It's No Accident that "Stupak" Looks a Lot Like "Stupid"

Two of my favorite organizations, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and Planned Parenthood are holding a National Day of Action today to lobby the Senate for health care reform that ensures women’s access to reproductive health care. Right now, things are not looking good.

Basically, the House passed a horrible amendment sponsored by Rep. Bart Stupak, an anti-choice douche bag. The amendment would prevent women who currently have health insurance plans that cover abortion from obtaining the same coverage if they buy it through an insurance exchange. This is a problem for me, but even worse is that private plans will likely drop abortion coverage in order to participate in the exchange. People who like imposing their religious beliefs on others are proposing the same thing in the Senate.

Planned Parenthood explains the situation (it's a long one):

The Bottom Line

• Under the Stupak amendment, millions of women would lose benefits that they currently have and millions more would be prohibited from getting the kind of private sector health care coverage that most women have today.


• Millions of women would lose private coverage for abortion services and millions more would be prohibited from buying it even with their own money.

The New Health Insurance Exchange

• The new health insurance exchange is intended to provide a new source of affordable, quality coverage for the roughly 46 million uninsured Americans and the millions more whose current coverage is unaffordable or inadequate.


• The House bill is expected to cover 96 percent of all uninsured Americans by offering subsidies for private coverage or the choice of a public plan. Depending on their income level and the final package approved by Congress, individuals would receive subsidies on a sliding scale to purchase private insurance through the exchange.


• Not everyone in the exchange would have subsidized coverage — a significant portion of people (for instance, those currently purchasing in the individual market and those working for small businesses) who would buy insurance in the exchange would not receive any subsidies, also known as affordability credits.

The Stupak Amendment

• The Stupak amendment prohibits any coverage of abortion in the public option and prohibits anyone receiving a federal subsidy from purchasing a health insurance plan that includes abortion. It also prohibits private health insurance plans from offering through the exchange a plan that includes abortion coverage to both subsidized and unsubsidized individuals.


• The Stupak amendment purports to allow women to purchase a separate, single-service “abortion rider,” but abortion riders don’t exist.


• Women are unlikely to think ahead to choose a plan that includes abortion coverage, since they do not plan for unplanned pregnancy.


• Realistically, the actual effect of the Stupak amendment is to ban abortion coverage across the entire exchange, for women with both subsidized and unsubsidized coverage.


• Example: Currently, a self-employed graphic designer or writer, buying coverage from Kaiser Permanente in the individual market, likely has abortion coverage. Under the health reform plan amended by Stupak, she would purchase that same plan from Kaiser Permanente in the exchange, but it would not include abortion coverage because it would be barred. This ban would be in effect even if she were paying the full premium. Similarly, a woman working for a small graphic design firm, who currently has abortion coverage through her company’s plan, would lose it under reform if the company decides to seek more affordable coverage in the exchange.

For more information on health care reform and the Stupak amendment, visit us at http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/healthreform.

End of Planned Parenthood info, and back to my ranting... If this pisses you off as much as it does me, call your Senator today. (Or email him or her, as I suspect the lines will be busy.) Perhaps yelling, "Stop the stupid Stupak amendment bullshit," is not the thing to say, but it does have alliteration, which is a good literary technique.

In all seriousness, something like this is NOT going to stop women from having abortions. Instead, it will force more women to wait longer for their procedure while they figure out how the hell to pay for it. If we want more late term abortions in this country, then by all means, support Stupak. But that would be stupid.

No Justice. Again.

The House of Representatives passed a shitty excuse for a health care plan. It includes no public option. (Sorry, I misunderstood the newspaper this morning.) It also gave in to fundamentalist religious groups and barred abortion coverage for anyone obtaining health insurance with government subsidies.

Some might argue that it is wrong to use taxpayers' money for things that certain taxpayers might object to. But we do that every day, anyway. I object to the death penalty, but every execution that happens in my state (which fortunately has been none) would be partly subsidized with my tax money. I object to Halliburton receiving no bid contracts to do nothing in Iraq. I object to hiring private "security" (paramilitary) firms being paid to "guard" stuff in Iraq. I object to the ludicrous idea that companies that are contracted by the US to work in Iraq are not subject to following US laws, so that women are raped by their co-workers and fired, the company has no responsibility. I object to using taxpayer money to build sports stadiums. The list goes on and on.

The problem with democracy is that sometimes you are stuck monetarily supporting things that you find morally reprehensible. If a person doesn't like it, too fucking bad. He doesn't have the right to impose his religious beliefs on me or other people.

Of course, not all religious groups are obnoxious fucking hypocritical assholes who insist on religious freedom for themselves but them force their beliefs down the throats of others. I know this. That's why, even though I don't believe in a Judeo-Christian God, I support the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. I think they do important work reminding people that religion does not have to oppress other people. I suppose it will be hard to continue supporting them when I live in my cave, hanging out with bats and shunning humanity, but as I said, there's no justice. I don't even know why I expect it every once in a while.

Elections: Good and Bad News

For the second morning in a row, the day began with promise. I woke up early and with big plans. Then I picked up The New York Times.

At first I didn't understand what I saw. Why was that fucking anti-choice, social conservative idiot with no plans at all for how to govern New Jersey on the front cover of the paper? No paper puts a big picture of the loser, and as my friend said on Monday, a good sign that he is not intelligent is that his first and last names are more or less the same. (Maybe this would work in Scandinavia, but it is silly here, I agreed.) But no. The stupid fuck his his right-wing agenda and won. People in New Jersey chose a moron with no ideas other than attacking his opponent's plans to save their state from recession.* Good luck with that.

I was relieved, however, to learn that the Democratic candidate in a district in upstate New York won. For 150 years, this community was represented only by Republicans. (Of course, that meant something different 150 years ago when it was the party of Lincoln, but that's another story.) Crazy conservatives around the country banded together to smear the moderate Republican candidate because she had the audacity to support gay marriage and keeping abortion legal. She was supported by all the local Republican leadership. But it seems that what people want is not good enough for the fringe elements that control the Republican party, who know much better than everyone else what they want, and if you don't agree with them, you will be punished. After months of verbal assaults from the likes of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, who supporting a crazy right-wing third party candidate, the Republican dropped out right before the election and endorsed the Democrat. He won narrowly.

My interpretation of all this insanity is that people still do not want to elect hatemongers. Christie won in part because he hid his conservative agenda, and this is also true of the Republican who just won Virginia. They emphasized the economy, not hating gay people or women's reproductive rights. In upstate New York, when the candidate foisted onto the voters emphasized his intolerance of people not like him, he lost. See, Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh and the crazy bitch in the Times who praised the national coalition who imposed their will on a small area of New York, people do not embrace your so-called values. If you want to win and continue to oppress people with your evilness, you have to hide your agenda.

There may be hope yet.

*This reminded me why a story that we read in class that same night made me laugh. My classmate submitted a story about playing guitar in high school, and described his magnet school as offering an education to "the best and brightest of New Jersey." I thought he was making a joke about New Jersey's image as people with big bangs and a love of shopping malls, but it turned out he was serious.

This Really Reeks

A friend asked how I felt about the renovation now that it's been complete for over a month. Because I am a cynical bitch who only looks at the downside of things, I told her it made me feel poorer after all the money we spent. Then I paused and realized how much I like some of the changes.

The new linen closet is amazing. The old one was narrow and deep, which made it impossible to find anything. The new one is in a strange location (the entry foyer), as that was the only place to put it, but it is amazing. It is wide and just the right depth. Everything is sorted semi-neatly. Every time I use it, I am happy.

The faucet in the new bathroom sink is perfect. It is just the right height and arc for me to use it as a drinking fountain. It makes me smile.

Best of all, the washer and dryer have made what was once a hugely stressful chore into something easy and almost even fun. I no longer have to schlep all my stuff down to the basement. The wait for the elevator (my stupid building has no stairs that go into the basement, a fire hazard if there ever was one) is eliminated. My battle to find an unused washer and a dryer that actually works has been won. What is not to love?

Oh, right - the smell of sewage. For the last week, something has gone terribly awry with the plumbing. I hear a surge of water in the pipes, then the smell emanates through the white doors that shutter the washer-dryer closet. Sometimes it is so strong it permeates the bedroom down the hall. Other times, it is just faintly noticeable as you pass the closet on the way into the bathroom. It smells like a cross between shit and rancid Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup.

I've looked everywhere for a leak, but I don't see anything wet. I can't see behind the machines, but he smell dissipates within 30 minutes at most, so I know there isn't standing sewage water. It flush-smell-dissipation process repeats a few times a day. Oh, and did I mention that my super is on vacation? Even if he wasn't, I'm almost afraid to have him look into it, as tearing up walls at this point is my second worst nightmare. (The worst nightmare: there is a sewage leak and the washer-dryer must be permanently dismantled.)

The Definition of Ironic

On Wednesday, I went to the Museum of Jewish Heritage, which is a Holocaust and Jewish culture museum, in lower Manhattan to do some research. Upon my emergence from the subway, I looked for a food vendor from whom I could buy a carbonated diet beverage in a bottle. The first cart in my path was a hot dog purveyor. I asked for a bottle of Diet Coke.

"That's $3," he said.

"What?" There was a lot of traffic, so I figured that I didn't hear him. Who on earth would pay $3 for a 16 ounce bottle of pop? Usually, the street vendors sell such drinks for $1.75, or $2 at the most.

"Three dollars," he nodded.

I was offended. "No, that is ridiculous. I don't want it."

He shrugged, as if it were not possible for me to find a better deal. In a huff, I continued toward the museum. A Duane Reade pharmacy loomed. Ah, in the past I have purchased my chemical refreshments there for $1.79 plus tax. I went in. I nearly fell down when I saw the price rose to $1.99. Still, better than the stupid hot dog guy, and I get bonus points on my card, which eventually will get me $5 worth of goods for free.

I paid (and told the cashier about the hot dog vendor - she agreed that he was outrageously overpriced) and went on my merry way. My next obstacle was a police barricade. A metal detector was set up at the opening between gates. What the fuck? I stood for a minute before I noticed a sign routing museum visitors around the labyrinth.

At the museum, I asked the man at the admissions desk what the hubbub was about. "Oh, Ahmadinejad is staying at the hotel across the street."

"You mean the president of Iran?" I asked like an idiot.

"Yes, him."

"The one who denies that the Holocaust happened?"

He peered at me above the wire rims of his little round glasses. "Uh huh."

"He's staying across the street from the Holocaust museum?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Wow, does he pick it on purpose to poke a stick in your eye?"

"No, he's actually assigned there by the NYPD. It's the most isolated hotel, so it is easier to secure."

I felt slightly better, although it seemed wrong that the man got to enjoy the luxurious accommodations of the Ritz Carlton and not face any of the protesters. The admissions desk guy made a whaddya-gonna-do gesture, sort of like the hot dog vendor. I did my research (which was useless), and on the way out, decided to stop in the gift shop.

The clearance table in the entrance caught my eye. A book called "Letters from My Sister: On Love, Life, and Hair Removal" was on sale for $1. I thought this would be a good use for the dollar I saved from that overpriced hot dog seller. When I brought it to the counter, the shubbly cashier told me that books were two for the price of one.

"But this is only $1," I noted.

"Yes. I know this. You get another one at the same price or less for free."

Man, my refusal to overpay for Diet Coke was really turning out to be smart! I got another copy of the book. I figured that my friend would enjoy it. (It turns out that she knew one of the sisters, who directed a documentary about a corset shop on the Lower East Side. I missed it in theaters, and was quite disappointed.)

Anyway, I was very proud of my bargain. Take that, Ahmadinejad. Your absurd lies cannot stop us from telling our stories and saving money.

The Squirrelly and the Acorn

It's been a bad morning. I overslept, then while eating breakfast, read several depressing stories in the New York Times. The one that upset me most was about a "sting" operation enacted by two ultraconservatives who decided that they would bring about the right-wing wet dream of destroying the community organizing group Acorn.

Acorn is not perfect. It has had a series of scandals involving its officers over the last few years. But it also has done legitimate work to empower and engage disenfranchised, low income Americans in politics and economic growth. In New York City, Acorn has helped families frozen out of the housing market obtain places to live through shrewd credit counseling, homeownership classes, and technical assistance. People who participated in Acorn's programs here are not losing their homes to foreclosure.

Conservatives hate nothing more than when low income people ask for their fair (or I should say, fare) share of the heaping American apple pie. Actually, forget the "fair share" - they loathe when people who have been locked out of the mainstream systems that benefit white, middle- and upper-classes as for even a crumb or two of what they deserve. These groups and people, many of which have engaged in questionable activities themselves (remember Rush Limbaugh's illegal prescription addition and how he blamed his maid?), thus must bring down organizations like Acorn that are successful.

Today's New York Times article explains that two squirelly right-wingers dressed up as a prostitute and pimp, then went to Acorn offices and asked for help acquiring a home that they could use a brothel for under-age El Salvadorean girls. Two Acorn workers didn't blink an eye, explaining not only how to obtain the property, but also how to hide their illegal activity from the government.

There is nothing excusable or OK about what these Acorn employees did, and they have been fired. As a result of disgusting actions, Acorn is losing federal housing funds. But here's the problem with these incidents: they were isolated. And we don't find that out until deep in the article. See, the Times notes that the filmmakers "spent months visiting numerous Acorn offices, including those in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia, before getting the responses they were looking for."

Why is no one demanding the rest of the tape? The evidence where almost everyone they came into contact to at Acorn did the right thing? It's like shutting down an entire hospital because of one awful doctor and a shitty nurse. Investigative journalism is NOT when you go out and do undercover investigations, find one thing that confirms wrongdoing, and then portray it as rampant corruption. YouTube may have made this video popular, but it certainly did not help tell the truth.

Between these squirrelly, unethical "truth seekers" and the fucking lunatics who protested in DC on Sept. 12, I really give up. Americans are not, as far as I can tell, interested in truth or justice. The sad part is this is what the real American way might be.

American as Apple Pie

Until this morning, I struggled to understand why so many (white) Americans are seething about the plan to offer health care benefits to all Americans. I thought about a photo, showing an older white man screaming at Sen. Arlen Specter (who looked like he just ate something that left a very bad taste in his mouth, which cracked me up, but that's another point) that ran last week on the cover of The New York Times. The enraged man shouted, "One day, God is going to stand before you and he's going to judge you!"

This morning, however, when I looked at a NYT headline that announced that the public option would likely be dropped from whatever plan passes, Maurice (the hamster who runs on the wheel that powers my brain), dropped the seed he was eating and jumped on his wheel. Really, is not America founded on the idea that some people have rights, and they will protect those rights and do everything they can to prevent others from obtaining them? Those self-righteous colonists, shouting at King George, were essentially the same angry white men who then turned around and made sure that women, people of color, and white men without property could not vote or hold public office. In addition, a good portion of the public could not go to school, work in certain fields, marry who they pleased, observe their religion without being harassed, or in the most extreme cases, be considered human beings. They said Jews could not serve in the Continental Army (although they were happy to get Jewish money to pay for it, while insisting that Jews were unpatriotic for not serving in the army). Etc, etc.

The real problem with America is that it is utterly un-American to believe that all people are equal. When people fight to preserve a system that benefits only a few at the expense of others, they are upholding the true American way. There may be better opportunity here for people than in many other places in the world, but really, that's just saying how truly awful many places in the world are. And how wonderful it is that there are so many un-American Americans who want to extend rights and freedoms to all.

So Burn Me at the Stake Already, You Fascists

During the last presidential election, Husband regularly received mailings from the McCain campaign requesting donations. (He regularly gives to Democratic candidates around the country.) After the election, issues of The National Review mysteriously appeared every month in our mailbox. On Friday, when I retrieved our mail, I discovered the scariest sacrilege yet: an envelope depicting black cloaked priests lying face down in the aisle of a crowded church, next to a picture of priests holding a "Dominicans Friars for Life" banner at a march. In the upper left corner, the envelope read, "God is calling new men to the battle. And the Dominicans are answering - again. (Battle plan enclosed.)"

Inside, a six page letter read:

Dear fellow Catholic:

About 800 years ago, a poisonous heresy arose in southern France. Left unchecked, it could have threatened the very existence of the human race.

Its adherents saw the human body as a prison for the soul, and thus adopted an anti-life philosophy. They forbade procreation, applauded divorce, and openly encouraged suicide.

The Church called these beliefs Albigensianism.

Seeking good men to fight the Albigensian heresy, Pope Honorious III approved the founding of the Order of Preachers, better known as the Dominicans.

St. Dominic and his preachers rose to the Pope's challenge, using Truth to blot out heresy. They did their job so well that, nowadays, you'll never meet an Albigensian.

I interrupt this letter for a moment to point out that we would never meet an Albigensian regardless of the Dominicans because they all would have killed themselves or died through lack of reproduction. Also, Husband is not a "fellow Catholic," so "God" is apparently not very good at dictating "Truth" in mailing lists. But back to the scariness:

Today, the Dominicans are rising again - to defend Christian morality against an attack that is even more widespread, vicious, and uncompromising.

Yeah, that first part of the sentence scares the fucking shit out of me.

What is this latest, most ferocious attack on Christian truth and morality? Pope Benedict XVI calls it the Dictatorship of Relativism. Relativism is the "universal heresy" because it dissolves all truth and eliminates all categories of good and evil. This deranges the mind and morals of modern man to a dangerous - indeed frightening - degree.

Fore example, relativism not only dictates that abortion is merely a personal choice, but also dictates that the government muse guarantee the "right" to this choice... Relativism can also cause people to take a good thing - such as holy matrimony - and tamper with its very definition to fulfill their own selfish purposes.

Right. I forgot that love is selfish. Of course, I also think that abortion is "merely a personal choice," and my people killed Jesus according to this institution's "Truth," so what do I know? I'll cite one more line:

Relativism is profoundly irrational - anything that denies objective truth denies reason.

Am I the only one whose eyes are bleeding? That is the most fucked up twisted "logic" I've read since Husband's free issues of The New Republic stopped arriving last month.

But on a serious note, the remaining four pages of this toilet paper screed boast about the increase in enrollments at their vocational school, and how their latest crop of 54 trainees are going to stamp out my irrational belief in religious freedom and my vile heresy against the One Truest True Truth. It is pretty damn terrifying to think about these people and what they would do to me in order to "save" me. Shudder.

Ironically, I also pulled out a receipt for a donation I made in late May (right before Dr. Tiller was killed by a psychopath who believed he had to stop abortion) to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. I very well might send them more money. Because now I've seen the enemy's battle plan - the Truth - and it is chilling.

It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To

I remember very clearly in 1984 worrying about Reagan being re-elected. Although the Gipper managed to fool a large number of working-class families into thinking he was helping them when in reality he was a reverse Robin Hood, my seven year old self knew that bad shit was going down. I was a Democrat through and through.

I survived the past eight years. I was excited to see things change in federal policy. And I am more disappointed than ever. First, the Democrats proved that they like being treated like shit. Lieberman can campaign for fucking McCain, and when his candidate loses, all he has to do is say that he was just kidding and everyone is like, that's cool. Now Arlen Specter changes parties to continue to work against progressive policies, and the Democrats are like, you said you want that conservative psychopath Norm Coleman to win and you joined other shithead Democrats and all the Republicans in voting down fair change in bankruptcy laws so that people with one house get treated the same as people with vacation homes and yachts? That's cool. Welcome to the party.

I am tired of this bullshit. If the Democrats are going to continue to suck the shit out of Republicans assholes and leave me with brown stains on my teeth, I am done. Forget it - that's not cool. I don't think I've ever been so disheartened by the possibilities or lack thereof.

To the caves!!!

An Unintended Consequence of Brazilian Waxing

Last week, I had dinner with a friend, who told me about a picture that he saw on Facebook.

"You are probably the only person in the world that I can mention this to," he said. "It showed a guy with his face between a naked woman's legs. Her shaved 'landing strip' was positioned on his face so that it hit under his nose, making it look like Hitler's mustache."

"Shit, that is fucked up," I replied articulately.

Later that night, he emailed me the picture. He hadn't mentioned that the guy also arranged his hair in a way that also looked like Hitler.

"That is so incredibly evil. Wow. I am both disgusted and impressed," I wrote back. "I'm impressed that someone could be that offensive."

"It is that rare combination, indeed. Can't believe no one has flagged it as offensive."

I think someone did finally mark it for banishment, as I couldn't find it on Facebook. The whole incident just added another reason for my personal dislike of Brazilian waxing. I can't imagine how distressing it would be to look down and find that my pubes made my partner look like the perpetrator of the largest genocide of the 20th century. Better to see Bluebeard or a Hasidic man.

Adding Insult to Injury

Picture it: New York City, 2009. A young girl (OK, not so young or a girl - a 33 year old) stands in her dining room, holding an unsigned letter from her co-op apartment's management company, eyes wide in disbelief, sputtering "I can't believe this!" over and over again. The paper explains that her share of the "work" done in her apartment in January is $500.

One might remember this "work:" over the holidays, the super knocked on her door. The occupants were out of town, but their cousin was keeping an eye on the rabbit and fort. Said cousin contacted owners of said apartment and explained that the super told her that there was a leak in the basement and that he wanted to hire a plumber to tear open her bathroom wall and possibly floor to locate and fix the leak. The not-so-young-girl agreed, and the work commenced. The leak was repaired, new pipes were installed, and everyone was happy.

However, when she got home, she discovered that there was a big fucking gap in her wall, as the super took it upon himself to re-tile and fucked it up. A battle then commenced over how this would be fixed. The management company acknowledged that it was their responsibility to put things back to their prior semi-shitty condition. More negotiations took place. No work was done.

So when the not-so-young-girl received a bill for work which not only was not her responsibility, but also fucked up her apartment, she blew a gasket.

The More You Know

Back in the days when Saved by the Bell starred a young Mark-Paul Gosselaar, a fresh faced innocent girl by the name of Elizabeth Berkely, and a pre-Dancing with the Stars Mario Whateverhislastnameis,I'mtoolazytolookituprightnow, NBC ran public service announcements with featuring a celebrity who imparted wisdom about things like the evils of letting friends drive drunk, which concluded with the graphic of a star and the words, "The More You Know." I got the impression that "The More You Know" is a good thing. This was a bald faced lie.

See, The More I Know, the more I realize what scumbags people are. Take two cover stories from yesterday's New York Times. The first one was about how the guy who ushered in exploding loans during his tenure at Countrywide now is making bazillions of dollars by buying those exact same loans for pennies now that they have gone bad. His new company, nicknamed "PennyMac" (seriously, is it possible to more directly spit in people's faces?), is reaching out to borrowers to modify the loans. What seemed very possible is that he is giving people temporary modifications that will explode again in a few years, so he can duck out and find new ways to profit. Fists clenching, fists unclenching...

Story #2 was about a debt collection agency that uses grief counseling to trick grieving family members into paying off their dead relatives' debts, even though they are not legally liable for them. The company has the balls to say that they are helping people through their grief by giving them the opportunity to rectify their loved ones' debits. FUCK YOU. Am I the only person who has the urge to kill someone close to the executives of the company, then start calling them and asking them to heal their wounds by paying for their sister's credit card bill?

The More I Know about the world, the more I like my imaginary cave hermit life.

The Great Bathroom Wall of Tile

The bathroom wall saga continues. Quick recap: while Husband and I were away at the end of the year, the super of our building asked permission to enter our apartment and tear up the bathroom wall to repair a pipe that was leaking. We were promised that the wall would be returned to the condition in which it was found. Uh huh...

For reasons I cannot possibly fathom, the super refused to allow the management company to hire a professional tiler to fix the enormous holes that were ripped in the wall. (The management company was perfectly willing to do this.) Instead, he had his handyman do it, but the tiles were cut to the wrong size, pasted in so that the insulation was still exposed, and fell out when I looked at it closely. The next day, Husband asked the super to stop the work until a professional could come in. When we arrived home that night, the outrageously crappy tiling job was ripped out, and a new job was done. It was not as horrifying as the first job, but did contain problems like this:



Yes, that is a small hole next to the faucet into which water drips, probably causing a mold problem to fester. This is in addition to all the old tiles that were cracked or chipped during the work and not replaced, but left there to look like shit. And the corner, which was originally a curved tile, that is now two glued together at a 90 degree angle with exposed ceramic. Not to mention that the new tiles are a different shade of white than the old ones. Furious, Husband called the management company, which agreed to order appropriate tiles and have them professionally installed.

Today the super told Husband that he refuses to accept that his work is not as good as a professional. When he arrives here at 7:00, I would like to ask him to return the $130 holiday gift we gave him in December, as he obviously enjoys shitting in my bathroom and telling me I should be grateful it isn't diarrhea and that he left me a mop. I would also like to break into his apartment and shatter all the tiles in his shower and tell him that it is perfectly fine. And really, why is he fighting this? The repairs are not fucking coming out of his personal pocket. I trusted him to come into my home when I wasn't there and do what needed to be done to save the building from extensive damage. His repayment is to take my old shower, which was rather ugly, and make it worse.

We all know where this leads: he better hope that he doesn't need access to make repairs ever again if no one is home, as I will now let the whole fucking building collapse before he ever touches a fucking thing in here. Hey, I have homeowner's insurance.

Update: The super did not show up or call us to cancel.

What Would CUSS Readers Do?: Sloganeeringhat

Once again proving that by the time you read something in a mainstream newspaper, it's probably too late to be of use, today's New York Times has an article about people scamming troubled homeowners by charging money to "fix" the loans, then disappearing.* The Times notes this is a growing scam, but it has actually been a huge problem for at least a year now. (One deputy attorney general in California said that dealing with the swindlers has been all she's done, with 300 calls received in the past year.) Perhaps reporting on the issue six months ago may have alerted people to the scams and helped them avoid them, but whatever. The media just reports what's happening; it's not there to help people make informed decisions or anything. Bah.

Anyway, one of the things I've been tasked with at my new job is to come up with a clever marketing slogan to alert people to the presence of mortgage "fixing" scams and let them know that there is free, government-approved housing counseling available. The best I've come up with thus far is:

In trouble with your home loan?
Stop getting fucked up the ass!
FREE housing counseling is available.
Call blah blah blah and stop the bleeding.

Although it is to the point and accurate, this is probably not going to fly for a variety of reasons. If anyone has any other suggestions (legitimate or not), I'm all ears. I promise to give you credit if I use it.

*As a random side rant (or as my brother-in-law would say, rantom), the fact that people can go up to someone who is about to lose his or her home, promise her that they can save it, and then steal whatever cash that the homeowner may have used to actually save the home, blows my mind. How can the goniff sleep at night, knowing that they've made others homeless? Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with people? How did some manage to become such fucking assholes?

Theo Thursday: We are the World of Plush Animal Companions

Now that McCain claims to not be campaigning because of the economic crisis (although he was partly responsible for the failure of S&L banks that required a bailout in the 1980s, so he should stay the fuck away from Washington), Theo is extra revved up. He knows that this is just the McCain's campaign latest shenanigan - pretending that he knows anything about economics, how ridiculous! - so he gathered all the plush animal companions living in our apartment for a group protest against this latest farcical travesty of a mockery of a sham. (Apologies for the blurriness of the shot. Our digital camera is dying.)

Click on photo for larger view. The sign says, "We can't bear 4 more years of failed economic policies! Say no to McCain-"Palin aka Bush!" - Plush Animal Companions for Obama<

Please join Theo's group, Plush Animal Companions for Obama (PACO) on Facebook. I swear no one will think you are a plushie.

Greed

When I was a wee lass, my family situation was typical of a lot of American families. We generally had enough income for food, safe shelter, and non-designer clothing, plus some extra for a movie or other basic entertainment. Vacations involved stuffing my parents, grandparents, sister, and me into our blue Cutlass with a hole in the fabric covering of the back seat, then driving four hours to a resort in Michigan filled with elderly Jews and mold. We also could indulge in a baseball (i.e. - Cubs) game or even two without having to hock the family jewels, which was good since we didn't have any family jewels to hock.

Sadly, kids growing up today face ever increasing levels of corporate greed, making it nearly impossible for their hard working parents to offer them these comforts. This morning's New York Times had a cover story on how much it will cost to go to a baseball game next summer. Basically, both the Yankees and the Mets (go Mets!) are building new stadiums, much of which is financed by taxpayer funds. Instead of repaying the good citizens of New York City for their generosity, they are almost doubling the price of tickets. Right now, the cheapest tickets available for a Mets game are "value" tickets, which actually are a good value at $5 to sit in the back row in the highest tier of Shea Stadium. (They are only $5, though, on days when the Mets play teams that no one wants to see in April. On peak game days against popular teams, they are $35 for the same shitty seats. This tiered pricing was also something that my parents did not have to deal with - it cost the same amount to sit in the far corner on the third base line whether we played our arch-nemesis the St. Louis Cardinals or the San Francisco Giants.)

How the hell are parents supposed to take their kids to a baseball game if tickets are $50 and up per person to sit in the worst seats in the house? Don't working people have a right to some leisure and relaxation, too? Even if a family could afford to go to a game, is it worth it? It would be $200+ for a family of four for the shitty seats. The Mets better fucking win every game they play in their new stadium for that price.

If people don't have any heirlooms to sell, I'm not sure how the baseball team owners expect to fill their new stadiums. And honestly, I hope that they don't. I hope that they have tons of empty seats at every damn game (except the ones with $10 seats, as that strikes me as a fair price since a movie here costs $12). I hope that their greed causes them to lose money hand over fist until they remember that unlike them, most people fucking work for a living.

It Was Smashing

On Friday afternoon, I took the train up to Stamford, CT, where Husband works. He picked me up at the train station in Fred the Red, our PT Cruiser, and we motored up to Massachusetts for our godson's 2nd birthday celebration extravaganza. Since we took off around 2 pm, we beat most of the traffic, and were able to enjoy a delightful evening with my friend Alex, her husband Big Giraffe, and their two kids.

The party was set to begin at 11 am on Sat., so we offered to help out and pick up a few last minute items. First on our list was balloons. Around 9:30, Husband and I headed over to the local party store, parked Fred, and picked out a ginormous Winnie the Pooh mylar balloon and a dozen regular ones. The party store was a bit of a madhouse, so it took a few minutes for them to take our order, and we were told to return around 10:15. We paid and headed out for our next item, which was ice.

When I approached the passenger door of Fred, I thought, "Hmmm... that's odd. Why is there glass all over the front seat?" Just as my brain was slowly processing the message my eyeballs sent in, Husband said, "SHIT! Someone fucking smashed my window and stole the GPS."


Indeed, it was true. Clearly, we would not be bringing the balloons and ice to the party.

Cutting a long story short, we filed a police report and drove Fred to an auto glass repair shop. Fortunately, the good folks there were able to fix Fred that day, and 10 hours later as we drove back to NYC in the pouring rain, we were nice and dry in the car.

Suzanne on the Verge

When it comes to applying to school, I am very organized and I start early. Thus way back in October, I requested transcripts from my undergraduate school and my graduate school be sent to the MFA programs I decided to apply to. Much to my surprise, my undergraduate school - which was/is notorious for not giving a shit about students - had a very convenient online form to fill out to request a transcript. I then printed a copy and faxed in my signature. At every step along the way, I received an email confirming they received my request. Very nice!

My snooty Ivy League grad school, however, will only allow alumni to mail transcript requests or ask for them in person. I trekked up to their office, and while not exactly convenient, they seemed to take care of it immediately. Still, I was a little nervous because the chick processed my form without a date on it, so I called back a few weeks later. The guy on the phone confirmed that the transcripts were sent. Excellent.

It took me a few weeks longer to finish the rest of the applications, as I had to submit a writing sample and personal statement, and I wanted to send in the best work I could. By mid-December, I had a portfolio that I felt proud of, and I sent the rest of the application in. Then I heard nothing from wither school. You see where this is going...

Yesterday was the deadline for one of the programs. I called the admissions office in early January upon my return from Hawaii to verify that the application was complete. The woman told me that she could not check, but that I would get something in the mail indicating if anything was missing. Days went by and I heard nothing. Then on Sat., Jan 12 - a whopping three days before the fucking deadline - I get a letter in the mail. The letter is dated Jan. 7 and the envelop postmarked Jan. 11. Said letter tells me to look up my application online, so I do. And guess what is missing? That's right - my motherfucking grad school transcript.

Now I am an anxious basket case. Monday morning rolls and I call the admissions office, offering to personally bring in the transcripts in an envelop that afternoon. She says that's fine and that I have until the end of the week, but the director of the program emphasized that they cannot look at your application until the admissions office deems it complete, so I want it complete. In fact, I wanted it complete three fucking weeks ago, which is why I finished it and submitted it a month early.

Anyway, then I get a call for a good week-long gig, which I have to leave early so I can run around for the fucking transcript. I deliver it to the receptionist at 4:15 pm. She opens the envelop and stamps the materials as received. I hover around, waiting for her to enter the fucking things into the system, but she does not. I stammer things nervously and leave. I toss and turn last night, keeping Husband awake until I evacuate for the couch. I cross my fingers.

Two days later, the information has not been recorded and my application is still incomplete. I decided to email the program director and explain what happened, and hope like hell that they will evaluate my application. If this does not work, you can all visit me in prison because I am going to fucking kill someone in that admissions office.

Face(book)ing the Facts

Some time ago, Suebob or Des wrote a post about why she doesn't have a Facebook account. I nodded my head. Hell, I can barely handle a MySpace page. Facebook just seemed like overkill. No way I was going to set up a profile there.

Well, as Alex often writes, the only way to guarantee that I will do something is to swear that I would never do whatever it is. In fact, it is completely Alex's fault that I even went to that cursed Facebook site in the first place. Her brother supposedly had some pictures of himself as a goth for Halloween, and she was told to check them out on his Facebook profile. We were on the phone while she tried to do this, and one thing lead to another, and before I knew it, I had my very own Facebook profile and was busily searching for friends from high school who I haven't spoken to in about 420 years. Of course, that shit is almost as addictive as M&Ms.* Bah!

Anyway, Husband and I are off to visit our friend Mara for Thanksgiving, so I will be wrested away from a computer for the most part. This is good so that I don't spend any more time on that wretched Facebook site (is there a damn user guide available anywhere?). I'll probably sneak in blogging (some addictions cannot be denied!), and I definitely have a good essay ready for BlogHer about a ridiculous ban on the holiday refrain, "ho, ho, ho." Happy Thanksgiving!

*Yes, my pretties. If you have a Facebook profile, let me know so we can be friends!!!

Holiday Wishes

Although stores have been encouraging people to shop for the winter holidays since the 4th of July (OK, I exaggerate - retailers have only been pushing the holidays since approximately 9 pm on Oct. 31st when they thought it was unlikely to get any last minute Halloween sales), the season officially begins on Friday. Store understand that people are more vulnerable to sales pitches after they've overeaten and spent time with beloved family members. After all, we need to assuage our guilt at all the calories consumed and the number of times we had to repress the urge to strange a beloved family member.

My birthday also sneaks up after Xmas, so I'm beginning to get inquiries from my family as to what I want for Hanukkah's and to celebrate the day I emerged into this world 32 years ago. I don't have an answer. Thanks to Husband, I am more or less set on things that I want. I get to travel frequently. If I want a new sweater or pair of shoes, I just buy it. I don't really wear jewelry other than what I am always decked out in (six random earrings, four rings, and my feminist necklace; most of which are cheap). Technology doesn't interest me much. When I want to read a book, I get it. I'm very lucky and comfortable.

What I really want, though, is for the majority of the world to stop annoying me. Anyone inclined to get me a gift can give the funds to a progressive political candidate instead. For those who think that is a waste, how about a donation to the National Network of Abortion Funds? As I told my mom, there's no better way to celebrate my birth than by preventing innocent souls from being born themselves.

Arghhhh! *Slurp*

Actual email I received from Husband a few minutes ago, who today is returning from a business trip in Europe:

In the Admirals Club a guy with an eye patch was eating soup. I hate to occularly profile, but I have a feeling he was an air pirate. If I return home without me gold, you'll know why.

Damn, I missed him this week.

Vim & Vigor or Vinegar & Piss?

It's obvious that I have a lot of anger towards other people that I consider to be morons. (Another reason why it is such a bummer that I do not speak Yiddish. A book review in yesterday's New York Times notes, "Yiddish parses the stupidity of others in a thousand ways, and find distinctions matter." Damn, that makes me laugh and beam with pride. This shit is in my genes, even if I don't speak the mama loshen - mother tongue.) Something happened yesterday that made me rethink some of my rants.

My friend Logan is a certified sex educator, completing her PhD in Human Sexuality at NYU. She has worked with hundreds of New York City school kids, covering the full range of the socio-economic spectrum, and wrote an awesome book about how to talk to kids about sex. A few nights ago, she was on TV discussing birth control. Her honesty about what kids are up to these days and her frank approach to helping kids make safe, rationale decisions about sex caught the attention of a conservative blogger. Needless to say, the kuneh-laiml didn't agree with her and took it upon himself to launch a written assault on Logan's character. His minions chimed in, and reading their nasty attacks literally made me ill. (I'm not going to link to him because if people click through and he tracks referring links, I have no doubt that I will get hateful comments, and I don't want to deal with these shmendriks.) Later, Logan received an email from a yold who ranted about how he can't wait to meet her in person because she's a horrible person and he's going to sue her for sharing her ideas that result from the fact that her parents don't love her. He ended his misspelled and grammatically incorrect missive by noting that he didn't "need a college degree to make him dumb." (Obviously not.)

At first, I felt morally superior to conservatives because I don't write such vile personal attacks on my bl.. oh wait. I do. Maybe I am not better than these judgmental douche pipes who confuse "having morals" for "being a shithead." While I am pretty certain that I've never gone as far as these right-wingers do in character assassination, I still call them names. (Sometimes even in Yiddish.) On the other hand, I've never sent anyone an email threatening to sue them because I think their ideas are stupid, and certainly not insulting their children. Hmmmm....

Consesrvatives Sure Respect "Life"

"First of all, whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on children, I tend to think it is a good idea. I'm happy that the president's willing to do something bad for kids." - William Kristol, editor of "The Weekly Standard," on President Bush's veto on expanding state health insurance programs for children

And that is all I think people need to know about conservatives, compassion, and creating a "culture of life."

Stay Away from My Friend Dianne

After Dianne revealed that she has the logic skills commonly exhibited by serial killers in her answer to the question of why a woman killed her sister a week after their mom's funeral, I sent her an email.

"So, how many bodies you got buried in your basement, serial killer?" I wrote. Then I mentioned that the prior day I went to an art installation that consisted of most of the floor of an office building/former warehouse being filled with dirt that comes up to about my knee. Dianne thought she had been there before, and she was right about what had been there. It's been open to the public since 1980, and the guy at the information desk told me that they rake and water it once a week. (I'm sure the people in the floors below love that.)

She replied, "Hahahahaha! I am so happy and alarmed! I do not bury bodies in my basement, I sneak into the local wax museum and leave them there. It takes forever to realize they are not part of a macabre exhibit! I was afraid I was right after I posted my answer, so I googled the question to try to find the answer. Also, there is a list of serial killer characteristics that I score pretty high on, I tried to find them as well, but no luck."

Dianne then further exhibited her deviant nature by suggesting that we go to the art installation and "chuck grass seed in the pile." Now it is my turn to laugh psychotically, and if Count Mockula would be so good as to share her disturbing story about the coroner's office her mom worked it, it will be even more fun.

Are You a Serial Killer?

Husband told me that he read that nearly all serial killers have the same answer to the following question:

A woman is at her mother's funeral when she notices an attractive man who is attending. She would like to go and talk to him, but first she must deal with the well-wishers and other people who went to the funeral and want to speak with her on their way out. By the time she is finished with the niceties, the man is gone. She never gets a chance to find out who he is. A week later, she kills her sister. Why?

Posit your theory in the comments* and later I'll reveal what the typical explanation given by a serial killer is.

*Unless you know the answer 'cause you heard this before. Don't be a wet blanket when it comes to demented fun, please!

It's a Jungle Out There

Thursday, Des and I set out to see the bull elephant sculpture with the huge dick in the United Nations sculpture garden. (Nothing promotes international understand and peace like bronze elephant cock.) Unfortunately, the sculpture garden is closed for renovations. This may explain why I could never find more information on its hours when I searched the UN website and then called repeatedly. (The calls sent me through a maze of despair in why I pushed many buttons, but never actually spoke to a human.)

Fortunately, the elephant is situated near the street. Ironically, it is impossible to see the elephant's genitals because it is literally surrounded by a lush, overgrown bush. At least that makes me laugh.

Now that the weather has returned to August, it was very steamy and hot as Des and I pounded the pavement of the concrete jungle known as Manhattan yesterday, seeking adventure for my book on things to see and do that are off the beaten (subway) track. We were lead to Theodore Roosevelt's birthplace, which is awesome. Many of TR's safari victims, namely a lion, an elephant foot (not penis), and rhino's foot, are displayed. The tour guide, a very knowledgeable volunteer former history professor named Russell, explained that while TR indeed was an amazing conservationist, the times were certainly different.

"He took a disturbing amount of pleasure in shooting things," Russell acknowledged.

Still, Des and I agreed that TR is pretty much our favorite US president. The times were very different in some ways, and shockingly similar in others. TR stood up for the rights of labor over corporations, health care for all, public parks so that everyone could enjoy the outdoors, and the sense that "with great wealth comes great responsibility," the motto of his Quaker grandmother. (I am glad that her words left a great impression on him than those of his own mother, who grew up on a plantation in Virginia and supported the Confederacy during the Civil War while his dad went off to the front to provide logistical support to Union troops.)

Before I left my apartment, I read a nauseating article in Rolling Stone about the profiteering that is going on in Iraq by corporations allied with Republicans. Not only are they scamming billions from taxpayers and the administration could not care less, but they are directly responsible for the death and mutilation of hundreds of Americans - both troops and civilians - in their fraudulent work. Grover Nordquist was quoted (and maybe this was in a New York Times op-ed, not the magazine article - I read them both at the same time) as saying that they are working hard to get the US back to where we were before that "socialist" Theodore Roosevelt ruined everything. Yet if only our current leaders followed the civilized example of Theodore Roosevelt and served the people instead of indulging their savage blood-lust for money, we'd be a lot better off. It's sad when I look back fondly at the turn of the century as more enlightened.

Still Not Sunny

As far as I can tell from my small dining room window that looks into a courtyard and has a small slice of sky available for analyzing, it is not sunny today. (My dining room window has almost the only vantage point for weather analytics, as my street-facing bedroom and living room windows are shrouded under scaffolding that's been up for at least a year already, and my kitchen window looks mostly into the building across the courtyard. It's a good thing that my childhood was spent living in darkness - Husband freaks out at the lack of good natural and artificial lighting whenever we visit my parents - preparing me for City life.) I wanted it to be sunny today so that I could really enjoy my visit to the UN Sculpture Garden, where a bull elephant statue with a 2 foot long penis resides.

Also not improving my mood was the research I just did for an article about single women, subprime lending, and mortgage foreclosures that I posted on BlogHer. It should be obvious that women are going to get especially fucked up the ass by the mortgage default crisis, but I haven't seen much about it. However, there is ample evidence that single women, along with non-white and low income people, were railroaded into subprime loans. Yeah, you can buy your dream in America, but it's temporary and will cost you everything in the long run. Bah.

I need to eat ice cream and/or cookies today.

New York Steamroller

Does anyone else suspect that the Bush administration hoped that they could claim that yesterday's steam pipe explosion in my beloved city was an act of terrorism?

Just curious.

The Blind Scalias of Justice

The biggest threat to liberty and democracy in the US is not George W. Bush. Sure, he's a dictatorial "my way or the highway" type, but he's essentially a stubborn idiot who only got his way because the rest of the country (including an extremely lame Congress) bought into his lies and refused to question what the hell was going on. I blame Americans for the damage we allowed Bush to create.

Dick Cheney, on the other hand, is one truly evil motherfucker. The man says that he is above the government because of his Constitutional dual role as president pro temp of the Senate and Vice President. Therefore, when he wants to keep his Lord Voldemort actions in his dark chamber, he claims executive privilege as part of the executive branch of government. Then when it is noted that as part of the executive branch of government, he is required to turn over papers to the National Archive, he says that he is not in fact part of the executive branch because he is part of the Senate. So nyah nyah on us. God only knows the full extent of the vile actions that Cheney has undertaken in the past seven years, but we will be paying for them for a long time.

While Cheney's poison will remain in our collective system for quite some time, at least Cheney is going to go away, though. The biggest threat to democracy and liberty in the US is Supreme Court "Justice" Antonin Scalia. That man is a terrifying dispenser of justice as he sees fit. Constitution? Forget the Constitution! The man is confused - when he swore an oath on the Bible to uphold the Constitution, he believed that the Bible was the Constitution, not the actual Constitution. Thus we have him repeatedly making decisions that edge us closer and closer to a theocracy. Government funded religion? Bring it on, Scalia says. Who cares about separation between church and state when we should really just have church. Free speech? Only when it is really expensive, not when it is free. Scalia's demented Bible says the rich are going to heaven and thus have more rights. Reproductive rights? Of course the man says you have the right to reproduce, it's not reproducing that offends God.

As Scalia chips away at anything that makes America worthwhile, we can only sit here and watch in horror. Unlike Bush and Cheney, he's there until he dies or decides to go away. People like Scalia never die or retire. They have missions. We are fucked.