... that I recommend.  I have been skimming headlines and articles about the increasing concern about our move to paper-less voting and the computer-gurus who are warning that the electronic/computer voting systems are vulnerable to manipulation.  And I have felt a bit helpless and confused.  Basically frozen in the deer-in-the-headlights "no friggin way is that a mack truck comin' at me" way that the news increasingly engenders in me.  So when I saw this at Seeing the Forest I was momentarily thawed into action.  It's a petition to Jimmy Carter basically asking him to use his moral stature and public standing to call for installing voting systems with a paper trail so that they can be verified independently of the technology.  To be frank, I wish the petition's rhetoric was a bit more restrained and less obviously written from a left-wing point of view.  Surely we can credit the majority of ordinary folk on the other side of the aisle as equally vested in an uncorrupted democracy.  But at least signing the petition was a start in my getting over my overwhelm on this issue.  I signed.  I feel a teensy bit better.

9:54:55 PM    

Kimberly at Brief Intelligence is pissed off because the NYT is not covering US casualties in Iraq with the same attention that it is covering Israeli victims of terrorism.  Even as a Zionist and a Jew, who can be [over]sensitive to rhetoric that even has a trace whiff of antisemitism, I have to admit, she certainly has a point.  It's very, very wierd that on a day that saw five US soldiers dead and five wounded in Iraq, all the NYT has to say [and all I heard on NPR news this afternoon and evening] is about the two Israelis killed in suicide attacks.  It just spooks me a little -- like what else are we not hearing?  I mean it just seems that, holy crap, our nation is at war and shouldn't the lead headline at the top of every newshour be the accounting of our casualties?  Criminy! It's our neighbor's children and husbands and wives and brothers and sisters who are over there.   Between the war that's "over" and Bilmon's spot-on and spooky juxtapositions at the Whiskey Bar, and the "Tax Relief for American Families" tagline printed on our $400 check from the IRS, and the Republicans co-option of 9/11... I am starting to think there is a vast right-wing conspiracy.

9:30:04 PM    

I'll be honest, when years ago I heard the name Al Franken mentioned in the context of serious political commentary I rolled my eyes.  Al Franken?  Al Franken of Saturday Night Live? Al Franken/Stuart Smalley? That Al Franken?  And then I didn't give it another thought.  Until a couple of weeks ago when someone in blogland posted a link to the video of Al Franken, Molly Ivens and Bill O'Reilly plugging their new books on the same edition of C-Span's Book Notes .  And I watched.  And Franken blew me away.  He was just pull-no-punches brutal, in your face, real with O'Reilly.  

So I am proud to show my solidarity with someone who refuses to play by the rules and continues to confront the forces of evil on their own ground.   Count my blog in as "Fair and Balanced"  too ... And, hey Fox News, [look away Gramma and Dad] go ... jump in a lake. [ok, ok I chickened out.]  Thanks to Bohemian Mama for the heads up.

7:29:55 PM    

So, up very late last night and right before tucking myself into bed, I checked my blog roll for any last minute posts.   Venemous Kate  had just posted a request for volunteers to play the interview-5 game and I just happened to be the first commenter to take her up on it. [I was a little nervous in that stupid "new girl entering the high school lunch room for the first time" way that VK would think, "Gawd... wtf does she think she's doing taking a seat at our table?]

Anyway the gracious Kate accepted my offer to play ... and oh, maude, I was relieved when I saw her questions for me!  The serpent sylph has an evil side, you know, so I was a touch nervous all day at what she might cook up for me.  But she was very kind ... Here goes:

1. Which is better: side-by-side, or over-unders. (I'm talking refrigerators, damn it.)  Given that my nearly 80 year old Gramma reads my blog, I am relieved.  When TBG [the big guy] and I decided to replace our fridge a couple of years back I was determined to get an over-under.  We have stand-alone deep freeze downstairs so I thought having all the big fridge space at top would be most convenient.  But, TBG pointed out that you can't get water and ice in the door that way.  I sneered. So, open the damn freezer for your ice and get the water out of the tap.  Then I gave in.  And he was right.  Being able to press a button and get crushed ice to pour an ice cold coke over is heavenly and I appreciate it at least once a day.

2. What is the second best thing since sliced bread? Frankly, I am pretty underwhelmed by pre-sliced bread... Keeping with the culinary theme, I will say ... this nifty thing. The apple cutter-thingy has really come in handy 'cause TLG [the little guy] has been an apple-fiend since he had enough teeth to take a bite of one.  And, if you don't cut an apple for a little person, they tend to take one layer off the whole thing [kind of like eating the kernels off an ear of corn on the cob] and then consider it "done" and want another apple.  And for some reason that I don't understand, I cannot bite or chew or even cut an apple with a knife without getting the kinds of squingy shivers up and down my back that I get when someone squeaks against a chalkboard.  So having this little contraption allows me to just give the apple a good whack and voila, it's ready for snackin' for TLG.

3. What do you think of when you hear "Where's the beef?"  Well, I may be dating myself here, but I still see that cranky little raisin of a woman who starred in the Wendy's commercials.

4. Be honest: have you ever tried to see how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop and, if so, how many did it take you?  Those are commercials I remember as well -- and from farther back than the Wendy's ones.  They were on during the Saturday morning cartoons.  That stuffy rather erudite-looking cartoon owl trying to be very methodical in his experiment and then succumbing at the last second with a big CHOMP.  I vaguely remember trying to count at some point and always getting bored and saying the hell with it and chomping away.  Honestly the tootsie center tasted better when you ate it while it was still coated with a quarter inch or so of orange lolly pop, anyway.

5. Imagine you're on death row. You get one final meal, anything goes. What would it be? MMMMM, food porn... Okay I would start with cold leek and potato cream soup with a glass of white wine.  Then I would want an enormous platter of crushed ice, covered with a mound of cold large steamed peeled shrimp, 3 dozen cherry-stone clams on the halfshell and spicy cocktail sauce.  That should be served with an ice cold beer.  After that, an 8 oz sirloin steak - medium rare with a baked potato [butter and sour cream on the side] with an excellent cabernet.  Then a bowl of sashimi - tuna and salmon and mackeral and yellow-fin.  And then a whopping slice of coconut cream pie made with real coconut and not too sweet. Finally, I want 6 xanax and another bottle of wine.  If I gotta go, I want to go mellow and happy...

So that's my five.  Now here are the rules if you wanna play:

• If you want to participate, leave a comment here saying "interview me." [Well, Haloscan is still on the fritz so if the comments aren't working, send me an e-mail at ibyx35 {at} yahoo {dot} com.]
• I will respond by asking you five questions (not the same as you see here).
• You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
• You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
• When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Got it? 

6:51:33 PM