Como Poll

Is he dead yet? The Perry Como poll results are in. Most poll respondents voted "no" or "undecided." Poor Perry. His loss didn't leave much of an impression. He's been dead since May 2001, and hardly anyone has missed him. Thanks for taking the "Is he dead yet?" poll. It matters.

Bad Cop, Bad Cop

A measure to enact the recommendations of the September 11 commission to overhaul U.S. intelligence agencies is stalled in Congress, thanks to the efforts of Wisconsin Rep. James Sensenbrenner and California Rep. Duncan Hunter. As with the Assault Weapons Ban that the Republicans allowed to expire earlier this year, the President and VP claim they have no control over the Republican leadership and would sign these measures if they reached the White House. Is anyone really fooled by this game? And, will anyone remember waterboys Sensenbrenner and Hunter and the complicit White House leadership after the next terrorist attack on US soil?

My Fight

For everyone who dismissively sniffed "easy for you to say," at my "Pick A Fight" entry (knowing I was spending the holiday with only like-minded friends) I'm here to report that when the moment, the issue, the gauntlet was thrown down on the dining room table, I DID NOT BACK DOWN. The issue: Which of the sexes are more easily swayed by fashion, style and marketing into making purchases of new items? Specifically, shoes for women and racing skis for men. Is one sex more resistant to marketing than the other? After two helpings of everything on the table and two glasses of champagne, it wasn't much of an argument on either side. But, hell, a strong defense of women's shoes is always a worthwhile fight and, dammit, I earned at least one more glass of champagne for the effort. More money for abstinence programs - $30 million more - was included in a Congressional spending bill last weekend. Meanwhile, a study on the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education has been delayed until 2006. The Bush administration's response? "We don't need a study . . .," said Wade Horn, assistant secretary of Health and Human Services. Well, Mr. Horn, perhaps you do need a study, especially in view of statistics released by your own Health and Human Services department. Statistics such as : The United States has the highest teenage pregnancy rate of all developed countries, AND about 1 million teenagers become pregnant each year; 95% of those pregnancies are unintended.

Shake A Tail Feather & Trot Your Turkey to the Table

Perry Como: Is he dead?
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	No
	Undecided
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What's On Your Table, Pilgrim?

I may be an ambivalent Pilgrim during this period of reintroduction to life in the USA, but I do love the Thanksgiving holiday. JJ will fire up the family heirloom "Cook'N Kettle" barbeque rig and smoke a fine bird for our table. I'm in charge of the cranberry confit, baby carrots in glazed tarragon sauce and my sister-in-law's famous recipe for cornbread stuffing. And for dessert? Cherry pie, of course. Hmmm . . . cranberries, cornbread, carrrots, cherries Why does all our food start with a "c" I wonder? So, what's cooking in your corner of the New World settlement?

Give a Gal a Screwdriver

Some days it's the little things . . .

Like a dresser - with drawers that glide and don't stick, and large enough to hold all my stuff.

This baby came in two, 123 lb. boxes from IKEA with a 46-step assembly instruction booklet. It took three hours to assemble and another hour to empty and move the old dresser. Voila! No more sweater boxes stacked to the ceiling.

The assembly instructions contained not a word - line drawings only.

Huh, words . . . Who needs 'em?

Pick a Fight

Go on. You know you want to. You've been good all these years, ignoring Uncle Leo's snide asides about how the unions are ruining the nation's economy, how teachers are overpaid for working only nine months a year - how he wishes HE had it so damn easy. You've put up with your buffoon, big mouth brother-in-law whose political sophistication goes about as deep as the yellow ribbon magnet on his car. Take off the gloves and pick a real bone this Thanksgiving - sans alcohol, sans fists and certainly without flinging handfuls of cranberry relish. (There's no reason a family dinner has to degenerate to the level of the NBA) Let 'em know exactly where you stand. You'll feel so much better.

Hysterically Correct

I am compelled to continue my posting about the Mayflower Compact today since, at barely 9 a.m., I have already read two articles in which the Pilgrims were lauded for crafting a document responsible for the foundation of American democracy. It is good to recall the Pilgrims' search for freedom to practice their religious beliefs, especially in these times of right wing intolerance for any belief system other than Christian evangelical fundamentalism. But, please, remove the soft focus lens for a minute and view them as they were - products of their time and culture. The Mayflower Compact was drafted in a desperate moment by desperate men. Women, of course, did not sign the Compact. They had no legal rights in the New World and wouldn't for another three centuries. Two of the indentured servants were forced to sign the document to make it appear more legitimate. Immediately afterwards, a party of men disembarked from the Mayflower and set out to find food and firewood. They came upon a clearly identifiable burial ground of the native population and promptly pillaged and destroyed the sacred site and made off with stores of grain that the Indians needed for their own winter survival. That the Pilgrims survived at all that first winter is due more to pure luck and the peaceful nature of the local natives, and less to their own intelligence or ingenuity or democratic vision than most people imagine. Personally? I think there is more to be learned from the behavior of the non-Christian American natives that winter of 1620-21, and I'll be raising a glass to them on Thursday.

Saints and Strangers

At the approach of the Thanksgiving holiday each year, I like to pick up and browse one of the most definitive and thorough books on the subject of the Pilgrims ever written - "Saints and Strangers," by George F. Willison. Did you know, for instance, that the Mayflower Compact was crafted by the Pilgrim leaders to control the threat of mutiny on board the ship by their indentured servants? Makes the Compact look like a rather slippery cornerstone of American democracy (which it clearly was not), although it was an important document for establishing the right to self rule. Today's resistance award goes to Senator John Kerry for his call to resist the Bush administration's notion that "we the people" have given this group of thugs any sort of mandate.

I don't play nice

At yesterday's dedication of the Clinton Presidential Center, everyone played nice and called for national unity. Clinton himself asked rhetorically, "Am I the only person in the entire United States of America who likes both George W. Bush and John Kerry, who believes they're both good people, who believes they both love our country and they just see the world differently?" Well, maybe. I happen to hold that a good person does not send soldiers to die in an unnecessary war, nor does a good person sell the tactic of war with lies and deception. Are the Iraqis better off now than before the US-led invasion? Ask the family of Margaret Hassan, then explain to me the difference between a brutal dictator and the tactics of religious fundamentalist terrorists like those now operating freely in Iraq. Oh, and what do you think of the new ThreadingWater?