD6x1QOU0/s1600-h/84.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5116157450759821858" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi05yXxnuBfWvvIqfZRfGiuBk8rCwJnLDfIS3_JW8KkMQq97maHdiOtmyrArN0ZNemMFksRl9AW8mL_-0AfYAEzIyGdva1Nc5l8LU88vyEYYISuGQC4hxQad4g0qBV598W-tOtD6x1QOU0/s320/84.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">Tightrope in the Air</span></strong><br /><br /><br />This is not a particularly new story. And it’s probably one that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention outside New Zealand, or the Southern Pacific region. But it is a story that has continued to grow, and is an interesting study of just how far Bush’s War has pushed other nations’ politicians into self-serving self-survival. It’s the story of a scandal that wasn’t, which then became a scandal anyway, mostly because it wasn’t one in the first place, but revealed an even bigger scandal underneath. The gist of it is this – while the vast majority of New Zealanders are adamantly opposed to the war in Iraq and view any military collaboration with the United States as intolerable, commercial carrier Air New Zealand (rather than the Royal New Zealand Air Force) has been flying Australian and US combat troops to staging areas for the Iraq war. And the New Zealand government has quite possibly been lying about how much they knew.<br /><br />On August 15th, Prime Minister Helen Clark appeared on prime time television, livid with anger, demanding answers from Air New Zealand. She and her ministers were publicly outraged when Air New Zealand ferried 600 Australian combat troops to the Iraq border in Kuwait and United Arab Emirates last May, with US fighter-jet escort, openly using ordinary passenger aircraft bearing the distinctive blue and white Air New Zealand koru livery. These 600 Australian troops were then deployed to military duty in Iraq. On the 29th and 30th of July, Air New Zealand flight ANZ1921 transported US troops deploying for missions in Iraq on a secret flight between Darwin to Hiroshima. Hiroshima is not on Air New Zealand’s regular flight schedules, but it is rather conveniently next to the US Marine Base in Iwakuni. </div><div><br />The Prime Minister, Defence Minister Phil Goff and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have all declared they knew nothing of the flights until revelations were published in <em><a href="http://www.investigatemagazine.com/">Investigate</a></em> magazine. But 78% of the airline is government-owned, and Air New Zealand decisions on this level aren’t taken without consultation with their major shareholders, the government. Foreign Affairs secretary Simon Murdoch, head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFaT) was told in advance of Air New Zealand’s plans and asked for advice on the matter, something Air New Zealand officials were able to prove, rather quickly, by producing official documents from the ministry okaying the proposed charter. While Simon Murdoch, it seems, ‘forgot’ to inform the rest of his government of these charter flights, the General Manager of Air New Zealand operations and planning, Glen Sowry, was able to confirm all the proper enquiries with government officials had been made long before the charter was committed to. The company never made any secret of these flights, which had been ‘widely publicised within the company’ and well-known in the international aviation marketplace.<br /><br />And I know this is true, as The Boss showed me the July issue of <em>Crews</em> <em>News, the Magazine for Air New Zealand’s Air Crew</em> (which - completely unrelated to this post - was amazing for the number of cosmetic teeth whitening ads, ads for dermabrasion and this gem: ‘Irritating Passengers? Express yourself on the inside with Botox’ – I kid you not. Also darkly amusing was the checklist of ‘Top Ten Things Not To Say When Applying for Your New US Crew Visa’, which included, ‘Are you all that fat?’ Charming). Right there on page ten is an article, ‘A Journey to Kuwait’, by Wayne Mitcham, reporting ‘on a unique journey that took him to Darwin and Kuwait’, complete with bubbly details on shopping and photographs of happy smiling flight attendants dressed in black chadors standing next to a white robed Kuwaiti official. If this was an official state secret, it was a pretty poorly kept one.<br /><br />Moreover, while the Prime Minister might have been publicly chewing the carpet, it seems she may have been aware of these foreign troop transports all along, despite her Foreign Affairs secretary's convenient amnesia – only weeks before the first flight of troops into Kuwait and US troops into Japan, Helen Clark met with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and it is unlikely they were merely discussing the menu and table decorations for the next state visit.<br /><br />At the beginning of the Iraq war, Prime Minister Helen Clark deployed two frigates and a troop of sixty army engineers to Iraq for ‘peacekeeping’ exercises with the British troops in Basra. Yet Paul Wolfowitz considered the New Zealand’s military support as ‘contributing forces’ to the post-invasion occupation of Iraq, and in return made New Zealand one of the countries eligible for commercial contracts in the United States. But after it became all too rapidly obvious that Iraq was turning into a disaster, Clark’s Labour government withdrew the army engineer unit and has increasingly endeavoured to dissociate itself from the war, and the Bush administration. </div><div></div><div><br />Or… at least, as far as the New Zealand public was concerned. Privately, it seems the government has been less than inflexible on its anti-war position. So these clandestine and not-so-clandestine flights of combat troops into the Middle East has not gone down well with the Kiwi public.<br /><br />Nor with the Australians. The Australian government expressed its ‘extreme displeasure’ with the Clark government’s hypocritical anti-war posturing, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer called in New Zealand Ambassador John Larkindale for an official reprimand. Australia has now forbidden its military to use Air New Zealand under any circumstances, including commercial flight travel. Helen Clark’s response was to declare that Downer should keep his nose out of New Zealand’s political affairs.<br /><br />On August 17th, Helen Clark – rather than shifting her righteous annoyance onto an apparently incompetent member of her government – decided to try and shrug off the Air New Zealand fiasco instead, declaring <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=209&objectid=10458409">Simon Murdoch had simply had a ‘bad-hair’ day</a>. Yeah, right. </div><div><br />The very next day – and three days after Clark’s denunciation of the airline – Air New Zealand flew fifty-five Tongan soldiers enroute to Baghdad where the Tongans are to provide security at the US base Camp Victory. </div><div><br />Air New Zealand has had a rough past decade, six years ago barely surviving a loss of 1.4 million dollars (NZ) when its subsidiary Ansett Australia bit the dust, and the government stepped in to rescue the beleaguered airline. Stripped to the bones, Air New Zealand has cut every corner possible – work diverted from unionised staff to outside contractors, mass redundancies, inflight meals more suitable for workhouse inmates than commercial air passengers, flights made with just enough aviation fuel for the scheduled trip and not a drop more to lighten air weight, and allegations of recruiting cheaply paid trainees who fail security checks or can’t speak English. And, of course, accepting any charter deals it can wrangle. Such practices have meant a demoralized air service, but it has also meant plenty of profits for its primary shareholders – the New Zealand government. Small wonder, then, when the Prime Minister has tried Bush type tactics, rewriting history and scapegoating blame, the airline has fought back.<br /><br />It might seem this is just a Kiwi problem, but as long as the Bush administration can exert pressure on other nations to secretly ferry soldiers and contractors heading into Iraq, as long as commercial businesses like Air New Zealand are struggling for economic survival from a worsening global economy and compelled to make unpopular, if not unethical, business deals, the longer this war is going to last. </div><div></div><div><br />And that makes it everyone’s problem. </div>Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-63309818436342360422007-09-19T15:57:00.000-07:002007-09-19T16:25:28.594-07:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidqIixNsIj_46LjVrkATaWynyMbDk3oL-kdOR_EfpWDJaQ8B3qmYGAT2j2aN_2LDF7TwFr459nWMlk25cnb785csRG2Ugw54-ap-rZ5ocot5h9YsiKj8mdVnHwkjye_-0tgwSbpKLWemk/s1600-h/pumpkin.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5112053750527943474" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidqIixNsIj_46LjVrkATaWynyMbDk3oL-kdOR_EfpWDJaQ8B3qmYGAT2j2aN_2LDF7TwFr459nWMlk25cnb785csRG2Ugw54-ap-rZ5ocot5h9YsiKj8mdVnHwkjye_-0tgwSbpKLWemk/s320/pumpkin.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#990000;">Where is Pumpkin’s Daddy? </span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#990000;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#990000;">Homeland Security Doesn't Know...</span></strong><br /><br /><br />A few days ago, the photo of a sad-eyed little Chinese girl from New Zealand finally pushed Madelaine McCann off the front pages, except this time it isn’t the child who has gone missing; it’s her father, Nai Yin (‘Michael’) Xue.<br /><br />On Saturday morning, 15th of September, CCTV recorded Mr Xue, 54, walking onto a platform at the Southern Cross train station in Melbourne, pulling a suitcase and holding his three-year-old daughter’s hand. At an escalator, he bent down to speak to her before walking away, without looking back. The camera then recorded the little girl wandering aimlessly for twenty minutes as people passed by before security guards found her. Mr Xue took a taxi to the airport and two hours later boarded a plane to LAX.<br /><br />It hasn’t taken long to piece together the sequence of events: Mr Xue’s 27-year-old second wife, An An ‘Annie’ Liu, was last seen alive at a childcare centre on Tuesday, September 11th. On Wednesday, Mr Xue – a naturalized citizen of New Zealand, martial arts expert and well-known owner of a Chinese-language newspaper – went to the Henderson Police Station in Auckland to retrieve a ceremonial sword and his passport, which had been confiscated after he had been convicted of assaulting his wife in a violent domestic dispute last June. Mr Xue has several times in the past threatened to kill his wife, according to friends, and Mrs Xue had sought refuge at a woman’s shelter. After collecting his passport, Mr Xue then went to the KVB Kunlun bank on Queen St in central Auckland and withdrew $8800 New Zealand, (US$6445). On Thursday evening, he was seen eating with his daughter, Qian Xun Xue, at a restaurant in Auckland, before he later drove his wife’s car to the Auckland airport and fled to Australia with the child. His own car, a Honda Rafaga with Xue’s <em>Chinese Times</em> prominent logo, remained parked outside the couple’s home for two days before it was moved by police and searched. A body presumed to be that of his wife’s was finally found, stuffed into the boot on Wednesday, September 19th, a week after Mr Xue had collected his passport and fled New Zealand…while during the previous two days police searched his home on Keystone Avenue (and yes, the irony hasn’t been missed here in Auckland.)<br /><br />The abandoned little girl, nicknamed ‘Pumpkin’ by the police, is being cared for until custody issues can be sorted out, and her grandmother arrives from China. The little girl has been in a state of shock, not speaking for two days, until she finally cried for her mother.<br /><br />CCTV cameras and airline records clearly show Mr Xue at both the Melbourne airport and at LAX. But while all this is tragic on a personal level, here’s the real kicker:<br /><br />Los Angeles police have confirmed that they are <strong>not</strong> searching for the father who has clearly abandoned his child and quite possibly murdered his wife. Why? It seems that while New Zealand informed the Interpol agency in Washington of the situation, Interpol didn’t pass on that information to the police in Los Angeles, because they had yet to receive a formal warrant from New Zealand for his arrest. The L.A. police contacted Interpol themselves, after hearing about the case in the media<br /><br />So much for the effectiveness that aggressive fingerprinting and photographing of every passenger into LAX Homeland Security insists upon – including every member of the flight crew who flew Mr Xue into LAX – yes, even pilots and crew are not exempt from such treatment as I experienced on my flight from Heathrow to Auckland two months ago. So while the United States continues to invade the privacy of tens of thousands of innocent American citizens with warrantless wiretapping, and even more innocent non-Americans arriving in – or just in transit through – the United States, a man with a previous conviction of domestic violence, who has abandoned his three-year-old daughter and is suspected of murdering his wife… walks off a plane at LAX and vanishes into the large Asian community in Los Angeles. It does beg the question why Mr Xue chose the United States to escape, rather than his native China (who are fully co-operating with both Interpol and the New Zealand police for Mr Xue’s capture).<br /><br />But I suppose since Mr Xue isn’t a Muslim or an Iraqi, or fits any particular profile as a possible terrorist, Homeland Security isn’t bothered by his fleeing into California. Meanwhile… Cate Blanchette and Russell Crowe have been tipped to play the McCanns in a Hollywood movie about the missing British girl.<br /><br />The absurdity that is American life goes on… </div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div>Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-44533539225253824262007-09-18T04:21:00.000-07:002007-09-18T04:24:35.340-07:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFWHp63tIm9qkhe7s-Vl1sPn752p9TRf7S95Ly7z9ByT2oeE1cz_Lwr8bMGHoPcq5Db4q1JOMEPxkupvWDUJSsKstB182TGHjZrhYea4RqmCliadiIQ7xA_6ZcRge3l7Wl76VzQffDrww/s1600-h/kawakawa+beach.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5111503518722011714" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFWHp63tIm9qkhe7s-Vl1sPn752p9TRf7S95Ly7z9ByT2oeE1cz_Lwr8bMGHoPcq5Db4q1JOMEPxkupvWDUJSsKstB182TGHjZrhYea4RqmCliadiIQ7xA_6ZcRge3l7Wl76VzQffDrww/s320/kawakawa+beach.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div>Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079895113125375244.post-73834642147548970672007-09-18T02:00:00.000-07:002007-09-19T16:08:42.924-07:00<span style="font-size:130%;">The Mouse Goes Down Under</span><br /><br />A couple months ago, I gave up my sweet little house in the wild northern borders of England, said goodbye to dear friends and neighbours and just about everyone else I knew, and moved to New Zealand. My entire lifestyle has been turned completely upside down - literally, in this case. After nearly a decade of living peacefully and quite contentedly on my own (albeit most of that time sharing my home with an elderly cat who supplied the vast majority of any company and conversation I required), surrounded by all the accumulated possessions of around five decades of existence, in the heart of a tiny rural village where neighbours behaved more like a bunch of eccentric relatives wandering in and out of each other's houses for tea and gossip, I'm now living in the middle of an Auckland city suburb, with a family of two young girls and their widowed father - as a nanny. My new home is a tiny basement flat with basic amenities and borrowed furniture while what fraction of my possessions I could afford to keep are now in storage, waiting to be shipped. My dear old friend the cat has stayed behind in the UK, buried under a couple of apple trees in a neighbour's garden, overlooking the Tyne River.<br /><br />I've been talking about moving to New Zealand for a number of years now, but it was always something that would happen... sometime... later. In the future. Once I earned my Master's degree (check), once the elderly cat had passed on (check), once I'd found a viable job opportunity (check)... I eventually ran out of 'onces', and it happened. Almost overnight. Almost out of the blue. It stopped being simply a pleasant hazy daydream and suddenly became a very lucid reality, hard edges and all.<br /><br />Regardless of how many other times I've moved from one country to another, I have always either done it in the company of other people, or knew people already there to supply the company. As wonderful as New Zealand genuinely is, I honestly had no concept of just how damned emotionally difficult it would be to move halfway around the planet, all on my own, to a place where I knew precisely... no one. After nearly a decade of living peacefully and quite contentedly on my own, where I could happily go days without seeing or talking to anyone, I'm now constantly surrounded by people and never felt lonelier. It's been much harder than I expected; being intimately involved with yet entirely peripheral to other people's lives, in it but not of it, welcome but not welcomed. In Britain, I had everything I ever wanted, but nothing of what I desperately needed. Here, I have everything I could possibly need, and damned close to nothing that I so viscerally want.<br /><br />Not yet, anyway...<br /><br />I have no regrets. Because I know this is, of course, a temporary inconvenience and trying to force relationships in a bid just to lessen the loneliness has been a bad idea (oh, such a <em>very</em> bad idea!) It will simply take a bit more time, and patience, but I will again find kindred spirits floating past by sheer chance, make new friends and enemies who will mature into comfortably old friends and enemies, find my footing and stop stumbling over the smallest cultural difference made much harder to spot before tripping when (most) everyone speaks English and it all <em>looks</em> so bloody <em>normal</em>. Contrary to the hype, New Zealand... or more accurately, Auckland... is not like England at all. Nor is it like the States. Nor anywhere else I've ever been. It has its own culture and nuances, still completely alien to me, and I'm far from understanding it enough to relax. But I've made a start, met a few other writers and academics in New Zealand's literary circle, looking forward to sailing with the ladies group at the local yacht harbour in a couple weeks, even had a lovely lunch and deeply satisfying conversation with a regular poster off C&L. Soon enough, I'll start to understand the politics here as well. And then I really will be back in my element at last...<br /><br />But for now, I have this photo that I took on a chilly winter's day in the middle of July, on a drive down the coast not that far from the desolate Kafke-Californianesque sprawl that are the soul-destroying suburbs of Auckland, to remind me of why I wanted to come here in the first place. A little initial loneliness is a small price to pay for a shot at a brighter future in such beauty and peace.Nonny Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03783051707199293919noreply@blogger.com9