Blather, rinse, repeat

I'm writing this before I've even finished Stephen King's novel Under The Dome because I can't hold it back anymore. I get like that sometimes.

I love this behemoth. I think it's one of the best, most subversive-but-not-really pieces of work he's ever written. I say this as an admitted long-time King fangirl. Sure and he's written stories that've made me go “meh” but this is not one of them and Imma tellya why.

First let me say that it's not King's ability to write male leads that I always fall in love with—although he does—that gets me so into this book.
You just gotta love Dale Barbara. (Not in the same way one falls in love with Roland Deschain, but still.) King is such a master at taking the mundane and making it epic, at taking normal people and making them into heroes and unthinkable villains, it seems effortless when he does it. And he writes a good scare, and he's not afraid to get really dirty and gross and horrific with the body fluids, guts, rot, and general nasty stuff like that. I appreciate a good gross-out almost as much as I appreciate a good scare. And I envy his ability.

But none of that is what is really getting me so excited by Under The Dome. What's got me worked up enough to devote an entire LJ entry to it is the premise and how he handles it.

So, there's this small town and a dome randomly covers it. No one can get in or out. It's a national tragedy. Throw in some good guys, some bad guys, and a small-minded dictator, and you've got a political tragedy.

After this devastating event locks the entire town down, King's as-yet most evilest ever Bad Guy decides that he's the only one fit to rule the town. It's 'cause he's a good Christian, see, everything he does is for the good of the Chu'ch, for the good of 'Murrika the town. Never mind that he and his henchmen are involved in some really filthy side-businesses that make them tons of money and destroy the health of the rest of the citizens. It's all for the good of the town. And don't think they don't struggle with their decisions. But the Big Bad, he gave his heart to Christ, so he prays a lot. You know, in order to get guidance, to do what he does. For the good of the town.

The Dome isn't enough of a unifying tragedy, since some forward-thinking townspeople are still against him and his cronies. So he creates more tragedies in order to pull them all together (for the good of the town.) And any turr'rist citizen who is really against him, why, they are easily gotten rid of. Then he can frame them for his crimes, and those of his henchmen, and lock them in prison, trying to force them to confess under the threat of waterboarding. For the good of the town. And he gets his son, and all his son's friends, on the police force in a state of martial law, in order to create and enforce order, and repeals the citizens' rights to carry weapons. Because you have to give up your rights sometimes, when it's, you know, for the good of the town.

After another tragedy strikes, most of the citizens start wearing yellow ribbons blue armbands to show their solidarity, and support of the good men of the police. Even the folks who are against him and his group have to wear the armbands in order to blend in, to not be lynched.

And I really can't go much further with my own take on this here, because otherwise I'll be e-lynched, and probably by a few people I even know. There are certain opinions that are still taboo.

King made some cagey decisions to save his own ass, or at least that's what I think he did. The hero of the story is an ex military guy. There is a sympathetic and sane Christian character – although she's secretly agnostic; and a sympathetic, sane and heroic Republican – although the newspaper she writes is called “The Democrat.” King's obviously no dummy, but neither am I. I know a token when I see one.

So, I haven't finished the novel and I really have no idea of how it's going to end, but I love him for this book. On the one hand I think it's not timely enough: it should have been written in 2002. On the other hand, I perfectly understand the impossibility of releasing this book even a year ago.

Well done, King. Bravo for seeing and saying what so few people have the balls to see, or if we do see it, to say. And then to use your obviously HUGE voice to write a great big novel about it. Beautifully carried out. I know a few folks in my own circle who are devout conservatives who probably won't even see what's going on here.

We see what we expect to see in novels. In many things, really. That goes for me, too. I could be wildly misreading his intentions here.

But I'm not. ^_^

The other night I was driving the Empress home from KF, and we chatted about all manner of things on the way home (as we usually do.) When we got to her house, I saw that the plow trucks had piled the snow up so high that it nearly covered her front gate, and was higher than their cars. (It's just the same out here, too.) I am just about done with witner, to be honest (I always am around March; though I really don't begrudge winter its parting wallop; gotta hand it to winter.) But anyway, still dismayed by the mountains of snow when I thought Spring was on its way I told her, "Look at these huge mounds of snow! There's no way this is going to melt soon. It'll still be here by April."

"No way," the Empress said. "Do you really think so? Nah, it has to melt before then."

Well, that was a brief and fairly meaningless semi conversation but while I was driving home all of a sudden I remembered this part of Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book:

"Well," said Her Majesty, "how long is that mountain [of snow] likely to last?"

Everyone guessed that it would be ten days or a little more.

"And what do you think?" the Empress asked me.

"It will last till the fifteenth day of the first month," I declared.

Evem Her Majesty found this hard to believe, and the other women insisted that it would melt before the end of the year. I realized that I had chosen too distant a date; the mountain would last until the first of the year at the outside, which was the latest day I should have given. Yet there was no taking back what I had said: though I knew the mountain was unlikely to survive until the fifteenth, I stuck to my original prediction.

Towards the twentieth it began raining. There was no sign that the snow was about to melt, but the mountain did shrink a little. "Oh Goddess of Mercy of Shirayama," I prayed frenziedly, "Do not let our mountain melt away!"

Haha, so neat! Because I code-name Empress "Empress" because of the historical figure depicted in that book, naturally! Anyway, I thought that was cool.

This, however, is not so cool:

( The Subversion of Liberty Narrowly Averted by Naomi Wolf )

Please read that article; really take it in! And I'm not convinced that this was actually "narrowly subverted" or was subverted at all. I've always thought that the Bush Administration wasn't just one man voted into power by half of a terrified and manipulated country: I feel like the Bush administration has roots far deeper than most people know, and farther back into history than we suspect. This wasn't just some guy who happened to get voted in. If that sounds paranoid, well, maybe so did some of the stuff listed up there before these files were released a few days ago.

So I don't think anyone can afford to sit back and go, "Whew! Wow, we skirted that one!" Because those sons of whores will be back for more. Like my friend who sent me this said: the pendulum swings. But it has never swung this far in America before. Who knows but that it might swing even farther in eight years? I'm still afraid of Bush. Cut off the head of the dictator and the body will grow a new one.

I'm sorry to end this note on such a downer, truly I am. But anything I say after this will look paltry and insignificant (kinda like the rest of this journal. ;D )

First let me get this out of the way: Obama releases secret Bush anti-terror memos.

The legal memos written by the Bush administration's Office of Legal Counsel show a government grappling with how to wage war on terrorism in a fast-changing world. The conclusion, reiterated in page after page of documents, was that the president had broad authority to set aside constitutional rights....

"First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully," Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo wrote, adding later: "The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically."

While I'm glad that this is (at least for eight years,) OVER, how the hell is it that Bush and his ilk are still making me want to tear out my hair and scream and rant and rave? GOD, I hate him and everything he stands for, hate with every darkest corner of my psyche.

*Whew!*

Anyway. So the March Lion brought me two things today,and failed to bring me other things. It brought me a snow day! HURRAY! And it brought me a viewing of House as it airs, since Kung Fu is closed tonight. Honestly I'd rather be at KF, but what the hell, you take what you can get.

So we got about 10 inches of snow in some places, and the wind blew it even higher in others. And it's still coming down. It is a true blizzard; there were moments of white-outs. Today I was craving a cupcake so hard. SO HARD. Like irrationally craving an effing chocolate cupcake. So I dug my damn car out of two feet of snow (and my Dad came by with the snow blower to really clear out a path,) and decided that I needed to go to the store today. I did need a few other things anyway that I was out of, so I figured I should just up and go. The roads were terrible (they always are,) but I made it there and I went right to the bakery. Everything there looked so beautiful and I found that it wasn't a damn cupcake I wanted, but some of their cookies. Holy crap they looked awesome. Gooey, huge, organic, freshly baked chocolate chips and chocolate chocolate chunk ones. The girl behind the counter asked what I wanted and I told her I'd have to get back to her. I wanted to finish my real shopping first and then decide.

So off I went and did my shopping. I came back to the counter and the bakery girl was nowhere to be found. I really wanted those cookies. They looked so good, but she was nowhere to be seen and I was thinking, "Maybe it's a sign that I shouldn't eat one?" I waited and waited and there was no one even to ask if I could buy something. I guess I probably just stood staring in totally mournful desire at those cookies, absolutely wistful and self-pitying because I could not get to them.

As I stood there, going up an aisle behind me was this dude, and I kid you not when I tell you that he was so drop-dead freaking gorgeous that I think I just stared, slackjawed for a second. He looked to be some kind of Native American/Asian mix and he had this shoulder-length dark brown hair and beautiful skin, not to mention being around 6'1" or something with a really cute winter hat and bulky coat that did not cover up the fact that he was that perfect combination of slender and broad.

I believe that stared at him in exactly the same way I had looked at the cookies.

Well anyway, some pictures of this March Lion. Actually, mostly of my dogs in the snow.

( This gives you an idea of how much snow there was without the wind blowing it into drifts. )

( That's outside the lower window of my bedroom. )

( I love this one of Sano; he looks like some kind of snow wolf or something. )

( Can you spot the white hound? )

( How about now? :) )

Like it or not, I totally owe another post with pictures, of stuff like Boychild's birthday, and these admittedly freaking awesome Kung Fu photo-manips I've been doing.

LOL I said "nips."

More later.

Obama signs order reversing abortion-funds policy!

President Barack Obama on Friday quietly ended the Bush administration's ban on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide information on the option....

Obama has spent his first days in office aggressively signing executive orders reversing Bush administration policies on issues ranging from foreign policy to government operations.


^_^ HURRAH!

Now check out this cool video that was posted on WTF_Nature this morning. The gladiator spider! It's amazing, here's what she does: She spins a web and then she back-combs it so that it's fuzzy and really flexible. She makes it into a teeny little rectangle and then she adds cross-netting so it's a little net. Then she snips it free from the rest of her web, holds it in her forelegs while she's suspended head-down, and then when a bug goes under her, she throws the net over him! Watch:



Hmmm, yes, a tiny net is a death sentence. It's a net, and it's tiny!

/Master Betty

My favorite part is when she measures how far she is from the ground. Isn't that amazing?

Two tests tomorrow. Back to studying! Umm, after I call my friend. :)

To get this out of the way first:

Say, Bush, you invaded the wrong country and Al Quaida wasn't there until you invaded it.

"SO WHAT?"



Once again, Cenk says it all. I don't even have to add to his commentary.

Well, now that that's off my chest... Today is otherwise lovely! It's raining, and though I wish it were snowing, this will do for now I guess. Once in a while the rain freezes into sleet and makes a cool noise on top of my patio room and the aviary.

Last night in Kung Fu we all had such a great time. We worked really hard in basics class and then in advanced we did locking and trapping and throwing. I'm feeling all stretchy today, also I think I caught a cold but it's not so bad.

As we were closing up the school I asked Sifu when our party was going to be and he said he didn't think we were having one because no one could afford it. This was a MAJOR bummer for me. I told him, "Yeah, I guess I understand. But, let's have one anyway!" and he was like, "Well, okay." In the end we decided that whoever wants to will just meet up for a night out. It probably won't be that many of us. Me, the Empress, Lady Chrysanthemum, Beautiful Boy, Snarklit, and Sifu is my guess. Maybe Scarred Hardcase and Tattooed Sweetheart.

This afternoon I'm going to see TDTESS. It plays at 4:10 around the corner here. I guess I'll go out to the grocery store and get a pint of ice cream for dinner and then head over to the theater.

BLISS, right? :)

Oops, one more thing. Making me both LOL and cringe today, Resident Evil 4 ways to die. It's 8 minutes freaking long!



It's hideous when he gets totally raped by the regenerators! And chopped in half, and run over, and stabbed repeatedly and, like, really graphically. It's kind of hilarious when Luis kills him out of exasperation. And It's AWFUL* when he drowns!














*Kind of hot.

Yeah, kind of hot.

ETA:



O_O

I thought this was a really cool video. I know folks who aren't going to vote and they've got all these "reasons" but this video sums it up. Wish I could make all those people change their minds.

Wrong woman, wrong message.

Now what's this about Palin and wolves?


Ah, never mind, I found it: McCain's VP pick defends right to shoot wolves from planes.

Miller, D-Martinez, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, introduced federal legislation last year to end Alaska's policy of allowing people to shoot wolves from airplanes - a practice used to keep the number of wolves in check so they don't eat all the state's moose and caribou.

Miller - who has strong support from environmental groups around the country - deemed the kills cruel and unnecessary to preserve the moose and caribou population. What's more, he said, they violate federal law banning airborne hunting.

Faster than you can cry wolf, Palin told the East Bay congressman and his Washington pals to butt out.

What an utterly useless and destructive person.

Yesterday I got a call from SB saying that he was at the college, and could I come by to hang out. I drove up there and he told me that he was waiting on his friend to get out of class to take him home. I was like, Eff that, I never get to see my boy, so I drove him home instead. It was great because it's a long car ride and we got to talk about tons of important things.

He's currently taking classes at the campus where I went for four years and as we were leaving the parking lot he said to me, "I used to come here as a baby when you would get picked up from here. Now, you're picking me up in the same parking lot."

I went, O_O.

Back at their house, I got to briefly see Jo-chan and she is completely tied to school, homework, and a mad job that is devouring her adolescence. I'm sorry, Jo-chan.

It was so good to see both of them.

So anyway, one day soon, when I get it all clear and tidied up, with names taken out to protect the guilty, I am going to post the weird, random-fandom trajectory that has me readying to apply to holistic medical school.

But for tonight, suffice it to say that once I come back from vaca, I am digging up my transcript and trying to navigate the mad crazy mess that is financial aid, scholarships and grants.

Guess what? I got the rejection letter from the publisher's today. It's a good letter! It's not a form letter, it's a real one, and the guy tells me that it is too difficult to break a new author into their company without it being a sure-fire commercial success. He also tells me to keep on trying etc., you know, all the stuff they always tell you so as not to come across as a dick. They're just doing their business. It's all cool.

I'm glad it came so quickly; I wasn't expecting it till like December or something. Now I can start again with a different company. The only thing is, it's such a pain because the next company wants three chapters, a cover letter, a synopsis chapter by chapter, blah blah blah, all this annoying stuff. >_< It was easier to just send the whole damn thing out without having to talk too much.

And so I work my way across the list! ^_^

It's funny that this letter came today, right? The day after I decided what I'm doing?

Something's up, you know? The publisher in question was DAW. That's the license plate I kept seeing. It's so odd how I got the letter today, the day after talking to the woman at the medical college. If the ms. had been accepted, I probably would not have bothered with college. I think that's why I kept seeing DAW: I had to submit it not so that it would be accepted, but so that it would be rejected!

Okay, I am for sure going back to school, universe! Really! ^_^

But I am also not going to quite sending the ms. out.

Next up: Edge/Tesseract!

Word.

And then there was politics. I hope no one minds if I copy and paste something that happened today. This is something that happens to me a lot frequently. I know a lot of people who hate the Bush administration, hate what is happening to the country, hate our rights disappearing along with the climate, and hate the war. Yet they are not going to vote for Obama. Because of personal reasons of "trust" or "it's just not right" or "it doesn't feel right" or whatever, they are just going to not vote at all. They are going to give away their vote to McCain, really. Anyway, here's what I say to that.

You don't have to LIKE Obama. He doesn't have to be "for you" and he doesn't have to "fit" you. It's not about personalities or feelings or trust or these other nebulous ideas. It's not even about parties.

It's about protecting what is left of our rights and our world from further ruin. "I'm not going to vote for personal reasons" is a really dangerous stance to take when the stakes of the rest of the free world are so damn high.

McCain and Palin want to overturn Roe v. Wade. You can be sure they will make a case against homosexual marriage. They will continue the war (McCain has said this over and over again.) They are both ridiculously destructive to the environment. Bush overturned the 4th and 5th amendments and you can be sure that McCain will not only keep it this way, but will do even more damage.

The thing is, you could have McCain running against a piece of reanimated roadkill with lint for a VP, and you would still absolutely have to vote for the roadkill if you want to protect what's left.

Even if you hate Obama, he is all there is. Even if he got into office and did absolutely dick; even if he spray-painted inverted crosses all over the ceiling and peed on the walls, or if he bathed nightly in a vat of leeches, he would still be all there is to not complete the Bush agenda.

It's not about feelings or trust, parties, personalities, the media, or who "fits" what candidate. Those things can take a flying leap. What it comes down to is doing everything you possibly can to salvage what is left.

Of course, this all depends on where you stand on the issues. If you're okay with women being denied the right to choose--even in the circumstance of rape, this is--then don't vote. Not voting is your option. If you're all right with the war, not voting is your option. If you're all right with homosexuals being told how they may or may not live, not voting is your option. If you're all right with Planned Parenthood going under, not voting is your option. If you're all right with what's left of our resources and the environment going to hell, then not voting is your option.

But if that stuff bothers you at all, then Obama is the only option.

I also want to link to this, Jon Stewart on hypocrisy:



For the no-clickes or if the link gets taken down:
Wednesday night on "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart hit Karl Rove and Bill O'Reilly with damning evidence of their hypocrisy regarding Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

While Rove recently praised Palin's experience as the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Stewart showed video of Rove trashing Virginia Governor — and former Richmond Mayor — Tim Kaine's executive experience, listing all the cities that are bigger than Richmond and calling such a pick "political."

Then, after recent video of O'Reilly describing Bristol Palin's pregnancy as a family issue, Stewart showed a clip of the Fox News host blaming Jamie Lynn Spears' parents for her teenage pregnancy.

Finally, after showing video of Dick Morris complaining about the rampant sexism in the media coverage of Sarah Palin, Stewart unveiled a clip of Morris saying that Hillary hides behind the sexism defense, and that anytime "the big boys" pick on Hillary, "she retreats behind the apron strings."

"In Dick Morris' defense," Stewart said, "he is a lying sack of sh*t."

And, gacked from reanimated, if you think that there is no racism at all in this race from the Republican side, take a look.

Westmoreland was discussing vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's speech with reporters outside the House chamber and was asked to compare her with Michelle Obama.

"Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity," Westmoreland said.

I'm glad that Obama takes the high road; I think it will help him in the long run. I saw him take the political, conciliatory road on SpongePorn NoPants's show tonight, and that I didn't like. I hated it, but I got it. He can't go on there spouting about how the war on Turrism and how Humland Skurrity for Murrika is a bunch of jingoistic right-wingtards scratching their balls and beating their chests, he just can't. I get that.

But that doesn't mean that I can't get angry and spout off about it.

October Surprise could affect elections.

The surprise scenario presumes the deliberate creation of a national security crisis by a small group of persons or even one person. Control over the American election may be purely incidental to the event or the surprise may be an effort deliberately focused on American politics. Either way, it is an "October Surprise" by consequence.


I HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THIS FOR ABOUT A YEAR. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this.

Also, don't you love Obama totally taking the high road on Palin's daughter's pregnancy? Not only does he pretty much have to, he can afford to. He doesn't have to say a word. It speaks for itself. The whole "no sex ed / abstinence only" thing clearly doesn't work right there at home.

I wonder how many right wing conservatives will simply not vote due to this, on moral grounds or whatever. A fair amount, hopefully.

In much neater news: Amazing water display!

ETA: Ooooh, I just switched vets. I had to make an appointment for the dogs so I could board them in two weeks when I go away. They need their tune-up anyway and at The Bad Place it was always a fly-by: because I never had to pay, the care was less than stellar. They gave Haku all his shots at once and he had an extreme allergic reaction; because they did it all at once no one knows what his allergy is. Also, Ex Douche sent Trisky home on buffered aspirin three times when, in fact, she had cancer. So I more or less had switched vets even while I was was still working there, but the vet I was using wasn't a permanent one (and believe me, Douche was less than happy to find out that I was taking her somewhere better and he let me know it, ON THE DAY that the other place finally diagnosed her with cancer. Ahhh, the things I could never talk about before.)

Anyway, their appointment with the new vet is Friday at 11. In the meanwhile, the new clinic has to call The Bad Place and get their records faxed over. El Oh El, I hope that happens when Douche is there so he can see them going through. Ouch. ^_^

Jesus Christ, one more thing.

You guys, check this out.

Vogue’s Fashion Photos Spark Debate in India.

An old woman missing her upper front teeth holds a child in rumpled clothes — who is wearing a Fendi bib (retail price, about $100).

In Vogue India magazine, a child from a poor family modeled a Fendi bib, which costs about $100.

A man modeled a Burberry umbrella in Vogue that costs about $200. Some 456 million Indians live on less than $1.25 a day.

A family of three squeezes onto a motorbike for their daily commute, the mother riding without a helmet and sidesaddle in the traditional Indian way — except that she has a Hermès Birkin bag (usually more than $10,000, if you can find one) prominently displayed on her wrist.

Elsewhere, a toothless barefoot man holds a Burberry umbrella (about $200)...

Vogue India editor Priya Tanna’s message to critics of the August shoot: “Lighten up,” she said in a telephone interview. Vogue is about realizing the “power of fashion” she said, and the shoot was saying that “fashion is no longer a rich man’s privilege. Anyone can carry it off and make it look beautiful,” she said.



IS ANYONE ELSE HERE THINKING OF ZOOLANDER?!

Derelicte!

OMG, the world is crazy.