Our new slogan: DON'T BE BIG BABY

Really just an extended version of one of those "Metropolitan Diary" entries, this Times op-ed about moving to New York has a nice punch line, which I will now give away. Whining to probably the only person who will even talk to her for more than two seconds (and only then because she's getting paid to do her nails), the author is brought up short by her Korean esthetician, who shouts "DON'T BE BIG BABY!!"

My kind of weirdos

Coincidentally, the Chronicle did a nice article today on Other Magazine. They sponsor the Writers with Drinks series, where I'll be reading Sep 11 (see above).

Republicans bravely take on New York's finest -- cocktail waitresses

Courtesy Wonkette, here's a daily column being written by a cocktail waitress working in a NY strip club near the site of the GOP convention. Priceless moment:

"Listen," he said, his already thick drawl slurred by alcohol. "I like buying beautiful women expensive clothes. I like taking them out to any restaurant in town... I like playing with two girls at once--but that's not a requirement. If I wanted to pay for a girl to spend the night with me, I could."

He wrote his cell phone number on the back of a business card. I saw the name of an energy firm. The man later told someone in the club he was a Washington lobbyist. I wondered if he would try to add a clause allowing "two girls at once" into the Republican Party's plan for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

I watched a little of the McCain and Giuliani speeches tonight. McCain is a terrible speaker! No wonder he never gets anywhere in the primaries. But Giuliani is terrific -- warm and understated, he's a great storyteller. It was like listening to him tell a series of funny stories at a dinner party. Pro-choice, pro-gay... Too bad 99% of the GOP is far to the right of him, because if the rest of the party were more like him, they might really be threatening. But what am I saying? They're threatening the way they are!

By their goodie bags ye shall know them

Turns out it's easy as pie to spot a Republican delegate in New York -- they're all carrying bright red goodie bags!

Republican of the week!!

You might think that, on the week of the Republican Convention itself, it might be difficult to pick one guy to be the Republican of the week. You might think I'd at least wait a few days.

But no, I have already found this guy. Totally great. (There was another photo of the same guy on wonkette, but they must have caught him later in the day, since he looks a lot more tired and grouchy. (Isn't that the Waldorf Astoria? I know because we stayed there for free on our Hilton points last year.)

Yes, there are many photos of the big anti-Bush march Sunday; this photog seemed to focus a lot on cute protest gals. (No objections here!!) Another guy liked taking pix of cops, while this  gal  guy was more eclectic. (Thanks, Gothamist.)

Come to my reading! Buy a book!!

Some very nice but probably misguided person has invited me to be part of a reading. It's Writers with Drinks, an august literary gathering, except this particular one is:

7:30 pm on Saturday, September 11
at The Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd. St., San Francisco.

I'm going to bring five dozen copies of my book How I Adore You and sell them for TEN BUCKS EACH. An Incredible Bargain.

This should be a lot of fun. You really should come.

Gosh, it's nice out today

But I'm going to be in a church meeting most of the afternoon. Maybe I'll get some exercise in around 4:00. When's the ballgame?

From New York:

- Coutesy Gothamist, Rooftop banners -- curiously, all the same color
- From Yahoo News Photos, today's demonstrations
- NY Daily News story, hitting the high points

Volunteers for America

If you're more interested in what's going on outside Madison Square Garden than inside, protest news is here. Watch the long menu on the right side of the frame for posted photos and videos, like these by my friend Jym.

Letting the eagle soar

When he's not spurring the FBI to hunt down terrorist suspects and white collar tax cheats, AG John Ashcroft is scouring the internet for those nasty file-sharing pirate people. I feel so much safer now! (Just a tip to those badass online pirate people: calling your secret organization "The Underground Network" might not have been the best idea.)

In politics, the LA Times has a nifty Electoral Vote Calculator (requires Flash), if you'd like to torture yourself with win-loss scenarios. And Bush today called on John McCain to see what he could do to stop political ads from 527 groups. I guess they're hurting Bush more than his own supporters' ads are hurting Kerry -- I don't see Kerry calling for an end to the ads.

By the way, Bush edged ahead of Kerry in a poll released today -- but playing with that electoral vote map will convince you how meaningless the total popular vote is. Who cares how many million Texans think Bush should be re-elected? Their state's electoral votes only count for so much.

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose

Courtesy sfgate's excelent World View column, an article about the latest Bushite embarrasment. Seems Team Bush commissioned an Olympics tie-in campaign ad bragging, "At this Olympics, there will be two more free nations and two fewer terrorist regimes." They mean Afghanistan and Iraq, apparently. But they forgot to ask the Olympic atheletes in question. The Iraqi soccer team, which captured world attention by reaching the semifinals, loudly told anyone listening to include them out. "You cannot speak about a team that represents freedom. We do not have freedom in Iraq, we have an occupying force. This is one of our most miserable times," said an Iraqi soccer player.

Dept of I can't decide whether to laugh or cry

Since I'm utterly allergic to the shouting-heads brand of talk show, I never watch "Hardball." But a recent segment, captured on video, is making its way around the web, and its entertainment value is pretty high even if you aren't all that intersted in political back and forth.

First go here to get a little background and followup, then watch the video, which is linked off that page, courtesy of 1115.org. (Transcript here for those without DSL or QuickTime -- the Michele Malkin segment, about 3/4 of the way down.) High points:

Willie Brown laughing rudely at the female guest after she's put her foot in her mouth and he realizes the host is going to crucify her.

The guest's eye-popping delivery, best captured by hitting the pause button at random points as she speaks.

Her final line, at which the host himself laughs derisively, when she asks "Well don't you WONDER??" whether or not Kerry shot himself to get his purple hearts.

Christ God. I can't decide whether I'm enjoying all this rutting, or can't wait til it's all over. It's like a bad drug trip -- not only are you horrified at what you perceive, but you're afraid it will actually cause you permanent brain damage and effectively never end, even when the drugs wear off.

If you're that interested, the woman herself has a blog where she gives her version of the conversation.

Dept. of Wouldn't it be pretty to think so

Kerry either leads Bush, or is ahead by only a few margin-of-error percentage points, in most swing states, including Florida and Ohio. Where they are "virtually tied" (by virtue of that margin of error), it's always Kerry who's ahead a little bit. Nevertheless, I and most liberals remain anxious. I do know I'm sick to death of the whole Swift Boat issue, and I hope we see the last of it this week. What a farce.

Mommy, she's scaring me

I suppose anyone who follows sports knows this, but I didn't: American runner Gail Devers has three-inch long blue fingernails. They can't be blamed for her utter failure -- in the hurdles event, she blew a calf muscle and went under the first hurdle, then stumbled off the track -- and I guess prove glamor and athleticism are not mutually exclusive, at least for someone who doesn't use her hands. By the way, she has Grave's Disease, a thyroid condition, which explains her bulging eyes.

Transgender woman a British celebrity

The TV show "Big Brother" is a much bigger deal in the UK than in the US, where after the second summer the show's popularity faded drastically. In the UK, the winner is a major celebrity -- and a transgender woman who completed her surgery just a few months before going on the show.

Finally, among the endless catwalk of wannabes, here was someone with a real story to tell. Whereas the series has long abandoned any pretence at being a 'social experiment', she used her time in the house to conduct an experiment all of her own: that of being accepted as a woman in her own right. While the viewers knew about Nadia's past, her fellow housemates didn't, leading to scenes of almost unbearable pathos amid the mud, jam and rumpus: Nadia's confessionals in the diary room; the heartbreaking way she froze on the sofa when her housemates starting taking about transgender; those excited, terrified tears as she was dancing to 'La Isla Bonita' in the final week.

A regrettable shortage of villains

Have you ever had an idea for a story or film, and then not do anything about it because it seemed either too silly or too difficult, and then you see the same idea a few years later taken seriously and actually made into a book or film?

I just had the other shoe drop for me on one of those. Reading the latest Gawker interview, I heard for the first time of something called "City of Heroes," an online game (known by those who do such things as MMRPG, for Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game -- a kind of computer game where you are playing with others over the internet). Here's a description from the City of Heroes website:

Welcome to City of Heroes, the online world that's home to an entire universe of heroes, where you and thousands of other players take on the roles of super powered heroes - in a stunning, 3D graphical world.

Super Powered Action and Adventure

Create Your Own Hero

Choose from hundreds of different powers and design your own unique costume.

Fight Evil!

Confront super villains, aliens, madmen, criminals, and other fearsome foes. Take on personalized missions and rid the city of several different evil organizations and hundreds of individual enemies.

Form Your Own Super-group of Heroes

Band together with other players to fight evil and become the premiere hero group in the city!

Okay, I get the idea. But just one question -- If everybody is a superhero, then who plays the super-villains that you fight? Do you actually get to choose whether to be a hero or a villain, or is there a preponderance of heroes? Do they all sit around doing nothing and try to have cyber-sex with each other because there aren't enough villains to fight? Maybe the game company has to pay people to play villains?

Anyway -- it's a little similar to an idea I had about superheroes living everyday lives. I don't want to give away the whole idea, because I still might do something with it some day. If I ever write again.

Hollywood stars going to hell

For several years, fundamentalist churches have been staging alternative-Halloween events for teens, intending to keep them off the streets and away from the "satanic" festival. One of the most popular manifestations of this is a sort of theater piece-cum-environmental performance called "Hell House," which fills a seemingly traditional haunted house with the evils of drugs, premarital sex, homosexuality, and so forth. Now several Hollywood stars are putting on a staged version of "Hell House," starring Bill Maher as the devil, and featuring everyone from Traci Lords to Richard Belzer (you know, the weird, skinny cop on one of those "Law and Order" shows). (Links courtesy Chr. Today weblog)

Republican of the week

Meet James Hart, Republican candidate for Congress in Tennessee. His website says:

Stop Welfare and Immigration Replace it with a War on Poverty Genes

Our cities are being destroyed by dysgenic welfare and immigration. Why does Detroit look like it was hit by a nuclear bomb and Hiroshima look like it was on the side that won the war? Everyone knows the answer but is afraid to say. Because genes have a more devastating effect on civilization than nuclear bombs, and the reason for Detroit's decline is that there are less 'favored races' in Detroit with an average IQ of 85 and more 'favored races' in Japan with an average IQ of 104. (It is noted there are less 'favored races'* in Africa south of the Sahara with an average IQ of 70-75, which accounts for the extreme poverty there.) Richard Lynn's book, 'IQ and the Wealth of Nations' has clearly shown that the prosperity of a nation is determined in large measure by the average IQ of the population. The poverty genes of less 'favored races'*, which are spread by welfare and immigration, are destroying our cities no less than if they were hit by a nuclear bomb. Massive uncontrolled and illegal immigration portends not just the destruction of a few cities but of our whole civilization itself. If we had integrated with less 'favored races'* centuries ago, there would have never been an electric light. There would never have been an airplane. Unless we stop dysgenic welfare and immigration policies, the US will look like one big Detroit.

Yeah, Detroit does look pretty bad.

Most demeaning reference to the Constitution, finalist

Courtesy the Christianity Today weblog -- well-written and annoyingly conservative -- I found this Washington Post story about a "Constitution Party" and its candidate, one Michael Peroutka. Says the CT writer:

Unless Peroutka has an unwavering belief that all publicity is good publicity, he's unlikely to be pleased with the treatment. The Post basically suggests the party is full of racist theocrats, and that its candidate is a drunken fool.

I'm so totally there! I couldn't find the part about him being drunk, though.

Disgusting news of the day

In North Carolina, a massive flood of soapsuds covered a roadway, leaving drivers "dazed and confused." At one point the avalanche was as high as treetops and utility wires, but:

Water Quality officials suspect the foam may be the result of detergent runoff from the old H&H Products facility off Candy Kitchen Lane, just to the east of U.S. 301, according to Chief Tew. The detergent does not pose a danger to humans, the chief said.

Well fucking la-dee-da. Soapsuds cover a highway, nobody knows why, and the public servants are blasé. Yeah, it is North Carolina. They elected Jesse Helms seven times, too. Fucking pinheads.

Sex-crazed gals go oral

Erotica maven Rachel K.B. interviews more-successful erotica maven Tristan Taormino on Gothamist.

Of course, my favorite erotica maven is still Marilyn Jaye Lewis.

Agent orange

Cute and short interview with a young literary agent on Gawker today. (Gawker has been trying to get my attention for several days now by claiming they do a daily interview, but this is the first one that's caught my attention enough to even notice that they actually do post interviews.)

Her big tip: Proofread your query letter. Hey, if they were setting the bar that low, I would have gotten an agent a year ago. Her next tip: She favors brevity, mentioning a favorite author who gets it done in 200 pages.

Wow, I would be so busted there -- except only one of the eight agents who've rejected my book even got to notice that it was 490 pages long; the others rejected it after reading only the first three chapters, or 45 pages. You think they could tell after those 45 pages that I wasn't going to wrap things up in another 155 pages? Could be.

Another pointless exercise in nostalgia

That "trove" of Beatles memorabilia picked up at a junk shop in Australia earlier this summer? Probably a fake, say several experts. And a particularly lame one, according to the story -- photographs supposedly from the 60s which were obviously laser prints. What in the world was the point?

Dept. of Wouldn't it be pretty to think so

The townhall.org conservative web site says Fahrenheit 9/11 is "crushing the morale" of troops in Iraq, quoting one disillusioned grunt saying, "You'll be mad at shit for ever having come here" (to Iraq). Another is quoted as saying, "feel shitty, ashamed, like this was all a lie."

The latest electoral vote predicting map has Kerry leading by more than 100 electoral votes.

That's what I call street cred

Courtesy of Gothamist, this NY Post story of a skateboarding woman who tumbled onto a Con Ed manhole cover and wound up with a tattoo-like brand from the hot-enough-to-fry-eggs steel.

She's all worried that she's going to be scarred for life, but the "tattoo" looks pretty rad to me, and besides, wouldn't you like to be a 60-year-old woman telling your golf buddies in the locker room at the country club, "Dude, it happened when I was skateboarding through Greenwich Village." What could be better!?

Best. Swiss Army Knife. Ever.

My local hardware store carries it: a Swiss Army knife complete with 256MB memory stick.

To completely change subjects, I was glancing through the Wall Street Journal today, and on the Op-Ed page was a piece by a guy who says the world is better than that depicted on day-to-day news programs. "Just look at recent figures on the economy," he says (I'm paraphrasing), "showing only 12.1% of American households are below the poverty line" (emphasis mine).

Good God, man, that's one eighth! That's your good news!?

Tea time

Michelle Tea has a new, somewhat exhausting column up on BeyondChron. In it she describes a queer art festival she attended in Olympia and mentions -- along with 46 other things she saw -- a SF punk band and says mournfully that she was filled with regret for not catching them in SF, since she had just seen their last show.

Yeah, I know exactly how you feel. But I feel that way about most things -- it seems I miss out on more than I catch. Tea, on the other hand, is a successful writer with a cult following and saw 46 other things she saw in Olympia that she doesn't have to feel regretful about. Because she's pretty much in the center of things.

She's in the center of things because she's charming. I, on the other hand, am crabby and getting crabbier. Cris says I see everything negatively these days. So don't ask me about the election.

Dept. of bad planning

There's a new "combat vehicle," the product of years of Pentagon planning, prototyping, and manufacturing -- but the resulting machine is too heavy to transport to combat zones.

And in a college town somewhere, seven youths took ecstacy and had an impromptu orgy -- but now regret it:

The aftermath? No one is talking. Both couples broke up. Why did we get like this on E? Why did we all go berserk? I mean, I didn't even tell you all the stuff we did -- it was that bad. Can you explain this?

Good news! Dan Savage is equal to that question. His reply is priceless.

Republican of the week

This candidate for a Minnesota Congressional seat apparently doesn't even live in the U.S., and may be a fugitive from a 1982 arson charge. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Jack E. Shepard.

Hennepin County authorities said they believe the candidate is a former Minneapolis dentist who had already been convicted of criminal sexual conduct and drug possession when he was accused of arson in 1982.

"We will only be certain after he is located and fingerprints can be taken," Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar said this week. "But, based on the pictures and other evidence we have, we believe he is the person."

Not to be outdone, the Democrats offer New Jersey Gov. James McGreevy, who resigned today: "McGreevey, a former prosecutor, came into office vowing to end corruption, but in recent months a number of his political aides and fundraisers have been accused of corruption ranging from alleged payoffs to hiring a prostitute."

Update:

Whoa, it was a lot juicier than that. McGreevy actually resigned because of his affair with a male aide.

Geez, the rumors were true -- only about this New Jersey Democrat instead of that Texas Republican.

Scott, just keep telling yourself, 'But my thoughts are free'

Salon's lead story today alleges that news media is using heavy coverage of celebrity trials to distract Americans from the war. Come, now -- the month of August is always inundated with silly news. What were we obsessed with in August, 2001, anyway? It was probably some stupid celebrity trial.

Speaking of trials, the L.A. Times' and the S.F. Chronicle's coverage today of the Scott Peterson murder trial differed today in one interesting detail. They both reported on the tapes played in court of Peterson's phone calls with his lover Amber Frey, as secretly recorded by Frey after she realized Peterson was the person they were talking about on TV whose wife had vanished. The L.A. paper went for the "baby talk" angle, but the Chronicle reported Peterson's statement that "he never had freedom from responsibility like Jack Kerouac":

In another exchange, he told Frey about a book he had just read by Kerouac, telling the tale of hitchhiking across the country.

"I never had a prolonged period of freedom like that from responsibility, " he said.

That's okay, Scott. You'll have no responsibilites at all in San Quentin, and they'll let you read all the Jack Kerouac books you want.

Rejection of the month

At least it seems he bothered to read it.

Dear Mark,

Thanks so much for sending MAKE NICE at [a well-known writer's] suggestion.
I was taken with the setting and Bobby Blaine's search for his own identity
in the face of being overshadowed by Sinatra. The way you tie his story
together with Gene's makes this all the more interesting.

That said, I couldn't help feeling the narration seemed more suited to a
screenplay than a novel. The present tense and the novel's descriptions
almost read like stage directions. The final result was an accomplished
work, but not really my cup of tea.

Best of luck securing the right representation for the project and thanks
again for the early read.

Best,

[an agent]

Surviving adoloescence

Great post by Marilyn on her blog today about how Patti Smith kept her alive long enough to see adulthood and become a writer and performer in her own right.

I was just talking about this with Cris last night, sort of. We were really talking about how people can possibly support Bush and who are these shits, and got to talking about the mentality of people who prefer not to question authority. This led to a discussion of the paradox of authoritarian alternative movements, which ostensibly are anti-Establishment but are actually as much as if not more authoritarian than the Establishment itself -- the Weather Underground, the Maoist movement and the Manson cult come to mind. Along the way we discussed how we had, as teenagers, managed to survive adolosecence by questioning authority and not falling for any one vision of how the world should be. Love to Marilyn! We made it this far.

People have the power

Punk goddess Patti Smith appears in San Francisco later this week, and today BeyondChron got a scoop: an extensive profile and interview.

Satire is dead, #923797823334

It's no joke anymore: European election observers will monitor U.S. elections this fall.

Rescue me

Cellular phone companies are pushing a new service: fake "emergency" calls to a cell phone for the purpose of extracting you from a bad date or other social situation. (Thanks, Jeff!) Expect to see this in The Ethicist soon.

Shining happy people

So many Britons are taking Prozac that the drug is accumulating in the water supply in rivers and groundwater. But it gets removed in the same process that removes pesticides before they reach faucets.

What the hell am I doing, you want to know. Well, almost everything I do during the week is on this short list:
- Look for work
- Work at my part time job
- Work on the same freelance project I've been working on since May
- Exercise in the basement while watching TV
- Go to church

Aside from eating, sleeping and washing, that's about it. Too broke, and too involved with the freelance project, to do much of anything else.

I still might get a full time job. I had almost given up, but now it looks like this thing at the website dept. of a big bank might happen. And yesterday I actually spent ten minutes talking on the phone with a guy from Oracle about a tech writing gig. I talked a good game but I don't have the writing samples he wants, and besides, it would be damn hard. So I'm never going to work at Oracle. But it says something that they actually considered my resume, which is actually pretty light on the technical writing.

SF man says he hasn't really been beheaded

Vanderford said he originally made the video as a way to draw attention to his campaign for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He filmed the footage at a friend's house, using fake blood.

When his political aspirations waned, he decided to distribute the footage on Kazaa... "to just make a statement on these type of videos and how easily they can be faked."

Point taken. But why is he shown on the ABC News site in his underwear?

Barely Kerry

Very nice electoral map with states shaded according to the latest polls (thanks, Tyler). Mousing over each state gives poll numbers for that state. However, it might crash browsers on slower systems. If this happens, try upgrading to Firefox, the new, free, better browser from Mozilla.

Fool me once...

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we," Bush said. "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

No one in Bush's audience of military brass or Pentagon chiefs reacted.

Update: Here's the BBC News take on the gaffe, with a link to video.

Keeping a straight face must be one of the most important skills for advancement in the military. Cris's comment was short and to the point: "What a fucking idiot."

Don't know whether to laugh or cry Dept.

Kerry Promises a Smarter, Safer War on Terror -- Reuters

Wouldn't It Be Pretty To Think So Dept.

Kerry leads Bush in most swing states, according to a Zogby poll released Aug. 2. But the lead is, in most cases, within the poll's margin of error. And unfortunately, it has Bush leading by 5% in Ohio.

Also on Aug. 2, sfgate posted my friend Sara's report on her visit to Nicaragua last month as that country looked back on the Contra war. Sara is a great writer, so read it.

God must be really mad at them for something.

Boy killed in lightning strike;
sewage floods Thames killing thousands of fish

LONDON (AP) -- A 14-year-old boy was killed in a lightning strike during sudden thunderstorms that sent 600,000 tons of raw sewage into the Thames, killing thousands of fish, officials said Wednesday.

Separate lightning strikes also injured four 15-year-old girls in Hyde Park as heavy rains caused flooding and transportation headaches Tuesday.

Call it freedom

Interesting report on Morning Edition today. An NPR reporter, Rob Gifford, is travelling the countryside looking for signs of the "new" China beyond the cities. In today's episode, he finds that prostitution, on the one hand, and freedom of religion, on the other, have flourished with the collapse of the Communist stranglehold on culture and society. When he visited a roadside church, the fluent Chinese-speaking Brit was pressed into service to deliver a sermon. (You'll have to listen to the Real Audio to get the report, but there are several photos at that link, including one of Gifford preaching.)

New polls have Kerry leading by bare percentage points within the margin of error, the proverbial "statistical dead heat." (Try translating that phrase into Chinese.) Speaking of dead heat, it may be August, but I haven't seen the sun in a week, and it's about 63 degrees out here a mile from the ocean.

Come to this reading!

Michelle Tea writes:

tuesday, august 10th

at the san francisco public library * main branch

downstairs in the latino reading room

6:00 pm * free

the RADAR reading series

a showcase of emerging and underground writers

featuring



from los angeles NOEL ALUMIT, the award-winning author of "Letters to Montgomery 

Clift"; whose work has appeared in The Advocate, Frontiers, and USA Today; and 

acclaimed performance artist who has produced work on both coasts.



from pittsburgh, performance poet, journalist, and official guardian of pop art 

PAIGE MCBEE; who has performed her writing at Sara Lawrence College, Brown 

University, Homo-A-Go-Go, LadyFestPhilly, and K'vetsh-Boston; who has been 

published in LifeBoat: A Journal of Memoir, Boston's Weekly Dig, Pittsburgh's 

City Paper, Deek Magazine, and Gauge Magazine; who is currently working on a 

memoir about bad dads and the inherent goodness of people entitled The Milkman 

Theory; and who founded and co-hosted the queer open mic event K'vetsh-Pittsburgh.



from san francisco, 2004 literary laureate PETER PLATE; who taught himself to 

write fiction during 8 years spent squatting in abandoned buildings; who is the

author of 7 previous novels including One Foot off the Gutter, Snitch Factory, 

Police and Thieves, and Angels of Catastrophe, all published by Seven Stories 

Press; and whose newest novel is entitled Fogtown.



from pittsburgh, BETH STEIDLE; who has performed her work at Emerson College, 

Boston's Charles Playhouse, Boston's Oni Gallery, Brown University, and 

Homo-A-Go-Go;  whose artwork has been published in Boston's Weekly Dig; who 

is working on a memoir entitled Chemical Egrets, which details her bizarre 

dealings with her best/worst friend(s).  (By which she means, her schizophrenic/ 

bipolar brain(s));  and who founded and co-hosts K'Vetch Pittsburgh, a queer 

open mic event.



exotic, elaborate and entertaining audience participation q & a to follow the 

reading. your host michelle tea will bake cookies. ask a question, get a cookie.

it's that simple.

Satire is not dead, not in New York in August

Hundreds of activists-cum-performance artists are planning on making themselves heard during the Republican Convention later this month, not on the barricades, but through street theater depicting "Billionaires for Bush" and the like.

Their faith is touching. And doing something like that is certainly much more fun and camera-friendly than one more mass march or sit-in. But will all the playacting really swing a single swing-state vote?

Summer driz

Summer drizzle arrived last week, has lasted five straight days. Only thing unusual is that it didn't start a month ago.

Not much to report out here, except that on Saturday night I got a phone call from a real live political poll. You know how everyone complains "They never called me before compiling those bogus poll numbers!" Well, on Saturday, they called me. I answered a straight Democratic, anti-Bush line, except for saying I was "very religious" -- that ought to throw them off.

And there was something interesting: a series of questions based on the premise that the initiative process has been hijacked by well-funded groups (also known as the feared "special interests," or at least that's what the pollster called them). In California you can get just about anything on the ballot as long as you have x-thousand signatures of registered voters; that's led to such disasters as Prop 13, which has eviscerated public education in the state; Prop 6, which would have outlawed homosexuals in the teaching profession (that lost, in 1978); and propositions on things like "three strikes and you're out," which sets mandatory prison sentences for three crimes, and on making English the official language. All kinds of crap like that. Also, it means you keep being buttonholed by signature-gatherers, so now if I see someone coming at me with a clipboard and asking if I'm a registered voter, I cross the street. The heck with that.

So the next time the results of a "Field Poll" are released, check it out: that's me, part of the Democrats' convention bounce.