Dear Mr. President of the Hospital Where I Used To Work,

I'd just like to say what a pleasure it's been working at the hospital. I'd like to say that, but I'm afraid that I can't. You see, in the last twelve years, this institution has gone from one that made me proud to work there, to one where I cried on my way in, every day.
It was getting to that point when you came, so I can't blame you for the depths to which it has sunk. Many people do, but that isn't fair. No, the seeds of its destruction were sown many years ago, and I'm afraid that you are merely bringing in the sheaves.

Some of the senior management you inherited was incompetent and corrupt. Some of the senior management you brought in to replace those people were even worse.

One of the most recent casualties of your reign was a man I've known for twelve years. He was down in the pharmacy when your man came in. Your man tossed him out. Your man then went on to overbill the hospital on a regular basis, and even put in for reimbursement on his trips to strip clubs and fishing get-aways. My friend would have seen that and blown the whistle in a New York minute. That's why he was sent away.

What reason is there for sending him away now, after that particular whistle has been blown, and blown by someone who was left in nominal power because he was thought too insignificant and weak to do what he did?

Some of the most incompetent and stupid of the senior management you inherited, you let remain in power. Your PR director, for example. I have had a long and bitter struggle for integrity and devotion to duty with that particular bitch, and every time, she has won.

What does that say, that your PR director's position on talking to the media is "If you don't talk to the press, they can't misquote you." This institution has devolved into a bunker mentality. Is it Hitler in the Eagle's Nest, or merely Nixon praying in the halls of the White House?

I guess that I'm particularly bitter about the PR director, because it was she who told me, all those years ago: "Nobody wants to hear what you have to say. All you'll do is tell us what we're doing wrong, and it doesn't have to be done right, it only has to be done."

You were supposed to be our saviour. You were supposed to come in here and pull this institution up from the waters it was foundering in, and bring us back to fiscal health and management well-being.

I'm not seeing it. I never saw it. The old president may have been barking mad there at the end, but he always cared. You and your team have treated us like less than dirt. That was why I laughed when my VP told us that those of us who were going to be laid off were going to be treated with dignity and respect. You didn't treat us like that before you laid us off, why should we believe that dismissing us would improve our lot?

I had been ordered to put together a team to do volunteer work for Hands On Miami Day. Nobody asked if I wanted to, I was ordered to do it. I was livid with rage, that I should be asked to shanghai people to do field work on a weekend when we were all waiting for the ax to fall on our necks. I wasn't allowed to refuse, but neither did I work it like I had the first year, when I offered to do it.

Two days after Hands On Miami, I was laid off. My VP knew that he was throwing me away, and yet he still expected me to happily organize an after-hours event for the public face of this hospital. Oh yeah, respect and dignity, all right.

And while I'm venting about respect and dignity, let me tell you about my last responsibilty. My manager, oh he of little brain and pointy hair, had dicked around with the servers for a good nine months before we finally got my new content management system installed. He installed it while I was sitting at my father's deathbed. No less than 15 minutes (FIFTEEN FUCKING MINUTES, DO YOU HEAR ME, YES I'M YELLING, 15 MINUTES) after my father died, my asshole boss said, "While I have you on the phone, could you walk me through adding a row to a table in HTML?"

Is that respect? Is that dignity? Is that even fucking human? Huh? Anyway, I came back to work from my father's funeral and was given 3 months to convert the entire web site over to the new system. Yes, the PHB had taken three times that long to install the software, but I had three months to convert the site. By myself. Working longer hours, maintaining the existing site, creating hundreds of PDFs for secretaries who couldn't do it themselves, and never complaining. I did it in the time alloted too, which is ridiculous. Nobody should have been able to do it.

For my efforts, I received a thank you note from my boss. I was nominated for Employee of the Month. I didn't win, though. That honor was given to some gomer who sat in the server room during a hurricane that never hit and never disrupted power. When I finally did complain about that, the director of my department said that Employee of the Month didn't have anything to do with work, it was a perk that was doled out where and when needed for morale in any particular group.

Respect? Dignity? I don't think so.

Imagine my surprise when no less than two months after I finished that conversion, the PR director decided to outsource the web. Why another department was allowed to cut my job is something I don't like to ponder too much, but there it was. She also cut my counterpart in her own department, the lovable Loogie, my editor and bane of my existence. Imagine how much greater my shock when Loogie called me at home yesterday to tell me that she wasn't fired or reassigned, after all. She's going back to the PR office to oversee the firm that will be doing the web. She was given that news by the PR director one day after I had been separated from the company.

Respect? Dignity? Not having to do with individuals? Yeah, right. Tell me another one. I have some dry land out in the Everglades for sale, if you're interested.

In conclusion, let me say that I think it's really nice that those good old boys in management still have their jobs. My boss, I see, has been updating the web in my absence. I can tell, because it isn't done right.

But then, it didn't have to be, did it? It only has to be done.

Yours truly,

A bitter, bitter, bitter ex-employee

I was called for jury duty yesterday, in the district court, civil division. One day or one trial. Sworn in to tell the truth. I swelled with civic pride and duty. Unlike most people, you see, I love jury duty. It's a good thing, too, because I must get called every year.
Of course, I wasn't actually chosen for the trial. I think the defense attorney would have wanted me on the case, but the plaintiff's attorney couldn't throw me off fast enough.

It was a medical malpractice case. Negligence on the part of the primary care doctor. The plaintiff had bladder cancer. I could see, by the questioning, where this was going. So I answered those questions as honestly as I could. Even those questions that were unasked, but implied.

I was potential juror number 14, which meant that I got to listen to a lot of answers to the same questions before they got to me. The question was "What do you think about cigarette smoking?" Most of the other jurors answered that they didn't like it. Or that it was a nasty habit. One or two people said they smoked. I said that it was a matter of personal choice, but one that carries with it personal responsibility.

Danger. Warning. This person thinks. Whoop, whoop, whoop.

They asked us if we would be capable of judging a doctor, of holding one accountable. I said yes. I did NOT say that I'd be even more capable of holding lawyers accountable.

They asked how we felt about large money awards. Most people said, of course, if they're called for. I said: "I'm ambivalent." GAH!!! That juror used a multi-sylable word. Danger! Warning!

Could you elaborate? I could, and I did. Pain and suffering are pretty subjective things, no? Sometimes there is merit in the claim, but there are a lot of frivolous lawsuits in this world.

Have we ever had a problem with a doctor? Yes. Elaborate. I did. But then, I allowed as how I was very young and naive, and never sought a second opinion. By the time I did, years later, for what the first doctor claimed was a relapse, there was no sign of the condition the first doctor wanted to do surgery on, nor was there any sign that I'd ever had the condition. I fired the first doctor. I never looked back. And (although I didn't say this)neither did I sue.

What about cancer? Family members? Yes. And close friends. By the time I'd finished my list, the whole room looked a little dazed. Uh, OK, so this is something you might have strong feelings about?

One attorney asked about Monday morning quarterbacking. The young man to my left didn't understand the term, nor had he ever heard of 20/20 hindsight. The lawyer explained the concept and then turned to me... And you? Can you look at the facts and not be a Monday morning quarterback? I snorted, C'mon, anyone who's been a Dolphin fan as long as me knows the futility of that exercise. The room cracked up.

Good. Leave 'em laughing. We were interrogated a little more, and then the lawyers settled in to pick the jury. It came as no surprise to me that I was not selected.

When they say a jury of your peers, what they mean is, someone who has no opinion and never reads the paper.

I got up early, again. Figured out why, though. The pounding of the caterpillar truck next door, crushing its way through the coral rock as they prepare to lay the pipes and foundations of the new, million-dollar strip mansions.

Then it was off to do errands, where I was forced to consort with the riff-raff that lives in this city.
I have a new pet peeve: people who cut in line, with the excuse that they only have a question. Or one item. Or any other damn thing that they thinks makes their time more valuable than mine.

My Clie has a burnt-out screen, and I thought I was still within the year warranty, so Cicuit City was on my list of places to go. When I got there, I saw that there were two registers open at the Customer Service counter and both were occupied. There was also a woman standing a discreet distance behind them, clearly (to me, at least) in line.

I stood behind her. Some antique Jersey skank came up and parked her skinny, badly dyed, leathery self at the counter, beside the woman who was being helped.

The woman in front of me said in a timorous voice, "There's a line here." New Jersey Skank said, "Oh, but I'm not buying anything." As if that made a difference.

I said "That makes no difference. You are asking for the clerk's time, as are we all. There is a line. Behind me." I’d like to note that I was firm, but polite and didn’t swear or use demeaning language. The timid little woman in front of me turned to me and said thank you.

NJS got in said line, protesting all the way. She didn't let it go, either and bitched volubly the whole time.

And then, the next one came up. This was an Hispanic skank, also of a certain age. Also with time too valuable to stand in line. I remarked to her as well that there was a line. She allowed as how she knew that and was standing in it. I told her she was not, and pointed behind the NJS. She said that the line wasn't where she would expect a line to be, it was too far away from the desk, (Yeah, a polite distance, giving the people at the counter privacy, and the people wandering around the store, an aisle. Apparently both were foreign concepts.)

Now I had the two of them behind me, commiserating over my bad manners, ill dress and questionable upbringing, that allowed me to speak to such obviously fabulous people as them in such a manner. “Oh, the mouth on her,” the NJS kept repeating… loudly.

By this time I was at the counter, and I had had enough of those two. I turned around and said in my teacher voice:

“Oh, you two haven’t begun to hear the fucking mouth on me.”

They gave it their best, trying to be supercilious and tee-hee, oh aren’t you quite the lady, but they just didn’t have it in them. I turned and gave them one last glare and shut them up. And the Jersey Skank? Just for the record, her “I only need a second” was still in process when I finished my business, found and collected the RLA, and walked out the door.

Hmmmph. The fucking nerve of some people.

I slept in. All the way to 7:30AM. Whoopeee.

After a cup of coffee, and the delicious realization that I didn't have to put on make up today, I sauntered off into the living room, where twelve years of employment and hard work has been packaged into six cardboard boxes.
I pulled out the office sweaters and the Happy Bunny desk sign book, the spare pair of socks, the container of mints, and the squishy brain that sat on my monitor.

I sorted out the tech books. Outdated systems and program version learning guides went into a bag for the used book store. Usuable manuals and in-depth guides went into smaller box, for me to finally read and work through.

I pulled out my desk calendar, marked the day of separation (free at last, free at last) and the upcoming jury duty and interviews.

I sat on the couch, depressed despite myself.

I went back to the boxes, extracting the cables, cradles, docks and chargers. Those will go to my studio. Ditto the radio/cd player.

My awards and framed samples will go into storage. I sigh. I sit on the couch and remind myself how much joy and relief I felt yesterday when I sneered at the senior vp and told him to spare me the platitudes.

I wander off to refill my coffee, pet the dog. This is going to be fine, I think.

I got to work this morning and was greeted by the PHB. I was to report to the HR office immediately.
So I did. And then I was fired. The PR office decided to outsource the web, thereby rendering my job pointless. Even though I'm an MIS employee, and even though there should have been some interaction with the group that actually built and maintained the web, there appears to have been none.

I'm sure that management was lying about that. So much for my hard work.

I'm pretty sure, too, that laughing in the VP's face when he tried to shake my hand and tell me how much they valued me and all the work that I had done for the institution was bad form on my part to.

All I have to say is:

Free at last, free at last; thank God almighty, we're free at last.

This is at least as liberating an experience for me as losing my portfolio was twenty years ago. I'm not kidding. I loved that book. I was proud of the work in it. Some of it should have been tossed out years prior, but I couldn't because I loved whatever it was. Having my portfolio stolen allowed me to rethink how I presented my book; my work. I was free to reinvent myself artistically because those pieced that I was attached to emotionally were gone. I could start new.

Kind of like today.

Yesterday sucked.

I'm twiddling my thumbs at the office these days, what with there being no content provider, anymore. I'm explaining things about server technology to the PHB, not that I actually understand server technology.

And then the phone rings.
My best friend here, a woman with more than twenty years with this institution, and pretty much the brain trust in her division, was on the phone to tell me that she had just become a victim of the downsizing.

My mentor. My friend. My sister-girl. Unemployed. At one in the afternoon, after breaking our lunch date because she just had too much work to do.

Because the administration of this institution appears to have been raised by wolves, and by that I mean every single one of them, and I'm sorry if that is an insult to wolves, not only was she fired in the middle of the afternoon, the meeting she was supposed to chair at 4 was not cancelled. No. She went to leave, to say goodbye to her staff, and there was no staff available. They were all in her meeting. The one she was no longer there to chair.

The VP who fired her kept saying the usual shit about how hard it was for him. How much it hurt him. How terrible it was for him. Yeah?

Fuck you, buddy. How terrible, how painful, how hard do you think it was for her? Oh. I'm sorry. That means you would have had to pull your nose out of your own ass long enough to smell the air. Not going to happen.

Of course, there was more. My mother's caregiver seems to have snapped her last thread binding her to reality and is having some identity issues regarding who, exactly, is my mother's child. As in: her, or me. I cannot move mummy fast enough. Assuming, of course, that the caregiver doesn't kidnap her and move her away.

Oh, yeah. Fucking blue skies here. I sent the RLA out for a pack of Shermans. I was an ex-smoker for all of three weeks.

In unison, gentle readers: BITE ME.

I give you this essay, in its entirety. Thanks to Seth, for bringing it to my attention.
GOD HELP AMERICA
Nov 5 2004

THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN..

THEY say that in life you get what you deserve. Well, today America has deservedly got a lawless cowboy to lead them further into carnage and isolation and the unreserved contempt of most of the rest of the world.

This once-great country has pulled up its drawbridge for another four years and stuck a finger up to the billions of us forced to share the same air. And in doing so, it has shown itself to be a fearful, backward-looking and very small nation.

This should have been the day when Americans finally answered their critics by raising their eyes from their own sidewalks and looking outward towards the rest of humanity.

And for a few hours early yesterday, when the exit polls predicted a John Kerry victory, it seemed they had.

But then the horrible, inevitable truth hit home. They had somehow managed to re-elect the most devious, blinkered and reckless leader ever put before them. The Yellow Rogue of Texas.

A self-serving, dim-witted, draft-dodging, gung-ho little rich boy, whose idea of courage is to yell: "I feel good," as he unleashes an awesome fury which slaughters 100,000 innocents for no other reason than greed and vanity.

A dangerous chameleon, his charming exterior provides cover for a power-crazed clique of Doctor Strangeloves whose goal is to increase America's grip on the world's economies and natural resources.

And in foolishly backing him, Americans have given the go-ahead for more unilateral pre-emptive strikes, more world instability and most probably another 9/11.

Why else do you think bin Laden was so happy to scare them to the polls, then made no attempt to scupper the outcome?

There's only one headline in town today, folks: "It Was Osama Wot Won It."

And soon he'll expect pay-back. Well, he can't allow Bush to have his folks whoopin' and a-hollerin' without his own getting a share of the fun, can he?

Heck, guys, I hope you're feeling proud today.

To the tens of millions who voted for John Kerry, my commiserations.

To the overwhelming majority of you who didn't, I simply ask: Have you learnt nothing? Do you despise your own image that much?

Do you care so little about the world beyond your shores? How could you do this to yourselves?

How appalling must one man's record at home and abroad be for you to reject him?

Kerry wasn't the best presidential candidate the Democrats have ever fielded (and he did deserve a kicking for that "reporting for doo-dee" moment), but at least he understood the complexity of the world outside America, and domestic disgraces like the 45 million of his fellow citizens without health cover.

He would have done something to make that country fairer and re-connected it with the wider world.

Instead America chose a man without morals or vision. An economic incompetent who inherited a $2billion surplus from Clinton, gave it in tax cuts to the rich and turned the US into the world's largest debtor nation.

A man who sneers at the rights of other nations. Who has withdrawn from international treaties on the environment and chemical weapons.

A man who flattens sovereign states then hands the rebuilding contracts to his own billionaire party backers.

A man who promotes trade protectionism and backs an Israeli government which continually flouts UN resolutions.

America has chosen a menacingly immature buffoon who likened the pursuit of the 9/11 terrorists to a Wild West, Wanted Dead or Alive man-hunt and, during the Afghanistan war, kept a baseball scorecard in his drawer, notching up hits when news came through of enemy deaths.

A RADICAL Christian fanatic who decided the world was made up of the forces of good and evil, who invented a war on terror, and thus as author of it, believed he had the right to set the rules of engagement.

Which translates to telling his troops to do what the hell they want to the bad guys. As he has at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and countless towns across Iraq.

You have to feel sorry for the millions of Yanks in the big cities like New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco who voted to kick him out.

These are the sophisticated side of the electorate who recognise a gibbon when they see one.

As for the ones who put him in, across the Bible Belt and the South, us outsiders can only feel pity.

Were I a Kerry voter, though, I'd feel deep anger, not only at them returning Bush to power, but for allowing the outside world to lump us all into the same category of moronic muppets.

The self-righteous, gun-totin', military lovin', sister marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', non-passport ownin' red-necks, who believe God gave America the biggest dick in the world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land "free and strong".

You probably won't be surprised to learn of would-be Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn who, on Tuesday, promised to ban abortion and execute any doctors who carried them out.

He also told voters that lesbianism is so rampant in the state's schools that girls were being sent to toilets on their own. Not that any principal could be found to back him up.

These are the people who hijack the word patriot and liken compassion to child-molesting. And they are unknowingly bin Laden's chief recruiting officers.

Al-Qaeda's existence is fuelled by the outpourings of America's Christian right. Bush is its commander-in-chief. And he and bin Laden need each other to survive.

Both need to play Lex Luther to each others' Superman with their own fanatical people. Maybe that's why the mightiest military machine ever assembled has failed to catch the world's most wanted man.

Or is the reason simply that America is incompetent? That behind the bluff they are frightened and clueless, which is why they've stayed with the devil they know.

VISITORS from another planet watching this election would surely not credit the amateurism.

The queues for hours to register a tick; the 17,000 lawyers needed to ensure there was no cheating; the $1.2bn wasted by parties trying to discredit the enemy; the allegations of fraud, intimidation and dirty tricks; the exit polls which were so wildly inaccurate; an Electoral College voting system that makes the Eurovision Song Contest look like a beacon of democracy and efficiency; and the delays and the legal wrangles in announcing the victor.

Yet America would have us believe theirs is the finest democracy in the world. Well, that fine democracy has got the man it deserved. George W Bush.

But is America safer today without Kerry in charge? A man who overnight would have given back to the UN some credibility and authority. Who would have worked out the best way to undo the Iraq mess without fear of losing face.

Instead, the questions facing America today are - how many more thousands of their sons will die as Iraq descends into a new Vietnam? And how many more Vietnams are on the horizon now they have given Bush the mandate to go after Iran, Syria, North Korea or Cuba...?

Today is a sad day for the world, but it's even sadder for the millions of intelligent Americans embarrassed by a gung-ho leader and backed by a banal electorate, half of whom still believe Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11.

Yanks had the chance to show the world a better way this week, instead they made a thuggish cowboy ride off into the sunset bathed in glory.

And in doing so it brought Armageddon that little bit closer and re-christened their beloved nation The Home Of The Knave and the Land Of The Freak.

God Help America.

By Brian Reade

In the never ending "will they? won't they?" of my job life, the newest news -- only two days old -- is that there WILL be layoffs in my department. Because the first round of layoffs, that aren't really layoffs, didn't save the hospital enough money.
Yeah. No shit, assholes. How could it? What happened is that a manager is "laid off". Meaning that they don't have their job anymore, but based on how long they've been with the institution, and what they were doing, or what they did 15 years ago, they can go down the food chain and tell some other poor schmuck that that schmuck's job is now the manager's job, and the person who really loses their paycheck is the poor schmuck, and not the manager.

Sometimes this results in the manager taking a cut in pay. Other times it doesn't. In my own department, we had managers reclassified, and theoretically demoted, but in reality, they just had their job titles changed, and the money and the power remained the same.

So how does that, how can that, save money.

Over in the PR office, Loogie, my web editor and the only person supplying content for my site, had her position eliminated. Now we are on hold for new content. Forever, no doubt.

Six years ago, when my position of graphic designer was eliminated from that office, the director told me that she had every intention of cutting Loogie, too. She told me she didn't know how or when, but that Loogie was next on the list to go.

In what is, I am certain, merely a coincidence, Loogie and I were the only two Jews. With the cuts in staff, the PR department is now white and Hispanic. Gone is the last Jew, and the last two women of color.

I'm sure it's only a coinky-dink, aren't you?

Yesterday we had another department meeting. Our VP showed us a video of some random Civil War epic. I think that it featured Jeff Daniels, hard to tell under all that bad facial hair. He was giving an inspirational talk to a group of potential Union deserters, just prior to the Battle of Gettysburg. It was supposed to motivate us to fight for the life of the hospital while at the same time throwing our jobs away to save it. He told us we had to look at the big picture, that the hospital was what we were fighting for, not our own livelihoods. Because the hospital is a representative of the greater good. We serve the uninsured and the poor. Well, I kept my mouth shut (for once and it was a fucking miracle) and didn't point out that without our jobs, we would be the poor and uninsured.

We were told to suck it up and love our jobs, and put on happy faces, because people can't think that this is a bad place to work. People shouldn't see our dirty laundry airing and choose not to come here to be healed. Dude, nobody chooses to come here, whether the worker bees are happy, shiny, smiling drones or not.

And nobody wants to wear the happy mask anymore. We don't believe in our leaders. We don't believe in our managers. We don't believe in our government, who gives us more responsibility for the county's healthcare, but cuts the dollars we're supposed to do it with.

It is, in microcosm, what happened on Tuesday. We don't care about the economy, we don't care about healthcare and education, we don't care about the future.

We care about keeping our small piece of the status quo, and fuck everyone else.

Rome is burning.

I spent yesterday with my head in my hands, crying. Crying like I have never cried over an election, not even when I was a hormonal teenager and thought that Richard Nixon was the Anti-Christ.

Of course, in later years, I married the real Anti-Christ, and he didn't look anything like Nixon. And, in retrospect, compared to Darth Cheney and Karl Rove, Nixon was a rank amateur when it came to evil and deceit. But I digress.
Yesterday, I cried. And then I trolled the web for inspiring words. I found them, and I'm going to share some of them with you. Most of these folks are in my blog links, and once you read these passages, you'll know why.

From Bryan Adams' Blog

"Mr. President:

Over the last 24 hours, I've been hearing an endless news loop about how I, a liberal, need to make more of an effort to understand "the heartland." Well, since two of the three branches of government and 51% of Americans are Republican, I think that, actually, you need to make an effort to understand us. The heartland needs to try to understand the brainland.

Unlike you guys, I'm not going to make any effort to wrap our core tenets in false piety or tired cliche. I will tell you who we are, plain and simple. My understanding is that you like oversimplified, one-page memos, so let me give it a try."

Keep reading Bryan's letter.

From Margaret Cho's Blog:

"The Bush administration will be sorry they won this battle, for they now look forward to losing the war. Ultimately, a government cannot defeat its people, no matter how much power they assume or how corrupt they are. Even though today feels like a defeat, there is no loss. There is only opportunity. Now we have the chance to challenge everything, fight everything. The possibilities are tremendous. All the polls, all the posturing, all the opinions that we endured during months leading up to the election provide us with a valuable education on how we think and act as a country."

Read her whole essay.

From the Rude Pundit:

"We are a nation of savages. That is what we decided last night. We belong to the "most advanced" society in the history of the world, and we decided that we would rather be barbarians, hunched over fire pits, ripping meat off the bones of our enemies, raping our women, howling out at the gods for peace in the afterlife."

Read what he has to say about "American Values"

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

---W. B. Yeats
Ohio is the Florida of 2004... where the chads hang and the future of the free world will be determined. But... it doesn't seem to matter. Bush pulled 52% of the popular vote, winning on fear, greed and lies.

I am dressed all in black today, in mourning for my country.

The Coolest Person In the World (TM) called last night as the networks painted Florida red to ask, and I quote: "What the fuck is wrong with your state?"

Uh, people bought the ice-water thing? They're stupid? The process was corrupt?

I'm sick to my stomach. This country will be bankrupt in another four years. Our streets will be filled with blood. And the hungry and the homeless.

We will be a third world nation, isolated as the Soviet Union once was.

What happened? How could this happen? A Bush Supreme Court?

How does a man come across as badly and as ignorantly as he did in three debates and still win?

He lost three debates. He's an ex-coke head. He's lost millions of jobs. He's run the deficit into trillions in four years (from a surplus, no less). He's lost our place in the world. We are guilty of war crimes, and empire building. He lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. He left Osama Bin Laden alive and organizing the jihad. He's a fucking moron and an Air Force deserter. And yet. Somehow. He's also the leader of the free world.

I'm sickened. I'm saddened. I'm going to start drinking and not get sober until 2008.

With worry. Obsessively clicking on the elector vote predictor. Flipping back and forth from yesterday's report to today's. I'm all over Salon's War Room, constantly refreshing the page to see the newest bulletins.
So tonight I'll go light up the endorphins with Nic Cage and settle in with a bottle and the RLA to watch the returns.

This is killing me.

I just pulled this off of Salon:

Cell phone landslide for Kerry

Will the cell phone voting bloc wind up becoming the November surprise? Zogby has just released a path-breaking presidential poll conducted exclusively on mobile phones. And the winner is John Kerry by a landslide margin of 55 to 40 percent. Jimmy Breslin and others have been complaining that traditional telephone polls just aren’t capturing the new voter realities, because so many young people are only reachable by their Nokias. If the Zogby poll, which was conducted in partnership with Rock the Vote, is a reliable indicator, Tuesday night might not be such a drawn-out, nail-biter after all.

-- David Talbot
There is an amazing and bitterly true assessment of the Bush presidency deeper in Salon's pages.

Read it. Weep. Vote.

The Fabulous RJ threw another fantastic party last night. An Alice in Wonderland-themed halloween do.
In attendence, the Queen of Hearts (RJ her own self, and looking absolutely divine), a Queen of Hearts with an accompanying executioner, 1 Knave of Hearts, 1 Old Father William (who would not balance an eel on his nose, nor allow us to stand him on his head, damn it), 2 Hookah Smoking Caterpillars (neither with a smoking hookah, damn it), 2 White Rabbits (one with fan and kid gloves), 2 Gardeners (complete with red paint... for the white roses), assorted playing cards, 1 Alice, and 2 Flamingos (with a squeeky hedgehog ball).

There was a croquet game set up in the back yard, with internally lit balls (trippy) and neon hoops. There was a spread.

Have I ever mentioned that the RJ is someone who cooks quite well, and understands that cooking is a competitive sport? Well, last night we had deviled eggs, a rose-shaped red velvet cake with little assistant rose-shaped cakelets, mushroom tarts (one side makes you taller), card suite-shaped canapes, and zombies. Many were drunk. Make of that sentence what you will.



Thanks, RJ. It was a swell evening.

No Mas Bush! and Four More Days!

It was a rainbow of colors, ages, genders. There were Veterans for Kerry, GLT for Kerry, Labor for Kerry, Jews for Kerry, Christians for Kerry, Latinas for Kerry, Women for Kerry, Unions for Kerry. I had a Florida is Kerry Country sign, my sister-girl was holding one that said something about Women's Votes. There were little kids and old folks and everything in between.

The energy was palpable when Kerry took the stage. Of course, having The Boss for your warm-up act makes it pretty hard to come onto a cold stage. Nevertheless, when Kerry made his appearance, the chant went up (and as far as I could tell, it really was spontaneous) "No Mas BUSH!!!"

I needed to see him, and as jaded an old politico as I am, I cannot, for the life of me, tell you why this year I needed to go out and participate in the young man's game. But I did. And I ran into a bunch of the old gang there, too.

Is there some subliminal Kennedy allure? Is Kerry our last, best hope? He was a good speaker. He showed fire, and humor, and passion. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's the feeling that this man does hold our country dear. Holds its ideals dear. And is passionate about the theory of America, about its promise, not just the rewards for those who hold the vested interest.

Despite my jaundiced heart, I believed John Kerry last night. Even though he had my vote, and my yard sign, and my permanently attached campaign button, and my endless prostletizing, I needed, at some deep level, to see him and have my faith confirmed.

It worked.

On the sidewalk, as Star and I walked in to Bayfront Park, I saw a playing card lying face down. There was just the single card, and never one to let a sleeping omen lie, I picked it up and turned it over.

It was the King of Hearts.

I ran into a friend of mine in the cafeteria at work. She was wearing a Bush'04 button. I said (only half joking) that I didn't know if we could still be friends, what with that Bush thing...

And this woman, this sweet, Sunday school-teaching woman, looked at me and sneered, "What, you'd want Kerry in charge of anything?"

Uh, yeah. I would. Absolutely. And she, that sweet, dear thing, replied "What? His four months in Viet Nam, and his three Purple Ouchies make him qualified?"
Really. That's a quote. His three Purple Ouchies... I know I snapped something back at her, allowing as how Kerry, at least, could talk without Dick Cheney's hand up his ass, moving his mouth. And I tried to give the quick list of things he'd done, like going after Reagan and Bush the First in the Iran-Contra scandal. And she just laughed at me and told me Kerry had no clue about anything. (Like that brain-dead frat boy she's supporting has a clue...)

And that's when I slapped the crap out of her, and left her lime green dress sitting in an empty heap on the chair.

No. In reality (the world that she, the rest of the Bushies and the Man himself do NOT occupy) I smiled sadly, and said, "Really. I'm sorry, but I don't think we can be friends anymore."

I am so afraid for my country.

Do I go see Kerry and the Boss and the Divine Miss M tonight after work? Or do I finish up my flamingo costume. After all, I've voted. I've seen Miss M and the Boss in full performances. But I want to see Kerry live on the stump. I want to feel the electricty of the mob, and be persuaded that we really can win it all on Tuesday.