It’s hard for me to ackowledge the fact but I support Republican efforts to stop ridiculous lawsuits which try and hold the gun industry responsible for gun deaths.

It’s a mark of how far people in this country will go to avoid responsibility for personal decisions when lawsuits like those against the fast food industry and gun manufacturers are actually being seriously considered by the courts. And Democrats aren’t doing themselves or us any favors by lining up to oppose attempts by Congress to grant immunity to either gun manufacturers or fast food chains, because the vast majority (80% in the last poll I saw) of voters oppose attempts by trial lawyers to hold either of these two groups responsible for their consumer’s misdeeds.

Yes, there are some things on which I agree with the Republicans, and stopping inane, spurious lawsuits like these is one area I think they’re miles ahead of the Democrats on. The “lawsuits are good for America” crowd is dead wrong and so are the Democrats for backing their claims.

I saw a great documentary last night on the sad state of Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe. It detailed the fate of Zimbabwean border jumpers who live and work illegally in neighboring Botswana.

The release of this documentary came at the same time as the release of a report by the UN Secretary General’s special represententative to Zimbabwe on the Mugabe government’s “Operation Restore Order.” This program has resulted in the destruction of homes for Zimbabwe’s urban poor and the deliberate creation of a homeless population of over 700,000.

Below are some quotes from the UN report:

On 19 May 2005, with little or no warning, the Government of Zimbabwe embarked on an operation to “clean-up” its cities. It was a “crash” operation known as “Operation Murambatsvina”, referred to as Operation Restore Order. It started in the Zimbabwe capital, Harare, and rapidly evolved into a nationwide demolition and eviction campaign carried out by the police and the army. Popularly referred to as “Operation Tsunami” because of its speed and ferocity it resulted in the destruction of homes, business premises and vending sites. It is estimated that some 700,000 people in cities across the country have lost either their homes, their source of livelihood or both. Indirectly, a further 2.4 million people have been affected in varying degrees. Hundreds of thousands of women, men and children were made homeless, without access to food, water and sanitation, or health care. Education for thousands of school age children has been disrupted. Many of the sick, including those with HIV and AIDS, no longer have access to care. The vast majority of those directly and indirectly affected are the poor and disadvantaged segments of the population. They are, today, deeper in poverty, deprivation and destitution, and have been rendered more vulnerable.

The saddest thing (well not THE saddest thing, because there is so much sadness involved in this whole issue) is the deliberate and willful ignorance of this problem by other African nations, including South Africa, where Mugabe went this week to beg for more aid. At the same time the African Union is demanding two permanent, veto-bearing seats on the UN Security Council while they’re again tolerating massive human rights abuses by a leader within their midst.

African leaders read from the same script. They have one hand out, begging for more money while the other hides their abuses and those of their neighbors. Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of Africa, is in danger of collapsing and becoming a failed state like Sudan, Liberia or Sierra Leone. Yet in today’s vote in the Security Council on examining this issue all the African states voted against, stating that this was an “internal” matter for Zimbabwe. Guess what, the genocide in Rwanda was an “internal” matter as well and that turned into a regional conflict which so far has resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000,000 people.

I used to have an open mind towards an African seat on the Security Council but now I’m totally opposed. Until African states can look beyond their own leader’s selfish needs and focus on Africa’s problems then they’ll get no permanent seat on the Security Council. The African Union is just a nicer name for the old, loathsome and corrupt Organization of African Unity, but instead of them refusing to condemn Idi Amin this time they’re refusing to condemn Mugabe.

I hate non-native species like eucalyptus trees. Non-native plants threaten biodiversity and habitat quality by crowding out native plants and encouraging other non-native plants, animals and diseases. They’re also an extreme fire danger and they obscure views. Like, for example, the view at my house.

Today the arborist showed up and cut down 5, 40′ eucalyptus trees in our backyard. I was so happy to see them go. Now maybe some native plants and animals can return without dealing with the eucalyptus’s poison resin.

The trees cut down are the tall pointy ones in the middle of the picture.

I’ve always loved HBO’s Six Feet Under. It’s dark, gritty and yet always filled with the faint possibility of redemption. No matter how bad things get for the characters on this show, and they have gotten bad, the writers make sure to always dangle the possibility of hope in front of you. Damnation and redemption, a theme that everyone can relate to.

Which is why I’m disappointed with this final season. Nate, one of my favorite characters and a stickler for an ex-boyfriend of mine, has turned into a completely unsympathetic and narcissistic asshole. Which is funny because my ex also turned into a completely unsympathetic and narcissistic asshole, but I digress.

This season Nate, who previously always ended up doing the right and good thing, has become a monster. In this last episode he fucks his mother’s husband’s daughter while his pregnant wife waits in church for him. How disgusting is that? Then he ends up having a seizure and falls to the ground with his eyes open and staring. Actually I’m hoping he’s dead because watching him self-destruct has become insufferable.

Then there’s his mother Ruth. She’s always been an annoying character, self-pitying and weak but in this season she’s also become vengeful, hateful and self-pitying to a degree that turns my stomach. She devised a nefarious plan to get her crazy husband out of the house and then when he tells her he wants a divorce so he can remarry she looks up his fiance’ and sabatoges their engagement!

Keith and David have become the gay couple that wants to have kids in order to “make everything better.” David’s fascination with black people led him to try and foster-parent two disturbed ghetto kids who alternatively steal his boyfriend’s SUV and pull a knife on them at dinner.

Ugh. Watching this show, which although nominally about death has always had more hope in it than the rest of TV combined, has become a trying experience. Watching people you feel you’ve come to know hit bottom is never easy, but worse is watching a show you’ve come to love self-destruct.

It was 100 degrees this weekend, which we spent buying school clothes for Cheyenne and then going to Six Flags Marine Park, which was a mistake on my part.

Amusements parks, by their very nature, are disgusting. Full of slovenly, lower-class people who’s whole goal in life is a $5.99 buffet and a reduced-price admission, amusement parks are a theater of the grotesque. None more so than Six Flags, which I stupidly allowed myself to be talked into attending by my little niece.

The experience was made that much worse due to the extreme heat and the proximity of the nearby Solono County Fair. Many denizens of this area decided to “two for one” it and attend both stellar attractions. As you can imagine the influx of amusement-bargain seekers combined with 100+ degree heat produced a swill of humanity, the likes of which I have rarely had the displeasure with which to mingle.

Here are some of the highlights:

1. The 12 year old girl and her pimply 15 year old boyfriend who french-kissed and rubbed each other’s crotches, for an hour, while standing in line in front of me for the water ride.
2. The toothless ex-con, drunk on amusement park beer, who drunkenly drove the bumper car around the rink while screaming profanities at the top of his lungs, requiring the ride operator to stop the ride and implore him to tone down his language, which he ignored.
3. The women with 8 kids, some of them as young as 2, who after being told that some of her children were too young to sit on the ride of the line in which she had been waiting, promptly stated that her “ass” had been waiting for an hour and if the kids were too little to be on the ride no “muthafucka” told her that and the ride operator could watch them while she sat on the ride.

At 7:00 I was fed-up with it and we left. As I walked past the 300-pound women in tube tops and screeching, sticky-faced kids I vowed I would never return. Amusement parks are not a place where I ever, EVER want to go again.

Here are a list of things I have to give up since I’m not working, not necessarily in order of preference:

1. Having daily meals delivered by a fabulous chef.
2. Personal Trainer.
3. Weekly shopping at Gucci.
4. Having a car and driver when I go out at night.
5. My American Express card (my boyfriend will no doubt be particularly pleased at this)

I’m sure more will come to me as I enter “The After Times” which is my description for the upcoming stage in my life. There’s “The Before Times” which are before I met Glenn and was in grad school at UW. The “During Times” are those during my present time working, and now we’re enttering the “After Times” which I feel are going to herald a whole new series of good & fun times.

I just bought my ticket to Paris, where I’ll be accompanying my boyfriend the first week of November to some medical conference.

I’m not sure if I’ll spend the whole time in Paris. Maybe I’ll pop over
to Switzerland for a day or two of skiing, or jump over to London for a
night of clubbing. After all, the Eurostar gets you there very quickly,
I could party overnite in London and be back in my bed in Paris the
next day!

Not working is fun. Too bad I’ll soon be in school and it’ll have to end

…is the sincerest form of flattery.

There’s a hilarious new trend going on today in the world of gay
blogging. Someone is parodying several bloggers, running blogs with
their same titles except for a letter or word difference.

The first example is e-Brechi.
A nice enough guy who lives in DC and blogs about his daily experiences
and thoughts, just like the rest of us do. He’s being hounded by a
hilarious parody called e-Brochi.
Whomever is writing this parody is taking a lot of time to do so. If
only they could channel that time into something more constructive,
like a screenwriting career.

Then there’s I Probably Hate You. Always controversial yet always fun to read Rocco is being parodied by I Probably Outweigh You. Rocco claims it’s really his blog which he’s running as a sideline to confuse people. Somehow I doubt it.

I welcome this trend and wish someone would spend the time to parody
me. Which they probably won’t because my blog is so unique and cool
that 99.9% of people can barely comprehend it, much less put themselves in my shoes to write it.
I also use a unique format which can’t really be replicated, unlike the
other cheap bloggers who use corporate-controlled sites like Blogger.

If some sort of random act of political violence happens to you, then you’re to blame. Not the terrorists or their leaders, but you.

I like this new way of thinking, which seems to have become more widespread in the aftermath of the bombings in London. Its underlying hypothesis is that which supposes that the West is to blame for all the ills of the rest of the world, and further underlying that way of thinking is the unstated fact that Africans and Arabs are basically stupid children. They’re not responsible for their actions and have been unduly influenced by a wicked, terrible and corrupt West, and of course, the Jews.

The most common justification for this misguided way of thinking is Islamic terrorism. After every terrorist attack the process goes like this:

1. They must hate us because of something we did (It can’t be because their religion has desensitized them to human suffering, or their cultures have stagnated and not grown since 1400).
2. Blame Israel (The Jews are always at fault for something).
3. Blame the United States (It’s basically controlled by the Jews, or vice-versa, who knows, but it’s always the Jews or the Americans.)
4. Blame the West (The world was so much better off when ruled by the Ottoman sultans, liberal democracy is bad and wrong).
5. Poverty made them do it, which has been caused by the West, or the United States, or of course, the Jews (It can’t be because these nations are ruled by homocidal, kleptocratic leaders who murder and torture their people and are filled with a populace too stupid or lazy to rebel)

This philosophy is wonderful because I can use it to justify political violence against random Muslims and Arabs!

1. Arabs are a stupid and lazy people who refuse to condem terrorism and murder and deserve what is happening to them in Iraq.
2. Palestinians are worse. What a bunch of idiots! Too bad they didn’t take the UN offer for a separate state in 1948. Why does Israel owe them anything? After all, Jordan is really a Palestinian homeland.
3. Muslims live like it’s 1400 AD and refuse to accept the supremacy of the West’s ideas. When Israel launches air strikes that kill Muslims they should blame themselves. Stop antagonizing the Jews!
4. Civilian casualties in Iraq are justified by the Arab refusal to accept the righteousness of American rule in Iraq. If they learned to accept it then we would stop killing them!

See, it’s not so nice when the shoe is on the other foot now is it?

How exciting it is to know that I’m leaving work soon. I feel FREE, thank G-D almighty FREE, at last!

I can say whatever I want in a meeting and not worry about the
consequences. I can also take and leave assignments as I want and no
one can do anything about it. Because if I do get fired then my company
has to pay me through the date I’ve already submitted as my final day!
It’s brilliant, people should do this more often.