Date: 2008-05-16 00:39 Subject: Primary fight harms Dems? One guy says maybe not so much Security: Public Mood: worried Music: "It Ain't Necessarily So," George & Ira Gershwin

As we watch the ongoing clusterfuck that is the Democratic Party's Presidential nomination process, many of us out here in rank-and-file-Democrat land have feared that Little Miss Entitlement's Senator Hillary Clinton's refusal to concede her ever-more-obvious defeat is practically handing the White House back to the Repugnants this fall.

Comes now one Rob Richie, exec-director of the (allegedly) nonpartisan voters' watchdog group FairVote, to say he doesn't see the drawn-out debacle being so deadly to the Dems' chances of winning back the Presidency. My local paper published his opinion column on the subject today, but they won't put it on their website (possibly due to not having online rights for it), so you have to read it here instead.

Is he right or just whistling past that old proverbial graveyard? I'd like to think he's got something, of course...but I am well aware that my party has only won five of the past dozen Presidential contests. And knowing that slimy bastard Karl Rove is still around and advising John McCain's campaign, on top of the discord on our side, doesn't do wonders for my ability to sleep at night in the meantime.

Date: 2008-05-16 00:07 Subject: Another battle won in what will still be a long, long war Security: Public Mood: hopeful Music: "Cold Wind Blowing," by me

Just had to add my voice to the chorus of cheers from my f-list that San Francisco's progressive Mayor Gavin Newsome (D) has been vindicated by his state's Supreme Court, which today went and overturned the state's constitutional ban on same-gender marriage. BBC News' webpage is just one of many reporting on the story.

Naturally, the Religious Reich is not going to let this stand; expect an appeal to the US Supremes shortly. Or at the minimum, another try at drafting a new amendment to CA's constitution that can get enacted and survive court challenge. And similar battles in most of the other states are still being fought. But slowly, surely, inevitably, equality for LGBTQ persons and their relationships will be a reality in this country.

"Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." —Sir Winston Churchill, former UK Prime Minister, in a 1942 speech

Date: 2008-05-15 22:05 Subject: An open letter to TV network executives: Dear Fuckwits... Security: Public Mood: aggravated Music: "Save Me," Remy Zero (the Smallville theme)

Yes, I mean you, CW president Dawn Ostroff. You, too, Bob Iger at ABC/Disney, Les Moonves of CBS/Viacom, Kevin Reilly at Fox, and especially you, Jeff Zucker at NBC/Universal. There's been something I've wanted to get off my chest for a long, long while now, and I just can't hold back any longer.

Date: 2008-05-14 19:39 Subject: Mr. Impeachment throws his hat into the ring Security: Public Mood: cheerful Music: "Spoiler Alert," Tom Smith

My local paper just ran this story announcing that Bob Barr, former Republican US Representative and leader of the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton, now local lawyer/consultant and columnist in the paper here, has announced he's going to try for the Libertarian nomination for President. He says he wants to give voters a real choice besides the nominees of the Big Two and denies being a spoiler for the GOP nominee-presumptive, John McCain.

Personally, I couldn't be more thrilled. If the Obama/Clinton soap opera primary fight goes on much longer, a Bob Barr candidacy may be all that stands between the Democrats and their usual habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory this November.

Date: 2008-05-14 18:12 Subject: Today's Meme #2: My song made it into a meme! Security: Public Mood: accomplished Music: Pick your favorite from the list

Fittingly finagled out of tarkrai, who got it from its originator (who LJ says is no longer registered), here is a list of all 259 songs that have received at least one nomination for (and, in some cases, won) the annual Pegasus Award. Repost in your LJ and:

• If you've heard the song at least once, put it in italics
• If you've sung along to it in public (at least the chorus), underline it
• If you've sung lead on it (in public with people looking at you), make it bold.

Date: 2008-05-14 18:03 Subject: Today's Meme: You may be on my superhero team Security: Public Mood: amused Music: "Cartoon Heroes," Aqua

Heroically heisted borrowed ('cause heroes don't steal, after all) from anaisdjuna:
( Hey, we save the day almost half of the time! WOO-HOO! )

Date: 2008-05-13 18:18 Subject: What's! On! My! Camera! (And! Mary's! Car!) Security: Public Mood: amused Music: "Someone Saved My Life Tonight," Elton John

Concept totally filched from hsifyppah (glad you're feeling better, hon!): Here's a picture-of-opportunity I caught with my new Olympus X-775 (which, I found out from the company, is actually just the European name for what is normally sold in this country as the FE-210; wonder what BrandsMart USA was doing with a bunch of those?). A passing monarch butterfly (at least, I think it's a monarch) decided to take a rest on the roof of my Songbird's old teal Honda as it sat in front of my apartment.

Just as I snapped the pic and started to move around for a second shot, he flew away. Guess he's camera-shy.

Date: 2008-05-12 22:10 Subject: Belated birthday and engagement greetings Security: Public Mood: pleased Music: "Animal Liberationist in Our Lab," Heather Rose Jones

Happy birthday, albeit a day late, to a very nice and multi-talented lady, hrj! Please accept my apologies for spacing on the date and my hopes that your natal day was everything you hoped for and more.

And congratulations to pixelene on her just-announced engagement, following her boyfriend's rather dramatic proposal (on both knees, yet!). See her and lukeski's journals for more details.

Date: 2008-05-12 17:27 Subject: My summer movie schedule Security: Public Mood: calm Music: The Speed Racer theme

Both for myself and anyone else who wants to keep up, I have compiled a list of all the feature films coming out this summer that have at least a chance of getting me in the door. Most are SF/fantasy, but one or two oddities found their way in...and any of the August ones could be pre-empted by my traveling to Nairobi to see you-know-who (stay tuned). Each will be marked through once I've seen it, and I will try to avoid posting spoilers.

Date: 2008-05-11 12:02 Subject: An amazing Atlanta-area mom gets served breakfast in bed...by Emeril Security: Public Mood: impressed Music: The All My Children theme

This story published in my local paper will probably amaze you...not so much for the event itself as for the woman it celebrates and the sheer quantity of children (17), grandchildren and even great-grandchildren she has brought into the world. ABC's early-AM news show Good Morning America held a contest in which viewers were invited to tell the producers why their mother deserved to have a Mother's Day breakfast cooked for her by none other than N'Awlins' own Emeril Lagasse, and served to her in bed at her home. Dee Wissing of Marietta, GA won...and on Friday morning, had the big surprise delivered to her by Mr. "Bam!" himself and three generations of her descendants. The breakfast was, no doubt, prepared at the tony Buckhead eatery of Emeril's here; and GMA even supplied the bed...out on the Wissings' front lawn.

I know I keep beating the drum about how human overpopulation is straining the world's natural resources...but it's still hard not to feel the old heart-strings tugged on reading this, for some reason. To inspire this kind of love, the woman must have done something right.

Date: 2008-05-11 11:31 Subject: For all the Moms in my life...and the one who's not any more Security: Public Mood: calm Music: "Motherly Love," Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention

Lest I become bogged down in self-pity and maudlin moroseness today, as is all too easy for me these last 13 years since my own mother died of cancer at 56 and her mother followed her in death a year later, I want to remember the wonderful mothers who are still in my life today and wish all of them a happy Mother's Day.

An especially happy one to joyeuse13, who is enjoying (one hopes) her very first Mother's Day after giving birth to little Zachary a few weeks ago. And to my sisters-in-law, Susan and Darla Leger, who are mothers twice and four times over respectively. And my stepmother Lucy, who lost one of her sons to untimely death years ago. And all the mothers on my friends list, including but by no means limited to acelightning, katrinb, quadrivium, tigerbright, ailsaek, pocketnaomi, suecochran, spiritdancer, gimmeahand, persis, weirdsister, telynor, dsthomas, ericavdg, ladyat (who has also lost a child), maya_a, folkmew, osewalrus' wife Becky, evawhitley, dunkelpig, mseuphrates (whose pics of her adorable little ballerina today seem rather fitting for the day somehow), jrittenhouse's wife Susan, daisy_knotwise ...and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my pointy little head.

Here's hoping your families give you every joy you can imagine wanting this day. And if you're a mother and reading this and I've omitted you from the above list, please let me know and it will be rectified tout suite.

Date: 2008-05-10 22:49 Subject: Think George W. Bush has blood on his hands? So does Vincent Bugliosi. Security: Public Mood: curious Music: "Helter Skelter," The Rolling Stones

Yes, that Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor of Charles Manson's murder case and author of the most famous book about same, Helter Skelter. He believes that our Maximum Leader is actually guilty of legally actionable murder—at least 4,000 counts, one for each US soldier he knowingly sent to die in Iraq under false pretenses. And Mr. Bugliosi has written a new book outlining the criminal case against Bush and how it could be prosecuted in a real US courtroom; it drops on the day before my birthday, May 25. Hear him tell you about it in a streaming audio statement here....and pre-order it from Amazon here.

I am so getting me a copy of this puppy...and so should you. If there is ever to be any justice for what that conscienceless bastard sitting in the Oval Office has done, the word needs to be spread far and wide.

Date: 2008-05-10 13:18 Subject: In Memoriam: Lois H. Mangan, 1946 - 2008 Security: Public Mood: sad Music: "Flowers of the Forest"

Boston-area Filk Hall of Fame member Lois Mangan, wife of Paul, has died. No other details available, but the source is persis , so I'm taking it as fact. Anyone who can offer more information, or wishes to share memories of her, is invited to post here.

Given her earlier illness, it's not totally shocking, but very sad all the same. I remember her leading the NESFA Hymnal filksings at Arisia a few years back, and seeing her online and at cons. My heart, thoughts and prayers are with the Mangan family, as they are with the Cooke family following mrpsyklops ' announcement yesterday of the passing of his mother-in-law. Between these and poor Greg M.'s death in January, not a good year so far for our community.

ADDENDUM, 10:17p: persis  has updated her journal with some more information about Lois and a mailing address to send cards or other messages of condolence to the family.

ADDENDUM, 5/11, 12:53p: Lois' husband Paul (annonynous) has posted to filk some more information about his wife's passing. Cause of death was apparently an unexpected complication of her Parkinson's disease. She will be cremated per her wishes, so no funeral will be held, but a "celebration of her life" will be arranged at some near future date.

Date: 2008-05-09 18:14 Subject: Tomorrow is Stamp Out Hunger Day Security: Public Mood: determined Music: "Hold Out A Hand," Edwin McCain & Maia Sharp

This Saturday, May 10, if you live in the United States and have a mailbox at your house or apartment, please consider leaving a bag or box of non-perishable groceries out by it. It will be picked up by your mailperson and delivered as a donation to the 14th annual Stamp Out Hunger program.

My union brethren and sistren in the National Association of Letter Carriers, as well as the US Postal Service, Campbell's Soup Company, America's Second Harvest, the 35 million Americans who stand on the brink of starvation (in the richest nation on the planet!), and Your Humble Correspondent will all thank you.

Date: 2008-05-08 18:13 Subject: The Senator from New York puts her foot in it big-time Security: Public Mood: angry Music: "National Brotherhood Week," Tom Lehrer

As if her mulish insistence on continuing her increasingly quixotic race for her party's Presidential nomination weren't proof enough that Hillary Rodham Clinton truly cares about no one and nothing save herself (and possibly her family), her latest quoted public statements prove it beyond the merest shadow of a doubt. Scroll down to the money quote in paragraph 16 to find out what has me and half my f-list gaping in sheer, stunned disgust.

So apparently desperate has Clinton become that she is willing to pull out the race card more nakedly than any politician of either major party since Junior's daddy and his late buddy Lee Atwater made Willie Horton a household name. Has it truly escaped her that the Americans she is clearly naming by omission as not being "hard-working" (i.e., non-Caucasians) make up more than half the country's population...and thus, the electorate? And how many times have I said that nominating this woman is tantamount to giving the GOP the White House again, on the proverbial silver platter?

This kind of oh-no-she-didn't statement is sure to send even more voters into the arms of her Illinoisan Senate colleague Barack Obama during the eight primaries remaining in the schedule, not to mention those notoriously uncommitted "superdelegates." And should she by some miracle or skullduggery (three guesses which one's more likely, and the first two don't count) wrest the prize from Obama, do you think for one single solitary picosecond that John McCain and company will hesitate to use this against her in the general election campaign? I sure as hell don't.

Mrs. Clinton, let me add my voice to the growing chorus demanding that you brew yourself a nice cup of sit-down-and-shut-the-fuck-up and withdraw now, while doing so can still save the party and the election.

Date: 2008-05-08 18:03 Subject: Especially for shelleybear...and it wouldn't hurt the rest o' yez to listen, either Security: Public Mood: appalled Music: "Girls Like Me," Mary Chapin Carpenter

Anyone who thinks that "gender issues" only come up once puberty hits needs to hear/read this story from NPR's All Things Considered that stopped me in the car arriving home to listen. I don't consider myself dysphoric at all, but I know lots of people who are or have been...and I feel for a poor kid so tormented she has to practically gut herself in her parents' kitchen to get them to listen.

Date: 2008-05-06 19:40 Subject: Jury duty: Citizen's privilege or annoyance to be avoided? Security: Public Mood: thoughtful Music: "Park Avenue Beat," Fred Steiner (the Perry Mason theme)

Most of you have probably heard some variation on the following: "No 12 people not smart enough to get out of jury duty can possibly be my peers!"

Am I the only one who finds something wrong with this statement and the sentiment behind it?

I myself have been called for voir dire (jury selection) only once, and was culled out at that stage. I have always looked upon jury service as a rare opportunity to fulfill a civic obligation, see how our justice system works (or doesn't) up close and help maintain the ideal of America as a nation governed by laws rather than by the passions of men. Does this make me horribly naïve? Does everyone look at jury duty as nothing more than a waste of their time, a loss of pay (in some cases) and an inconvenience?

The right to a trial by a jury of one's peers has been considered key to a free and just society and a basic human right at least since the Magna Carta, if not longer. Have we become so selfish, or so cynical about the system, that we as a society no longer see this as being so? Or do we just want it when we're on the business end, but not want any part of it when we get asked to take a seat in the jury box? Your thoughts, please.

Date: 2008-05-06 17:38 Subject: Two birthday wishes for today and one for yesterday Security: Public Mood: tired Music: "Velvet," Talis Kimberley

Happy belated birthday to two amazingly gorgeous and talented people, telynor and talis_kimberley!

And a happy birthday today to layla_aaron!

May you all enjoy every blessing life can offer and many happy returns of the day.

Date: 2008-05-04 23:59 Subject: Go see Iron Man. NOW. Security: Public Mood: excited Music: The theme from the 1960s animated TV series

I have just come back from seeing Marvel Studios' latest effort at monetizing its superhero properties in other media bringing the fantastic concepts of its comic-book creators to the silver screen. And I am here to tell you that the new Jon Favreau-directed Iron Man movie, starring Robert Downey Jr. in the title role, kicks at least seventeen distinct varieties of ass. Check out the movie's official website to find out more...or better yet, just go see the damn thing already. And don't walk—run. Even if you've never read a single page of the comic book on which it is based, you'll enjoy it...and if you have, it'll be even more awesome.

I do not believe it an exaggeration to class this as the best superhero-based film to come out of Marvel's character stable to date, bar none—yes, I said better than all three Spider-Man films, all three X-Men films, 2003's Ang Lee-directed Hulk (which has also been remade for a new release June 13th, and for which a trailer ran before the movie tonight) and the two Fantastic Four films. It may even be better than all of them put together...and good enough to stand alongside Superman: The Movie and Batman Begins, from the Distinguished Competition (as they used to be referred to in Marvel lettercols).

One other piece of advice: Stay through the very end of the closing credits. I promise, you won't be sorry...especially if you're a fan of Marvel Comics' Ultimate universe.

Date: 2008-05-04 01:19 Subject: A Senate survivor on the Bush Régime, up close and personal Security: Public Mood: angry Music: "Which Side Are You On?," Pete Seeger

Courtesy of StumbleUpon and Brown University's alumni magazine, former Vermont US Senator Lincoln Chafee (Ind.) reveals just how sociopathic Junior Bush and his coterie of Constitution-shredders have been in their (ab)use of the power they stole, from his own direct personal experience:
The Tax Cut That Neutered Congress
Now if only he'd had the cojones to say to Darth Cheney, after his 15-minute one-on-one harangue, "Okay, Mr. Vice President, I've listened to you. Now, damn it, sir, you are going to listen to me!..."