Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Cold Feet - Empty Bed

I'm a warm person. I typically run warmer than the next. I can go out in short & t-shirt when most people are bundled in fleece. I don't need the heat on most of the time. I usually loung around the house barefoot and according to Jane my feet are usually ice-cold. But I don't notice that they are cold... that is until I get them into bed - brr they are cold then.

One of my favorite things to do when I notice my feet are freezing is try to sneak them under Jane. It never works but I keep trying. Why won't she warm my little tootsies on her warm legs? Well she will under one condition - when I'm sick.

Well I woke up Monday AM with a sore throat. I made it through most of the workday but by the time I got home I was achey, shivering, freezing. I bundled into sweats, turtleneck, fleece pullover, socks and fleece booties. Still cold. Wraped in a blanket... still cold.

So here I am freezing cold, sick, achey and home alone. I need my foot warmer. I need someone to coddle me. Someone to make me soup and rub my back. Damn you, RSNA! Send my Jane home. I need TLC.

Also, I don't like being the one to yell at Timmy to shut up and go to sleep at 11:30, 12:15, 1:10...

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Buried Lede | The KFS Sweater Project

Pick your favorite ugly sweater! Hey, I think I had that one... and that one too!

Monday, November 22, 2004

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

The Animal Rescue Site : Feed an Animal in Need

Click on the above link then add that website to your bookmarks and visit it daily. All you need to do is visit once a day to help save the lives of animals, cure breast cancer, protect the rainforest or feed a hungry person. Do the little things evevery day to make a difference!

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

McMurray Hatchery - Partridge Rock Bantam

My cousin is raising a pretty bird for me since Jane refuses to let me have my urban farm.

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Nicky Hilton ends marriage with New York businessman

Wow I'm shocked. I really thought this one would last. As least longer than Skanky Federline!

Monday, November 08, 2004

True Election 2004 Results (not the depressing electoral map)

There appears to be more "blue" in the middle of the country than is depicted in the electoral map results. This makes me feel a little better.

Friday, November 05, 2004

We Both Like Soup....

Yummy & Easy
Beef, Barley & Vegetable Soup

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 pound beef stew meat
1 pound meaty beef bones (such as beef shank bones)
3 celery stalks, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1/4 cup pearl barley
4 cups water
2 14 1/2-ounce cans beef broth
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes in juice
1 10-ounce package frozen veggie mix (peas, carrots, corn, lima beans, green beans...)
2 small bay leaves
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons hot pepper sauce
Heat oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Add stew meat and bones; sauté until beef is dark brown, about 8 minutes. Transfer beef and bones to plate. Add celery, onion, and barley to pot. Sauté until onion is golden, about 15 minutes. Add 4 cups water, beef broth, tomatoes with juices, veggies, bay leaves, and garlic powder. Return beef and bones to pot and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered until beef is almost tender, about 1 hour.
Add 1 1/2 teaspoons hot pepper sauce to soup. Cover and simmer until beef is tender, about 30 minutes longer. Season with salt, pepper, and more hot pepper sauce, if desired.

Californa's Election Results 2004

It's nice to know I live in a county that overwhelmingly voted for the more moral candidate. And by more moral I do not mean a fundamentalist, war-mongering, greedy, christian.

We barely recognize each other

I think she sums it up pretty well for me.

We barely recognize each other
- Joan Ryan
Thursday, November 4, 2004


Like others in the Bay Area, I was huddled with friends around the television set Tuesday night, my son pressing a blue-donkey or red-elephant sticker on each state as the returns rolled in. As we held out hope for Ohio, one friend related a story that, in retrospect, helped me understand Bush's convincing victory as well as any I have heard.

A young man, my friend said, was walking door to door on her street a few weeks ago to raise money for the Kerry-Edwards ticket. When he knocked on the door of one house, the owner responded to the young man in a huff.

"I'm a Republican!'' she said. "Didn't you see my flag?''

That, in the end, is what it boiled down to.

Somehow, as Bush and his party cut taxes to the rich, sent young Americans to their deaths in a war based on untruths (and managed with stunning incompetence), reneged on its financial commitment to education, and plunged the nation into crushing debt, they became symbols of morality and patriotism. They sold themselves as the party of God and country, offering comfort to people who wouldn't need comforting if the Bush administration had not created the very problems for which it then offered spiritual refuge.

Give them credit. They are like PG&E nabbing the candle concession for a blackout the company caused itself.

It is a confounding time to live in a place like the Bay Area. Watching the returns Tuesday night, and listening to voters across the country, I saw that John Edwards was right about the two Americas. But the two Americas are not divided by money but by belief systems that have drifted so far apart we barely recognize each other anymore.

In exit polls Tuesday, morals topped the list of voter concerns, and an overwhelming majority believed Bush is more moral than Kerry. Thus the resounding victory for the incumbent.

Here in the Bay Area, we, too, place a high priority on values and morality. But clearly, many of us define morality differently from much of America. It is not about church membership. The evidence of morality is in one's actions, not one's Sunday-morning rituals. Morality means more than prayer and more than proclaiming a personal relationship with God.

It is social as well as religious. Is it moral to wage war on a country that did not attack us, and to wage it on false pretenses? Is it moral to stuff more money into the pockets of the wealthy while teachers buy their own crayons and patch their own classroom walls, and while people with mental illness live on the streets and in prison cells for lack of services?

Is it moral to deny two people the joy of committing their lives to one another in marriage? Is it moral to prevent scientists from pursuing cures to devastating diseases because of our leaders' personal religious convictions?

Our country has always included a mix of religious and political beliefs. But we shared a foundation of certain "truths to be self-evident'' that allowed us to meet on common ground. Today, I don't know. Our belief systems - - what is right and wrong, what is patriotic and what is not, what is truth and what is not -- are so different and so dramatically shape how we interpret news and information that we seem no longer to be living within the same culture.

I can't for the life of me, for instance, figure out how anyone could watch those three presidential debates and even entertain the thought that Bush is qualified to lead the free world.

I am puzzled, too, by the reaction to the bin Laden tape. When bin Laden showed up on a video just days before the election, I figured it would remind Americans that Bush had yet to capture the man responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, that he got us sidetracked in Iraq, which had nothing to do with Sept. 11. Instead, the tape seemed to deepen many Americans' belief that ... what? Bush is doing such a good job on terrorism that we should renew his contract?

Some have suggested that the Democratic Party needs to reconnect with middle America and its values, that we should take a page from the Republican playbook and talk more about God and faith. Yes, the Democrats need to revamp their strategy. But I would hate to think we would try to win next time around by emulating politicians who get away with destructive and amoral acts by passing them off as directives from God.

Faith and flags won this election. But I haven't lost my belief in another f-word -- facts. They're bound to come back into fashion sooner or later.

E-mail Joan Ryan at joanryan@sfchronicle.com.

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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/11/04/BAGOK9LGGR1.DTL

Thursday, November 04, 2004

"How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" or 'U.S. election disaster.'"

Pick the headline of your choice. I don't hate the whole of the "red state" that elected that loser. But I question the "morality" of those who did.

What about the morality of homelessness, welfare, equality, human rights, peace on earth. Where's the love?

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

The Onion | Election Day Guide

This one cracks me up (and is particularly true since my dad is a poll worker!): The new electronic voting machines are complicated. But don't worry: Octogenarians will be on hand to troubleshoot any technological problems that might arise.

Federal court clears the way for GOP representatives to challenge voters' eligibility in Ohio

Please please please do not repeat the 2000 election!

Monday, November 01, 2004

Please let today bring regime change at home!

Click above for a link to watch the video of this song...

On January 20th, 2001, George W. Bush, appointed President of the United States formally took office. I had been asked to sing a song that night at the Bazaar Café in San Francisco where Les, the proprietor was producing a counter-event called “The Night of the Burning Bush”. That afternoon, depressed and restless, I couldn’t make myself practice the song I intended to sing, Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War”. Instead, I sat down and turned on the TV. I had honestly forgotten that I would be subjected to live coverage of the inaugural parade. It was a bleak day in Washington, and I remember experiencing an overwhelming feeling of sadness and fear as I watched the Presidential limousine drive down Pennsylvania Avenue. I turned off the TV, sat down at the piano and wrote this song in about 25 minutes. I performed it for the first time that night. Last spring, I wrote an additional verse that addresses the war in Iraq and we recorded the new version of the song for this video.
— Monica Pasqual, Blame Sally

If you tell a lie again and again
It does not become the truth in the end
If your voice is loud and your lies are well heard
Still it does not mean transformation has occurred

Water isn't wine
Brass isn't gold
One day you'll account for all the lies that you told

If you take the forest, if you steal it tree by tree
If you blacken the river if you desecrate the sea
You can wave your arms, you can shout out from on high
But the truth is still the truth and a lie is still a lie

Water isn't wine
Brass isn't gold
One day you'll account for all the priceless things you sold

You can speak of God while you lead your Holy War
As if your hands weren’t stained by the oil you adore
More innocents will die and more soldiers will fall
You name your church for God but it was greed that built those walls

Water isn’t wine
Brass isn’t gold
One day you’ll account for all the lives that you stole

Two faced yes fool
Pin striped suit ghoul

You can make a promise and some people might believe
That you are not beholden to the power, to the greed
But if they should fall ill, or their schools should fall down
Should they fall on hard times well I doubt you'll be around

Water isn't wine, brass isn't gold
And it's wrong that we should pay for that crown that you stole
Water isn't wine, brass isn't gold
One day you'll account for all the lies that you told

Bush flipping the bird

he gives us so much to be proud of!