Wickett and his Hunting Crouch

His enemy du jour?

That furry thing attached to his butt. He will catch it. He barks at it!

Since he got fixed, he stopped peeing in the house (except for today), but he's still noisy, crabby, and likes to hump Mikey and sometimes Dixie.

But he's also regressed to puppyhood again! It's so much fun. He'll chase his tail for hours, and today he was yelling at it and becky had the camera with a friend's house for pre-prom preparations. (The friend's boyfriend is a senior.)

But I will get video of him on the hunt one day.

Speaking of hunting, Dixie's killed her first palmetto bug of the season. It was under the grill, I moved it, and she struck. Bug guts and dog slobber everywhere. Thankfully on the porch this time.

Palmetto bugs are just big-ass cock-a-roaches. And Dixie loves to kill them.





(Substitute the palmetto bug for Mikey)

I am pre-pregnant.

I have been since March 2000, my 6th grade spring break vacation - with no pads - 7 months after I turned 11.

And I will be until I have a hysterectomy, get my tubes tied, or go through menopause.

And so will all the other women and girls I know. I think my cousin Jessica is pre-pre-pregnant at 9, but she still needs to make sure she does nothing to endanger the eventual fetus she will carry.

I'm almost a year late with my outrage, but I can still say what the hell?

This story is so sad and needs to be untrue.

But the words “federal guidelines” and “pre-pregnant” are not just sending up red flags, they’re sending out a fireworks show and a marching band.

I have been unable to obtain adequate medical care for my epilepsy because I am what they’d call pre-pregnant. As my neurologist puts it, I am a woman of child-bearing age. As such, they flat-out refuse to try me on any medicines other than the ones proven least likely to affect a fetus (read: the ones that are paying off my neurologist). Despite the fact that I have declared my belly a no-fetus zone.

My neurologist does not trust me to not get pregnant. My neurologist puts a potential fetus’s potential health over my health.

And now the government wants to officially sanction that.

Oh HELL no.

I should not have to get my fucking tubes tied in order to not have seizures and/or get medication that at least doesn’t have me dropping weight. (90.5 on the Craftsman’s bathroom scale; even taking into account that it’s a different scale from my doctor’s, it’s a significant enough difference that I have to look at it. I’m 89 on my scale right now. Which slips, but - still.) Toget off a medication that’s caused what’s essentially a whole-body crash.

Pre-pregnant? Hell no. I am post-pregnant by 11 years. Pregnancy and me do not belong in the same sentence.

Screw that noise.

EDIT: When I first posted this, I was writing just for myself and my friendslist, so I didn’t put in a whole lot of background.

Now this post has been linked all over LJ and in DailyKos. So. Background for people who have not been reading me since the dawn of time, quick-and-dirty version: I was diagnosed with epilepsy in October 2003. My first neurologist put me on Lamictal, which caused some pretty untenable side effects, including the first 2/3 of what became a catastrophic weight loss - 50 pounds in total, to a low of 85 pounds.

She tried me on Keppra, which was worse - then gave up for the sake of the potential fetus. I switched neurologists and medications, trying Topomax and Trileptal, the latter of which (plus Zonegran) I’m still on. The weight loss continued. Uncontrollably.

There are medications that have, as their side effects, weight gain. I have begged for these medications, but been refused. Direct quote from my neurologist: “You’re a newlywed. You’ll want a baby.” I’m a newlywed with an 11-year-old daughter and a body that’s falling apart. Trust me. I do not want a baby. But my stated desires are irrelevant - I cannot get prescribed a medication that will keep me from losing weight and may control my seizures better than the one I’m on now, due entirely to increased risk of birth defects.

THIS IS WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!

A potential fetus is more important than a person who is already alive, who already went through the fetus stage of life.

We were all fetuses at one point in our life or another, unless you're a cloned human reading this.

But once we're out of the womb, we don't matter anymore. Once your born, you're worthless. Or else why would the politicians screaming about criminalizing abortion also scream about the eeeeeeeeeeeevils of government programs like WiC, HeadStart, and socialized healthcare for the people outside of wombs.

Hey, if we're all pre-pregnant, from our first menstruation to menopause or sterilization, we should have free medical care. Think of the fetuses!

Some assholes have said that Walter Reed is a sign that government can't do healthcare, so socialized healthcare will result in rats and such.

I think it's a sign that the powers-that-fund don't give a rat's ass about the soldiers when they come home. Or even when they're there - no armor. So all that Iraq money... paychecks for the soldiers, MREs (thing in the paper today about how soldiers in Afghanistan lose 20-30 pounds eating MREs), and no-bid contracts for companies that donated money to the powers-that-fund. Fuck them. They'd rather the soldiers die than come back injured mentally or physically.

Anti-single payer medical system look at public schools and say, "Look, the kids are still stupid. The kids who go to an inner-city public school do worse than those at a private school in the same area, therefore private schools are better."

One, public schools get most of the money locally, so kids who live in a poor town, go to a poor school, while kids who live in a richer district in the same county system get a laptop for every kid. Two, teachers are underpaid and overworked. They get burned out by things like No Child Left Behind. And private schools do better because they don't have to take in every child in the district, as public schools do. And some kids have learning disablities that bring down school test scores.

There used to be schools devoted entirely to special ed kids, and they were the best in the district because the special ed kids could learn in an environment made for them, and teachers and assistants had quiet rooms and didn't have to worry about tantrums.

Now, those schools are failing. And the schools that fail get less money than the schools that pass. And we will never reach 100% in all categories for one reason off the top of my head - once a kid in the English-as-a-Second-Language category gets more proficient in English, they're taken out of the ESL category.

So that category can never reach 100%!

To those that want no public education - I say, why stop there? Let's do away with everything else funded by taxes like libraries, roads, prisons, police departments, fire departments, government regulatory agencies, I could go on...

Private police force: "Help, there's a man in the house! You need my credit card number before you'll come over?" "My sister was brutally murdered, but we can't afford the investigation, so we'll never know who did it and for all we know, the killer is still out there."

Private fire dapartment/EMS: "My husband's having a heart attack! No, I don't have one hundred dollars on hand!" "Our apartment building's on fire, please come put it out, we have a lot of elderly people living there. Yes, most of the apartments are Section 8. Hello?"

Private FDA: More rat feces for everyone!



Back to pregnancy and being pre-pregnant.

Someone said this in the comments of a pandagon/feministe (don't remember which, sorry) post: they need to build a robotic womb, because some men are upset that the woman is the only one who can choose to end the pregnancy. I wonder why?

Could it have something to do with the fact that the woman does all the physical work of the pregnancy?

Oh, I forgot, the man contributes half the genetic material.

So with a robotic womb, the man can have the pregnancy himself, without the fun of child birth or a C-section. A robotic womb would keep the fetus much, much more safer than if it was in its natural home. No physical danger, no chemical danger from the food or drinks of the mother. The nutrients would be inserted into a mechanical umbilical cord - like an IV for us post-womb losers.

It would be an alternative to abortion. Remove the weeks old fetus, put it in the incubator, and then strap the incubator onto the man's chest - it will only come in one size - the big-as-a-house 8+ months pregnant model.

Since the father does't want the mother to have the abortion, but he wants the kid and she doesn't want to go through the pregnancy or the child, problem solved!



I may not actually be pre-pregnant. I'm on Lupron right now (along with 13 daily meds - including a birth control pill - not to mention the 5 PRNs which includes a prescription painkiller) and to stop the pain of endometriosis and ovarian cysts, since they only cause pain when you're ovulating or pre-pregnant.

I'm a (potential) murderer! I'm making my body inhospitable to a potential fetus.

Oh woe and such.

Let me close with this.



There are Jews in the world.
There are Buddhists.
There are Hindus and Mormons, and then
There are those that follow Mohammed, but
I've never been one of them.

I'm a Roman Catholic,
And have been since before I was born,
And the one thing they say about Catholics is:
They'll take you as soon as you're warm.
You don't have to be a six-footer.
You don't have to have a great brain.
You don't have to have any clothes on. You're
A Catholic the moment Dad came,

Because

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

Let the heathen spill theirs
On the dusty ground.
God shall make them pay for
Each sperm that can't be found.

Every sperm is wanted.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood.

Hindu, Taoist, Mormon,
Spill theirs just anywhere,
But God loves those who treat their
Semen with more care.

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood!

Every sperm is useful.
Every sperm is fine.
God needs everybody's.
Mine! And mine! And mine!

Let the Pagan spill theirs
O'er mountain, hill, and plain.
God shall strike them down for
Each sperm that's spilt in vain.

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood.

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite iraaaaate!

My sister and I just have an odd relationship.

That is her attempt to get a picture of us together at the bowling alley the 12th. That's the one with the most of her face. She's great with a camera usually, but she just couldn't get a picture of herself!

Anyways, today we were screaming at each other and a few minutes later getting along fine.

She's going on a trip next weekend and she was thinking of burning songs from the computer onto a CD, only she didn't have a CD player that doesn't skip. (My old one.)

And I offered her the headphones of my mp3 player and then I decided to just let her use the player for the whole trip.

Why?

I have no idea.

My plan is to empty it of all my songs, then when she's asleep or at school, put her songs (she'll try to make me a list - over 200 songs) on it. When she gets back, remove her songs, put mine back on. Easy.

Here's the player - I like to call it an iPod, and mom calls all mp3 players iPods and it drives Mom wild. It was a lot cheaper than an iPod and it has 1GB of storage. It can also play radio stations, but I can't get that to work. One thing that is better about the iPod is that you can have playlists. This just takes what you upload, jumbles it up, and keeps the songs in that order. Still better than a CD player or nothing.

Mikey and his Cone

That's how you wear one.

Called the Army.

1-800-USA-ARMY ext 181, if you're curious.

The lady there gave me the number of the local place, and I called them.

The person who answered the phone said the lady who called me wasn't there, and asked what I've been doing since I graduated.

I told her about the scholarship and my poor health.

She started to say that the reserves pay for 100% of your tuition, but I politely stoppped her.

She asked for a number where I could be reached and I said I'd like to not be reached, since the military is completely out of my plans. She said she'd cross my name off the list of graduates from my high school who took the ASVAB. That was incredibly nice of her.

A free messenger bag?

I just heard one of the Army's latest recruitment ads.

That was thrown in at the end. "A DVD with real guardsmen stories and a free messenger bag."

I took the ASVAB test in 10th grade - free get-out-of-class test, but it was as boring as class. And I tanked the last part, which was about gears and such.

Most of kids were ROTC, if they weren't (like me), we had military parents and had lived/were still living on the base.

So I got a call a couple weeks ago, after finding out that I am a genius who will get so much money for school I don't need the army and its promises of money for college.

I copied down the 1-800 number and said I'd call her tomorrow and have some fun. Mom said don't, she's only doing her job, but I still wanted to. Then I felt like shit the next day and didn't want to.

But I'm doing it tomorrow.

The recruitment ads are disgusting propaganda filled with lies - especially airing during shows discussing the Walter Reed and other VA hospital messes.

The first time they pissed me off - Becky was watching "Flight 29 Is Down" and there was a recruitment ad. Before noon. On a Saturday. When children are watching tv. We are still child-like at 18, yes, I'm definitely immature and constantly making stupid social blunders, but this aired during tv shows for people younger than my sister, who was 14 or 15 at the time. She was too old for the shows, and I know I am. (Doesn't mean I still don't love some.)

But a recruitment ad during children's programming? Ew. And that was in late 2005 or early 2006, and I posted about it at the IMDb Soapbox and no one cared. "So, it's the free market. They have the right to..."

And then there's the Wii commercials.

There was a hideous ad for the Wii a few months ago. My understanding of video games is limited. When we were in Iceland, my sister and I had an ongoing thing where we'd "punish" our favorite stuffed animals (a platypus named Puffy for me, a white bear in a shirt with the words "HUG ME" named Huggums for the Beck. When I was in the hospital in August for almost a week, I had them bring me Puffy. And apparently, I clutched him in my sleep. *collective aw time*) for playing Sega long into the night. "Does Puffy want to play with Huggums?" "No, he's playing Sega again." It followed us into the states, even into the base.

My dad kept us pretty isolated growing up, Becky was my best friend until I was 10 and she was 7. Now we have to be locked in separate rooms to prevent soricide. That's what you get for making us take Tae Kwon Do, Mom.

We knew it was a video game, that's about it.

I did have a Gameboy for a while, I played the Sims Bustin' Out on it. I got it because we didn't know how long our cousins would be here, and I love the Sims, and this was a way to play it and get the hell away from Daniel. (He's doing great, he's in Job Corps. No army for him! Yay! Happy Dance!)

Back to the Wii. I thought it was pronounced like why, but it's not. The commercials with the Asian guys use it like the word "we", instead of where my immature, 18-and-a-half year old, future University of Memphis Honors Student mind goes, which is to the urine and the penis.

Apparently, with the Wii, the controller is a stick instead of the traditional thingie. And instead of pressing buttons to make your character do something, you must become the character and move the controller in the way required. (The bowling one is cute.) The best example - a baseball video game, you swing the controller, and your swing shows up as the batter's swing. That's actually a good thing for video gamers - it does make you active.

But back to the disgusting ad. It was for a war video game. No specific war, not like the awful Vietnam ones, but you could tell the setting was within my lifetime. The first Iraq war, Kosovo, the war in Afghanistan, the current one, who knows? I only saw the ad a few time. I probably wasn't the only one disgusted.

The controller was a gun. The ad had the teenager in the war setting shooting people. Then it pulled back to show him not crouching behind the remains of a building, but behind the couch.

Nauseating. The controller was a gun!

There's a new Army ad that uses video games. Two boys my age (it's always boys in the ads, except the National Guard and Coast Guard ones) are playing a war video game and the soldier turns to them and says, "You think this is exciting? Why not try the real thing?"

There are less objectionable ones, less violent ones. They lie, they mention nothing of Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder or the shortening of time away from Iraq along with the extension of time in Iraq.

There was an interesting thing on another website, sorry I can't recall, about how some of the new ads were made to appeal to the parents. There's one where the kid is convincing the dad that it was a good idea to join the army. The others talk about how the army made their son (again with the men!) a better person, more respectful.

I think the second kind may be the reason one of my classmates died over the summer between junior and senior year. He died at bootcamp in Missouri. He was not in the ROTC. I only had one class with him junior year, but I knew him. He was a slacker with no respect for authority, not someone who wanted to join the military.

After he died, he was very patriotic.

Of course, that's been going on for a while - this is the last straw, son*, you're either going to jail or you're joining the military.

Disgusting.

*Bad girls aren't threatened with the military. We're threatened with the psych ward. (At least I am.)


They promise money for college and experience that will help you get a job when you leave.

The money for college almost sucked me in, about a year ago. I was really worried my mom and dad couldn't afford college, and I know you need some form of education beyond high school and they cost money. But mom said hell no, and look, I don't need them!

However, I'd filled out the Army's postcard, so a recruiter called this month and left a 1-800 number.

I was going to call back and play along, but no, the poor woman's doing her job. And then I felt like death warmed over, so I forgot about it. And tossed the number. Damn! Well, I'm calling the local recruiting office in the morning.

Hell, if I feel good enough, I'm riding my bike over there.



Disclaimer - I have nothing against the military, only the leaders who make the decisions that lead to catastrofucks like the current one. You can support the troops and not support the war. I want them safe. I want them home. Safety means adequate armor, for one, which requires funding. Which requires taking money from one thing to another. Like take some of the money the companies that are "rebuilding" Iraq got and give it to the soldiers so they can all have kevlar vests. (In 100+ weather. No humidity, though, so it can't suck as much as wearing blue jeans in Memphis in May. Honestly, the whiners.) I love my family members who were in the military, and I'll support any of my cousins if they join.

But disagreeing with their boss means you hate them. The superintendent of the schools is not well-liked. (He got rid of the school janitorial staff in favor of a company run by a family member.) So that means I hate my mom and all the teachers? No.

My dad is a conservative. He loves Bush. He has a hat that says Club Gitmo. Even he knows you can support the troops and hate the war. Somebody said (or posted an op-ed) at the message board once that said you can't do that. Because by saying you want the war over, you're saying you want them to lose. And if you want the war to end, you want them to die. It was compared to firefighters and police officers and made zero sense.




Something is wrong here, very wrong.

And we need the draft again, so we will all feel the pinch. We had "victory gardens" in WWII and everyone knew someone fighting in Vietnam.

Most of us aren't doing anything but slapping magnets on our cars. If the war was felt by everyone, if we all made real sacrifices, maybe it will end. Leaders can't think of the soldiers they're sending to war as individual human beings, they can't even think of them as a group of human beings that live and love, because then they'll get distracted.

I hope our next administration thinks of the troops as real people, not just numbers and boots on the ground.

Good night.

A free messenger bag?

Really?

A free messenger bag?

The 'n-word' is not Narnia.

It's not?

What on earth could it be?

Colbert's right, it's 'Norbit', but he hasn't seen it yet, so he first thought of Narnia. "It's just a word, Jon!"

Dixie and her Car

Wickett and his Mad Skillz, Yo

And where was Mikey during all this? Rushing to get his rope so he could beat Wickett to save Dixie? Rushing to get the rope so he could join Wickett in killing the dragon? Rushing to find a way to hump some part of Dixie while she's distracted?

No, no, and, unusually, no.

Here he was. All that's missing is a beer can - he's got a remote, he's got his woman.



Poor, poor Dixie.



But she started it - see, talking smack about Wickett, he had to shut her up to prove he was the man.

Something cool I can do with this blog!

I'm sure you've noticed the jumbled up list of links to the right side, under the archives and subjects. First I had them in a certain order by what they were, but that got hard, and now I found out I can make more than one collection of links!

Yes, it's a simple revelation, but it's making my day.

In other blogger news, who has trouble with visual verification when responding to posts?

When I do it at other blogs that require visual verification, I have no problem. It is only with blogger blogs that I have this problem. And I know I'm not alone.

You type in your comment, you type in the gibberish, and, if you're not already logged in, you type in your e-mail and password and click 'publish your comment'.

And then you get an error message, saying type the words in the visual verification box exactly as they appear. And you're still not logged in, you have to type in your password again.

I think the most I've had to do it is 3 times, but last night, I made a comment at a blogger blog and it went straight through the first time. What gives?

I really don't get today's "Pluggers".

Here it is.

I was introduced to this bizarre comic by the Comics Curmudgeon.

It's not carried by my paper, just like They'll Do It Every Time, so I have to seek it out online.

Just like TDIET, it's not funny or bizarre on purpose, like Pearls Before Swine and Get Fuzzy. PBS came to the Commercial Appeal when Foxtrot became a Sunday-only strip, but we don't get to see its Sunday strips!

Just like we get Mallard Fillmore Monday through Saturday, but the liberal media makes me go online (usually to the Seattle PI's website, how's that for liberal?).

The problem with Pluggers is that there is no daily website like Crap Every Time or Duck and Cover for it. There's a site called PlugWatch 200x, the blogger writes fictional pieces based on the cartoons, but it hasn't been updated since February 24th. I didn't think the idea was interesting, but now it does, so I'll have to look it over another day. The comic also makes the occasional appearance at the Comics Curmudgeon, but not every day.

I want to start a Pluggers blog like Crap Every Time or Duck and Cover, not like Plugwatch. Just snarky comments or confusion about the day's strip, no short stories.

If I still want to, I'll start it April 1st.

Cool idea.

Onto today's. It just makes no sense to me.

According to the official site, Pluggers are "the hard-working people the world depends on. They represent the 80 percent of humanity who unceremoniously keep plugging along, balancing work, play and family life. Pluggers encounter and conquer obstacles in their lives, but they always have a positive attitude and a good sense of humor. They're the people who work hard for what they get. Even if they're struggling, they are optimistic about life."

That still doesn't make today's strip any easier to understand. "Pluggers hold onto their clothes for a long time" seems to be the main message, but I don't get the belly button lint thing. I've never had a shirt give me belly button lint - I always assumed anything in there was dried, dead skin, not clothing. It certainly doesn't look like dryer lint. I've never had any of my clothes shed on me, except for an old one that had a beaded fringes, the beads shed. Not on me, but that's the closest I've ever had to 'shedding clothes'.

Now that it's not 2 in the morning, it does make sense. I guess some shirts have a fuzzy feel, a very slight one, and the fuzz can collect in your bellybutton as lint, just like the stuff that collects in the lint trap of the dryer. I've just never thought of bellybutton lint as being clothing lint, even though that makes more sense. I just thought it meant the dry, dead skin that collects there.

I see the loose fuzz on my shirt, and it's as red as this type. And I've never pulled red lint out of bellybutton - it's always skin colored.

So I understand the strip, but I guess that puts me outside the "hardworking ... 80 percent of humanity".

I can't wait to start the blog!

Sleepiness is evil.

I've been exhausted most of today, and took a nap for less than an hour today. 5:05, the doctor's office called and I had to talk to the nurse. I asked my mom before I laid down to wake me up at 6 so I could take my meds, and she did.

I've been tired since, but I didn't go to sleep because I needed to watch the Daily Show and Colbert Report tonight, because I'm going to the Crisis Center tomorrow, and the show reruns at 9am and 1pm, when I'll be at work. It also airs again at midnight, but if I missed the 10 o'clock showing by sleeping, I'd probably miss the midnight one as well. The only other chance I'd have would be tomorrow at seven, and NCIS is on.

So at ten, I laid down on the couch (the short one, because Wickett had the long couch to himself - he just stretched. He's on his back, legs in the air. What a crabby cutie. He'd yell for ten minutes if I tried to sit on his couch, let alone stretch out on it) to watch the Daily Show.

And during the first commercial, I felt myself nodding off.

I had to stop it!

So I sat here, at the computer. (Stewart said something about "needle in a haystack" - "no, he's like a person in the ocean!" - so he's to blame for the previous post.)

Sitting up on a computer chair stops nodding off better than laying down on the couch with blankets and pillows, for some odd reason.

So, during commercials, I looked up the tv grid on zap2it.com and discovered that there are two great old Twilight Zone episodes on at midnight and then an episode of the X-files - "The Goldberg Variation" - at one in the morning. I haven't seen it in years, and I liked it, so I have to watch it.

So I won't get to sleep until 2, unless I stretch out on the couch at midnight and drift off during a commercial (it happened during the Daily Show before).

I planned to be responsible and go to sleep at 11pm, because my job starts at 9pm, and I need to be awake by 8:45 at the latest.

But no...

Now I won't go to bed until 2, all because I looked up the tv guide to find out what episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch is on tomorrow afternoon. And since it's a customized grid, the sci-fi channel is in the top spot, with an all too alluring X-files title there tonight.

Normally, if I sleep during the day, even for an hour, I'm wired until 2am period.

But tonight I was still tired and I will squander that on the X-files.

Sad.

Luckily, Mom and Beck will wake me up before they leave for work and school just like they did this morning - around 6 today, they woke me up and told me to take my morning meds, just like I asked. I didn't fall asleep until after 3 something yesterday morning, so I didn't stay up long this morning. I woke up for real around 9 today, but I don't have that luxury tomorrow.

I'll survive, though I'm in massive pain right now. My gyn cut my Lyrica dosage by a third on March 14, and I don't think it was the right idea. The pain is much sharper and I've had the same pain along my right hip that I had before I started the Lyrica in November.

I'm calling tomorrow and asking for it to be upped back to 3 times a day, so the pain won't be so damn sucky.

Like a Needle in a Haystack

What a useless cliché.

Even more useless than others.

Why?

It makes no sense, it's quite easy to find a needle in a haystack.




Here's your crummy needle.



And here's the poor needle-less haystack.



Happy now?

The Dogs and their Debut on YouTube.

There. I've never done this before, I hope it works.

A friend in the UK made it for me, she makes awesome videos and, while she's never said she had a favorite, she loves the three pups. And she turned green with envy upon seeing the trampoline.

Ha! Love to you, Zu.


They're about to become internet superstars.

I would love it if Fred Thompson ran for President in 2008.

I wouldn't vote for him or anything, I'd just love it if he ran on the Republican ticket in 2008. For anything really: senator, representative, Vice President, dogcatcher.

Why?

I love Law and Order. I like Law and Order: SVU, but not Criminal Intent so much. (One reason - Vincent D'Onofrio played the bad alien in Men in Black, and I keep expecting cockroaches.) CI is a good show, I just can't get into it too much.

Back to the regular Law and Order, I don't know when I started watching, it's a television institution, like SNL or the Simpsons, at least for me. It's always been there.

I love the detectives - the 'law' - and I love the prosecutors and ADAs - the 'order'.

I saw somewhere that it was originally set up so it could air as two separate 30 minute episodes, and you still see that cut today.

TNT airs reruns all the time, and even with their hideous commercial breaks that clearly don't match the old ones (do they do that to the Closer, their own series? I wonder), I love to watch them.

And I've seen other actors and actresses in Fred Thompson's role, the District Attorney. Directly before him, another old man. And in even older episodes - Lennie Briscoe and Benjamin Bratt (don't know the character's name) were the detectives - the DA was a woman.

I want Fred Thompson to run for office, any office, because he will have to leave the show.

And I do. not. like. him. At all. It has nothing to do with his politics (disagree with him) or his acting skills.

I just cannot stand the man. It's visceral, there's no logic to it. My mom backs me up. We think he looks like a bulldog or a bullfrog, we can't decide, and we hate hate hate his voice. Maybe it's the southern-but-not-southern part, I don't know.

I just can't stand him, and I'd love it if another elderly actor stepped in after DA Arthur Branch lost in the next local election (or retired, like Briscoe), giving Fred Thompson a chance to run for office again and get off one of my favorite shows.

His voice is patronizing, that's it. It's that patronizing Southern Authority voice that knows best.

Nothing against the man, this is all on appearances and sounds only, I know nothing of him politically except he was a Republican Tennessee Senator during Watergate.

According to Wikipedia, he went to Memphis State University, which is now the University of Memphis, which is where I'm going. Huh.

He later went on to Vanderbilt in Nashville for his law degree.

No, he was not a senator during Watergate. He was on the Senate Watergate Committee, working for Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee. Before that, he was an assistant US attorney until 1972, when he became Baker's campaign manager.

He got his acting start in 1985 in the movie Marie, which was about him working to get corrupt Tennessee Governor Ray Blanton out of office in 1977. (Blanton sold pardons - not just to turkeys.)

He became a Senator in 1994 in the race to fill Al Gore's spot. He beat the Democratic candidate by a large majority - 61%. He ran again in 1997 and won, beating a guy from Covington, which is a lot closer to me than Lawrenceburg, where Thompson grew up. (Southern border county of middle Tennessee - may explain the accent.)

In the 2000 presidential race, he backed Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander until he dropped out, and then Senator McCain until he dropped out. He was also considered for Bush's VP slot, but didn't have the family ties, money, and lack of ethics. (He was part of a committee that questioned Nixon, the President of the United States. Treason, sez I!)

After Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords became an Independent, he became the ranking minority leader.

He didn't want to run again when his term was up in 2002, which is when he joined Law and Order. Well he did, after the September eleventh attacks, making announcements, but changed his mind when his daughter died.

So he joined Law and Order.

But he didn't stop with the politics.

He did voice-over work for the 2004 Republican National Convention, probably because he'd been on a popular show for two years, so his voice was familiar to almost everyone, not just political junkies. And in 2005, Bush gave him an informal position to help John Roberts through the confirmations.

Ew, in 2006, his name was bandied about to run for Governor of Tennessee, but didn't. I wish he had. He would have lost to Bredesen (he's very popular for a Democrat in the south, must be the cutting TennCare thing), but he would have had to take a break from Law and Order!

And on March 19th, he won a poll on Hannity.com, beating Guiliani, McCain, Gingrich, and Romney by more than 50%. But he won't say yes or no yet, he's just"leav[ing] the door open".

According to another poll a few days later, by Rasmussen polls, he was ahead of Hillary Clinton by 1% - 44% to 43% with a margin of error of whatever.


Thank you, Wikipedia. By copying the information, or at least restating it, I gained more information and maybe educated you. I still couldn't find anything on his views, but I heard them somewhere and I know I disagree with most of them.


(Why did I pursue this information? Why didn't I just leave it at I hate the man on screen, he makes my skin crawl when I see him, he makes me want to barf when he opens his mouth? Why did I have to go beyond the shallow, the visceral? Because I was curious, because I want to learn all I can, even about somebody I can't stand the sight and sound of. I'm going to do well in school, this is even more evidence - the push for more and more knowledge. I'm hoarding it. My sister took the artistic talent and height, so I'm taking the curvy body and knowledge. For everything new I learn, she forgets something. Or so I like to think at 2:30 in the morning. God, I'm crazy.)



So, with all that in mind, I beg him to run for office, even though he didn't want to be a career politician. Maybe he could get a job with the next Republican governor of Tennessee, or work as a state Attorney or work in another Republican White House. (Please no.)

All right, I don't want him in office in Tennessee or Washington, because he's a Republican, and we need them out, out, OH-YOU-TEE, out of the top office.

The latest thing over firing 8 attorneys (that Bush appointed) should bring his office down. It's a small thing, compared to the many other malfeasances he and his office have done, but whatever works.

The main thing that stands out, that should get Americans angry is not the firing of the attorneys, but Bush's reaction to Congressional questions.

His aides will not testify under oath and there will be no transcript.

Why?

If his advisors knew they'd be questioned under oath about everything they said to him, they wouldn't properly advise him.

That's BULLSHIT.

The only reason he'd say that is if they've discussed illegal things.

Like the rationale for wiretapping everyone - why should it matter if you've done nothing wrong?

(Because it's a violation of our right to privacy, but that's not the point right now.)

Why can't they testify under oath, with a transcript, out in the open?

Because they have discussed firing people for not wearing a Bush pin every day in 2004 until the election, because they have done things that are illegal.

Not that I want Bush out of office prematurely, that could lead to President Cheney. I just hope this stains the Republican party long enough to get us a Democratic president - a real one, with backbone. I don't know who that is yet, but I hope they make it.

And I hope Fred Thompson takes a break from Law and Order to help the Republicans lose.

Family Guy

I used to love this show, we got all the DVDs of the pre-canceled episodes. And I have a book about the show by Stewie that I love.

But now, since they came back, well... they've kind of sucked the suck out of suck most of the time. I know they like to offend as much as possible on a network channel, but I loathe the creepy pedophile character above all the other things.

Tonight's episode wasn't too offensive, on the surface it could be seen as offensive to the physically handicapped, but Peter was the prejudiced one, and Peter's an idiot. Beyond Homer Simpson idiocy.

However, there was this hilarious bit in the first act that had me laughing out loud.

I liked the thrift store scene (again, except for the pedophile), but what followed was priceless.

Peter found red flannel footie pajamas. With a butt flap, so he can be warm and poop, no longer does he have to choose!

He wears them for three days, and Lois tells him he has to get rid of them.

He walks away, shuffling his feet in that sniff, sniff, no one loves me way we all recognize, and then sits on the couch next to Chris. ZAP!

He assumed he was Christ - being able to harness static electricity makes you Christ. Makes sense to me.

I was in terrible pain (still am, yuck), and it was so damn funny. He stalked everyone in the house, shocking them.

It was simple, it was stupid, and it was hilarious.

Regarding our now dead trampoline, it used to shock the hell out of us.

It was so cool to get up after having your head on the trampoline and see your hair standing up.

What was not cool was being touched by a fellow jumper and getting shocked.

And, since we got a $25 garage sale trampoline, we never got the plastic/rubber/fabric/teflon cover that most people get for the springs and metal ring. So getting off involved touching the rings with your foot or hand to get to the chair or just not be so high in the air when you jumped off.

I couldn't stand it.

It sucks to jump in shoes, so you're usually barefoot. And I got shocked through my tennies once.

I would jump over the springs to get off, and it scared me every time. I was worried I'd snap a bone in my legs or fall or something.

Nothing ever happened, except once, I jumped off and landed standing up, took a step, and fell on my butt. The same thing happened at high school, when we had one of the random emergency exit drills for the schoolbus. I told the administrator I didn't need a hand, and I landed upright, just fine. Took a step, and fell over, thankfully not on my butt on the concrete.

King of the Hill sucked tonight, I love Tom Petty's music, I even think he's kind of cute, but I don't like the character of Lucky, and I don't like the whole mess. I thought it was supposed to end.

The Simpsons was great, even though my sister talked during the episode, and my mom won't let me duct tape her mouth closed for 30 minutes. Parents!

Futurama's coming back next year, I hope it continues its excellence and doesn't devolve into the state of Family Guy now. I doubt it though, the last season of Futurama is beautiful.

Dixie and her Sad Eyes

How does one fight those eyes?

Mad Magazine #476 April 2007

And what was, according to the address label on my March issue, my last issue of Mad forever! April 2007 was so far into the future, it didn't matter. But in February, I sent off the subscription card for 2 years for $40. And when the bill came, my mom paid it.

But! The issue's white cover, instead of a cartoon or silly note, said this is your last issue!

I had a doctor appointment on the same day my new Mad shows up. Is that fate or what? When we got there, I was restless and worried about having to pay the cover price for the next issue ($3.99 Cheap!), since subscriptions don't kick in for a month, if I recall, which is why you resubscribe months before.

Mom said she'd paid for a Mad subscription, but if it was for the classic series or the regular, she wasn't sure. I checked her logbook, she wrote down Mad Classics! So I said, "That's it, I'm calling them to find out what's what."

What's what is that she wrote down the wrong thing, my subscription won't expire until April 2009, which is like so far into the future it's not worth thinking about. (I'll renew it for two more years at my birthday or Christmas in 2008.)

Onto the magazine!


(I took this picture because last time I tried the scanner, it didn't work, and scanned images are huge, and Becky's fixed our camera so pictures are taken at a smaller, easier to upload size.)

I read the entire issue, even the parodies of Entourage and the Amazing Race, even though I've never seen either show.

I loved the Boratz dolls, the rejected Army recruiting posters, the fascinating music factoids, and Ted Rall's 7 Periods Closer to Death, which is about high school.

The last one was really good, but sad. It talked about how teenagers have to get up at 6am to get to high school (or middle school), and to get the hours of sleep teenagers need, they have to go to bed around 9pm. But teenager's bodies aren't wired for early to bed, early to rise.

So the logical solution is to let high schools start at 9am, instead of 7. But they won't do it. Like the cartoon said, schools are babysitters, and parents don't want their kids at home in the morning without them.

In our district, all the high schools and at least one middle school start at 7am. On the dot, you have to be in your first period at 7. It used to be 7:15, but they changed it two years ago, along with all the school start times, so we have schools starting at 7 and ending at 2, starting at 8 and ending at 3, and starting at 9 and ending at 4. The last category is for a local elementary school and a local middle school.

The reason our times are staggered? Too many students, not enough buses.


As for the cover, I only knew about the fight through the Daily Show and Colbert Report. The page on the feud... meh. The cover... well, I can't believe they got away with her nipples.

The United States should apologize for slavery.

As should every country involved in the slave trade.

Well, there are still slaves in some countries, not like the slaves in the US in the bad old days, but I think every country involved in the slave trade that has ended and involved enslaving Africans and Native Americans for the rich, should apologize.

I think a form of slavery that continues today in the US involves illegal immigrants working in sweatshops or farms. Every cent they earn goes to rent, the coyote, food, "Two rolls of toilet paper in one week?", and then a little bit to their family or children or legal status. If they complain, they can be deported or arrested.

But, I'm thinking about the slavery that "ended" with the Civil War.

Yes, former slaves were free, but free to do what? In the south, their formerly rich owners were bitter and started a gentleman's club, you may have heard of it? The bitterness led to countless deaths, 'seperate-but-equal' everything (the Pentagon has twice as many bathrooms needed for its offical capacity because it was built before the law changed. Flush them all at once, and the government will be higgledy-piggledy. But you didn't hear it from me.), and general suckiness for most of the former slaves.

Sharecropping was a way for the rich to enslave poor white and black people - no discrimination there!

My point?

Every state that had slaves should issue an apology, along with the country as a whole. Just a measure next February for black history month (eyeroll) saying, "Hey. Slavery sucked and we're sorry. And even though it's been officially over for 140 years, we still have a way to go to true equality. This apology is a step forward."

I don't see why there's a resistance to an apology.

Actually, I do see it from my mom and sister. "I didn't own slaves, nobody in my family did, why should I apologize?" They probably didn't on my mom's side. I think her mother's family emigrated to America in the late 1800s or early 1900s. They're Czech, and one of my grandmother's relatives, had, in her diary, a handout so old and brittle, but so scary - it was a prayer in praise of Hitler.

As for my dad's side, it's possible on his father's side, but not his mother's. She's only a generation or two from Germany.

So my mom and dad did not own slaves and knew no one who did. Your mom and dad didn't either. Your mom and dad weren't slaves, your grandparents probably weren't, but I do know there are some people who were born at the turn of the last century that knew people who'd been/owned slaves.

But abolishing slavery didn't abolish racism. There was 100 years of institutionalized racism after the war. A middle school that's in the county, but close to Memphis was a high school in my mom's day, the black one. And I think they didn't desegregate until a few years after the Brown ruling. Just pictures of the high school in Little Rock. The governor of Arkansas came to the school and said no. And out of the 9 students that eventually got in, only one or two ended the year. The rest quit, most likely due to harassment and threats.

An apology is a gesture. It won't be completely worthless, though. It will acknowledge that the United States made a mistake (in the past) and we're working to correct it.

Opponents say it's an empty gesture, we know slavery happened, get over it already. But we can't get over it - there are still racist stumbling blocks in place (but like sharecropping, they've spread to other races, including whites, but that's class warfare if you mention that poverty is hard to escape), though not government backed anymore.

I told my mom that she wasn't hurt by Jim Crow laws, and neither were her parents. But my black classmate, her black coworker, their parents and grandparents were. It takes generations to achieve equality or come close.

An apology for slavery will not be an empty gesture, but a sign that we know we made a mistake and we're working to correct it.

Maybe some politicians are scared of it because they don't want to admit it happened, or that it has any relevance today. But it does, because it didn't end 140 years ago, or even 40. Racism still exists, and slavery is pretty obvious cause.

It won't hurt anyone to say I'm sorry. How can it?

By leading to reparations?

The best reparation I can think of would be money for education from pre-school to college, from the federal level, so a school in a poor district (black or white) can have the same things as a school in a richer one, and so we'll all have the opportunity to go to school after high school, because a high school diploma can't get you what it used to, unless you join the military.

But I'm not a politician, just a blogger who got 3 hours of sleep and spent the night looking at lefty cartoons and a long post on Pandagon about a Virginia state senator's opposition to an official apology, and the 100+ comments that followed. This one guy had this idea that all the liberals at the site were saying black people should do nothing until someone gives them something, when he was the only one saying it, not endorsing it, but saying that's what everyone else said, when they didn't.

Mikey and his Vigilance

When Mom is out of the house and has been gone for a while, he'll sit there as long as I keep the big door open.

One other thing about the Wizard of Oz -

Glinda calls Dorothy ugly (or has bad eyesight).

If I recall, Glinda says she's a witch, Dorothy says witches are ugly, and Glinda says only bad witches are ugly, good witches are pretty.

Then she asks if Dorothy is a bad witch or a good witch! (I want a sandwich.)

To quote Kelso, BURN!

I am so fried, I want to review my April Mad - the white subscriber's cover said this is your last issue, give us money, but I called them because my mom paid $40 for a mad subscription, she wrote 'mad classics' in her checkbook, but according to the people at Mad, it was for the regular magazine. My subscription is safe until April 2009, which is so far into the future. (That's what I thought about the April 07 date until 2007 rolled around.)

So I want to review it, but I can't.

It's 2:30 in the morning. I woke up at 12:45 because I couldn't breathe. (I fell asleep at 9:30.)

My nose was stopped up and my throat was sore. 2 atarax (antihistamine prescription), a sudafed PE (okay, not sudafed, the store brand, but it works), and a chloraspetic tab later and I feel much better, if still fried.

And when I had to pee, the pain god woke up and said, "You didn't sacrifice a goat to me, you must die." So I sacrificed 2 pain pills and the heating pad.

That's how brain dead I am.

Random things -

Why can't people pronounce my name right? KAY-AY-EYE-TEE-ELL-WHY-ENN. Kaitlyn!
Not Kathleen, not Katrine, not Katherine, KATE-LYN. (Not that spelling, but that's as phonetic as I can get it.) I know I have bad handwriting, but this was somebody reading my name off a computer or medical chart. There is no R in my first name. There is no H in my first name.

There are Rs and Hs in my middle and last name, but you're not getting those. Except my last name is simple, it's a dictionary word, and people mispronounce that, too. And it's not ethnic, unless European-WASP-mutt names are too ethnic now.

Nobody mispronounces my sister's name, and it's longer than mine!

They do mispronounce Wickett's. They call him Wicked.



Usually after he's screamed at them.

Somethings confusing and conflicting about gender stereotypes -

The woman is supposed to be the cook in the family, but the man is the only one allowed to grill. (In our house, the only ones who are not allowed to grill food are Becky and the dogs.)

The woman is supposed to care about flowers and the garden, but the man's domain is the rest of the yard, the grass.

Women can't make decisions while pregnant (like whether to have the kid or not), but they're the ones who should raise the kids.

Most slang names for male genitalia mean a strong, if jerky guy, when used as an insult. Except for weenie.

And the two common nicknames for female genitalia are contradictory when used as insults.

And, why doesn't our upstairs bathroom have a vent? Because it has a window? That open window leads to wasps in my hair and wasted air-conditioning. Before we turned on the AC, my room was 80 degrees. Of course, it's on the western side, and the house to the west is one story, while ours has 2, so it could have been baking all afternoon, I guess.

That's it, I'm tapped for ideas.

Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream Ice Cream

It's great!

It was expensive, but not as much as I thought. Ben and Jerry's is a big brand name, I thought it would be 5 bucks, and it was "only" $2.94 a pint.

More than store brand, but I had to get it.

It's great. Vanilla, caramel, and fudge-covered bits of waffle. They have the consistency of a waffle cone. It's new and interesting.

The caramel mixed into the ice cream is better than caramel sauce put on vanilla. Not too much caramel.

I'm not too big a fan of chocolate in ice cream beyond the chips in chocolate chip cookie dough at Baskin Robbins.

But this isn't too much, the waffles taste great.

And the vanilla is... vanilla. A good, neutral base for the caramel and fudged waffled bits.

I'm not Catholic but I did give something up for Lent - religion.

Stephen gave up sweets. I had mint chocolate chip ice cream yesterday (store brand) because ice cream is cold and I believe that mint flavors are even colder. And it worked. (Hot flashes are a sweaty pain.)

Great ice cream, even though I had to spend more than 30 minutes in wal-mart to get it. (Save-A-Lot doesn't carry Ben and Jerry's! Who knew?)

Much better than Willie Nelson's flavor, because I don't like peaches, so I don't have to try it. My gut says the truthiness about his ice cream is: it's not as good as Stephen's.

No Report until Monday night. How will I survive?

My April 2007 Mad came today, I'll review it after I finish it.

The Tigers are in the Elite Eight!

For the second year in a row, according to the liberal media, but I actually saw the last few moments, so I know the truth and the truthiness.

They're playing Ohio State on Saturday. It would have been awesome if the University of Tennessee had won that game! (By one point, which is how many points Texas A&M was behind at the end. Close, close games.) My sister said people had on Tennessee pants and Memphis shirts yesterday.

The bet for my crazy family was that they'd go to school(work) tomorrow if the Tigers won. So after the game, mom called her friend and coworker and said, "I'm coming in tomorrow."

Mom works at a high school with a bunch of high school idiots, but nobody that she saw had blue hair.

Becky is sick, which was sort of inevitable. It's allergy season and the temperature's bouncing. Becky *achoo* swears *achoo* that *achoo* she [take the damn benadryl!] has no allergies, but cotton fluff fluffering about irritates almost everyone, myself included.

Lucky for me, two benadryl, a sudafed PE, and a chloraseptic lozenge work wonders in the morning. We finally turned the AC on last night since it was in the '80s and they'd do anything to shut up Hot-flash-having-apathetic-about-basketball girl.

"The game starts at 6! You'll have to watch the Simpsons in the study!"

Okay.

I took some dinner back there and came out at a commercial break to get more, and what do you know? The basketball game on CBS has the exact same commercial on at the same time as the Simpsons on CW!

That was their story.

The Simpsons was pretty good - the one where Bart got an elephant. Someone at SNPP said it was too outlandish, but I thought, watching it, that it made as much sense as anything else. Bart's a nut. Offered ten thousand dollars or an elephant, he takes the elephant. Wouldn't you?

No.

But Bart did.


As for blue-haired Becky, she got taken to the principal's office almost as soon as she got off the bus yesterday. The lady who took her there kept saying that she was violating the dress code, and Becky just said she'd dyed her hair blue earlier in the school year and no one said boo. The principal sided with Becky (no, she didn't magically become a tenured teacher, she's still in 10th grade, shocking, I know) and said that it wasn't against dress code.

But it probably will be next year.

I'm rereading Wicked by Gregory Maguire. I think I've read this more often than I've watched the Wizard of Oz, but probably not as often as I've read The Wizard of Oz. My mom's mom sent it to us, it was my mom's back in the days of dinosaurs (she was born in Roswell, people! who knows what the government does in the New Mexico desert. Only the shadow puppy knows and I threw him outside.) and now it's mine. I've only read it more because I've had it longer.

Wicked draws from both the book and the movie. The movie, well, the color of her skin. I'm sure it would have been in the original book if she'd been green.

Some things about the Wizard of Oz movie - it's been said before, but I'll say it again. The "good fairy" was just mean in the movie, making her go to the Emerald City when she could have gone straight home. And, I forgot who said this, sorry. It wasn't a sappy movie, it didn't have a happy ending. Crazy Lady was still going to take away Toto the next day! (Wickett's been compared to Toto - black, little, in my bike basket yelling at everyone.)

I wish the movie had stayed truer to the book. You know they cut it in half? Glinda didn't rescue her in the Emerald City, she had to keep going.

My US History teacher used the Wizard of Oz movie as a metaphor for the Great Depression, saying the symbolism in the movie was put in to make the country feel better (symbol - yellow brick road=money). I asked, "How can it be about the Great Depression if it was written at the turn of last century?" The general answer was "just play along, we're talking about the movie, don't confuse everyone."

Our test over the Great Depression was like every other test - I missed one or two of the multiple choice or fill in the blank, but did more than the 2 essay(paragraph) questions required, so my scores were always at least 100. And I did the essay question about the Wizard of Oz, I think comparing the poppies as an obstacle to Emerald City to alcohol and drugs as an obstacle to fiscal solvency, or something.

My History and English teacher my junior year are to blame for my confidence in my writing skills. I got an A+ on my History paper. (Minimum 4 pages, and I turned in 8 and a half. He told me that I failed, because I'd asked if it could be more than the minimum and he sighed and said, "You can turn in a 10 page paper." Since it wasn't 10 pages, darn! The reason I asked was because our English research papers could only be so long, she wanted us to do the basics, she didn't want to grade 10 page papers. 2 was enough.) And my English one she wanted to use as an example for later classes.

We had to keep a History journal, with a question about the lesson almost every day that we had to answer before learning the information. Our journals were graded weekly, and except for one or two times, I got 100s the whole way - his handwriting was worse than mine. I like to read through it now, almost 2 years later, for an ego boost. "Look! Someone who went to college to teach things thinks I'm smart!"

I didn't get the highest grade on the final, because it was scantron, no chance for creativity. Poo. But I still aced the class merrily, and enjoyed his semester discussion class the next year as a senior (again with the journals). And he told me there were kids as good as I was when it came to retaining knowledge, but no one quite at my rhetorical level.

What.

I don't fit the beauty scene, I don't fit the social scene, the one thing I do fit and adore, I'm good at! Or I was.

And I will be.

"Small, discussion based classes." Describing what I get in the Honors Program because I'm not an ordinary student, I deserve more than an ordinary class. (The dogs didn't get the significance of this either.)

Like one of my message board friends pointed out, some of the classes would be better if I was on pain meds. Ha!

Seriously, I will be better.

Not 100%, I don't have '10 years'(that's how long some women have suffered from endometriosis before discovering that no, it was really a bowel problem, according to my doctor. He's really great, though, a pain specialist and a gyn. Who has no answers, because he doesn't even know the right questions.), but I am hoping for at least more than 50% of the pain gone.

I'll take up voodoo in July, let you know how it turns out, surely I can transfer the pain to someone deserving?

On one of the help pages "how to get your blog read", one of the tips is keep it short.



I say Ack!!! Thppppth!!!! to that.


It's my blog, for my pleasure, and I can fire a commenter for not being loyal to Dixie, but I won't say that under oath and you can't get a transcript of it.*


*That should lead to kicking the Republicans out of the executive branch more than the wiretaps, torture, the catastrofuck of the war, leaking names, turning us into a Christian theocracy (much better than a Muslim one), and No Child Left Behind. (Most educators loathe NCLB, which doesn't help them, it only continues the stereotype that they're liberal commies. NCLB is just part of getting the rich, deserving kids into private schools and giving everyone else vouchers to save them from the horrors of public schools that are held accountable to the community, if the community gives a damn.)

I mean really. His advisors won't swear to tell the truth and we'll have no evidence of the meeting? Do they still tape everything? Instead of 18 minutes missing, I'd say 6 years would be missing from those.

This shows that he thinks he's above the people, he or his office shouldn't be held accountable for his/its actions. A Republican congress led the impeachment against Clinton, why won't the Democrats do the same? Yes, it is a lack of backbone - impeach the president? During the war on terror? Are you mad? We'll be accused of treason by Ann Coulter.

Ann Coulter!

And possibly Sean Hannity!

We can't chance that.

But it's also the fact that besides Zell Miller challenging Chris Matthews to a duel (I wish he'd slapped him with a glove, like Stephen Colbert did to Jon Stewart while reporting on it - Indecision 2004 DVD, so awesome), the democratic congresspeople aren't as angry and vicious, and have stoned academics backing them.

There was a bit in the paper yesterday comparing Vietnam protests almost 40 years ago to the Iraq protests of today. It said something that is so true - there's no draft. Back then, apparently, you knew at least one person who was over there, and if you were a guy, there was this chance you'd go.

Now that it's all volunteer, college students aren't in danger of flunking out and being drafted, no one is going there against their will - officially. You sign up for the National Guard, to protect the area in case of a storm, and now you're going to Iraq for the second time in 4 years. (Our local one.) They change the rules, allowing those with tattoos that show beyond the dress uniform and those with mental illnesses such as depression or autism.

Pardon me while I vomit.

Don't tell me women don't like sports.

There are 3 women in this house.

2 of them are cheering and shouting at the TV because the U of M Tigers are points behind or points ahead or whatever.

I like playing basketball where I'm by myself, throwing whatever basketball has been left in our front yard by Becky's friend at our netless hoop.

That's about it.

I'm going to the U of M in less than 6 months, I can't do the "Woooooh!" *clap clap clap* that Becky just did, but maybe I can wear blue in March.

I hate all sports on tv besides baseball, which is so nice, because it's so ... soothing, no clock to worry about, yes, it can be 'boring', but that's part of its charm.

Football and basketball require a lot of shouting and gesturing, if my mom and sister are any indication.

I'm going outside with Dixie - all this shouting is confusing her, she thinks something important is going on.

Becky dyed her hair blue for today. This is not the first time.

And it won't be the last.

Do students in the University of Memphis Honors program watch Sabrina the Teenage Witch?

Yes, they do.

At least one does.

Me!

I qualify for the Cecil C. Humphries Presidential Scholarship. That comes with $7500 a year, apparently enough to cover most of my expenses, since I am in-state. And there's still financial aid out there.

The letter came yesterday, I was so happy. They sent a copy as well, because you have to send it back by May 1st, 2007, or you won't get the money.

Too bad checkmarks, signatures, and dates can't show my excitement.

That's all - I had to check yes, sign, and date the letter. My score on the ACT (30) and my GPA (3.7) were all they needed.

Along with the scholarship offer (like I'd turn it down? Ha!) came another application - an application for the Honors Program. A brochure came as well - small, discussion based classes and the Honors Program Residence Area. I don't know if Honors housing applies to freshmen or not, but damn! The honors application? Just basic info like my name, address, and social security number. No essay, you get the application because you qualify.

Yay!

I love learning.

And I have the money to do so.

All that's required to keep the money is a 2.75 GPA my first year, and a 3.0 the other 3. And 150 hours of volunteer work each academic year.

I already volunteer, and I love learning and I'm pretty smart, if I can brag here.

I can't wait!

Yesterday, I had to keep telling myself, "It's only March, it's only March."

It also comes with $1000 for foreign exchange.

However, there is a dark side to it. Students have been told throughout high school, do not apply for a scholarship that costs money - scholarships are free.

Well, this one wasn't.

Ignoring the $40 application for the university fee and the postage to send in said application, this still cost some serious money.

I had to type up a summary and explanation for why I didn't go to school. That was 3 pages of computer paper. Then I had to mail that in. And I put on 2 stamps, just in case, so that's 78 cents right there.

And when the offer came, I had to send it back in an envelope, with another stamp.

This scholarship cost me $1.17.

For shame.