Mis-ka-layneeus musings

[shalanna]

Mars sightings . . . everywhere but here. We've had serious cloud cover for the past couple of evenings (and days have been humid and polluted, with the high "ceiling" pushing that smog and exhaust down on us--cough, cough). Sigh!

The other night, I taped The Alan Brady Show, the cartoon that's being done by Carl Reiner, Dick Van Dyke, and other heroes of mine. (I adore the original DvD show, forever in reruns.)

Well, whoever thought up the animated thing should be taken out and dipped in the get-a-clue pool.

Because it's completely clownshoes. Eew! Take MY name off of that mess! Lose the master tapes!

Enough said. Awkward moment. Ack!

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Hey, now that conservatives and the gun lobby are getting on board to fight the unconstitutional and crazy aspects of the so-called "Patriot Act," we may have a chance. You can't do the kind of search-and-seizure they've been pulling--that's unconstitutional! Has anybody read the constitution lately??!! Magnetic fields surround the Founding Fathers, yo.* Please, people. Don't let them get a record of the books you check out, books you buy, videos you check out, and that kind of stuff. It's like that's how the Gestapo started out, man.

* (Because they're spinning in their graves, for those who never took physics and thus wouldn't know the right-hand rule for a magnetic field that comes into being around a flowing current*)

** (That's a metaphor . . . not to be taken literally)

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Ooo--you know that Proposition 13 that the doctors want you to vote YES on here in Texas? Well, it may seem like a worthy idea to help out doctors who have to pay such exorbitant malpractice insurance premiums, but wait. The wording on that one in its current form sets a terrible precedent and basically will allow the legislative branch to overturn decisions by the judiciary--which violates checks and balances.
Remember from Civics class how checks and balances keep one branch of gov't from getting too powerful? Well, in this case, this particular prop with its wording the way it is will start allowing the lege (which is now Republican-controlled, and that's probably why this is happening--how long has it been since they read their own Republican platform about how gov't should stay small and not involve itself in EVERYTHING, and how personal freedoms are paramount? Read the thing, people, if
you're going to run on the ticket!) to deny decisions made by juries and judges, which ain't right. There's a system in place that has worked for two hundred years, checks and balances, and we don't want to risk losing it or making the Lege run amok. Also, that redistricting thing? It's a thinly veiled attempt to gerrymander districts in order to cut out majority numbers of African Americans or Hispanics and other minority groups in any district. So if they did what they want to do (and they should be ashamed of themselves), they'd make it so there'd be no African American or Hispanic representative from those neighborhoods with high concentrations of, yes, POOR PEOPLE. (Ack! Eek! Don't go to the east side of Plano because the poor people might touch us, yikes!) These elitists actually hate poor people and wish they wouldn't take up space on the planet, unfortunately. Not every one of them (legislators) is like that, but hey, too many are acting that way. Wake up. The Democrats are staying away because they can't stomach this kind of gerrymandering. It's kind of a double bind, because they're continuing to get deeper into the My Side Versus Your Side stuff and playing politics while the issue roils and boils. Hey, people who say "I don't vote 'cause my vote doesn't count?" Well, it sure doesn't if you don't vote, idiots. Get off your ass, learn a bit about the issues and candidates (or at the very least the party platforms, not that every candidate conforms or has even read the thing), and vote.

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Oh -- what was I going to tell you?!?!?! That's what I get for having low blood sugar. My husband has it, too, now that we're both on Atkins Induction and have been for weeks (three for me, two for him). He said when he drives home from work, he doesn't even know where he's going. Good thing the car has that auto-homing device. I'm kind of worried about this. I think we need our oral diabetes meds adjusted. We'll have to call the doctor and get an appointment (which is a pain). He won't go unless I make a big issue of it, though.

Footnote: Turned out he was drinking about 12 diet Cokes a day, which meant he was getting more aspartame than is generally regarded as safe (you get so many grams a day per pound of body weight) . . . as soon as I told him to drink water instead, the nausea "went away." Sheeeeesh!!!! I put him on Diet RC Cola, which is the only remaining diet cola made with Splenda (made from sugar via a process of chlorination and therefore not expected to be toxic long-term, though one never knows). That's what I drink. But only a couple a day! When you're on these oral diabetic meds, you have to avoid dehydration, which is challenging in this "108 Heat Index" heat wave.

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My obsession with getting a book published has become like Ralphie's desire for a Red Ryder BB gun. Only I don't have Darren McGavin to secretly buy one and secrete it behind the desk on Christmas morning. I am asking in prayer (which would seem analogous) for this to happen, but I suppose it isn't happening because I'd shoot my eye out. <sigh>

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My (elderly) mother is becoming positively wicked. "Have you seen the picture of George Bush as Jesus?" I just stared at her, open-mouthed. "Get on the Internet. You've got to see it." This from a woman
who never blasphemed and is still quite devout. "It's going to be on the front cover of a magazine!" She has to be confused, because a major
media mag would never do that. It could have been Nat'l Lampoon, I suppose. Never have seen the pic, though.

Well, anyway, I suppose the Prez does get his identity confused from time to time, and this is his rebuke. It's going to make him really mad when he sees it, though.

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"Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained Angels unawares."

Hebrews 13:1-2

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Disguised as a normal person. . . . (David Steinberg)

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"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a butterfly."-- Richard Bach

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Yo, dieters: it's PLATEAU, not PLATTOW. Also, everyone who never took French, pleeeeease, it's "Voila" with an accent grave on the final A, not "Viola" (a musical instrument) or (aarghh) "Wallah" (and variations thereof), and that one's just plain illiterate and hillbilly--in fact, it is insulting to barefoot hillbillies for me to say that, so we'll just say you MUST STOP. NOW.

Help for "its" and "it's" sufferers is at hand. Simply bear in mind that neither "his," "her," nor "its" have need for apostrophes. If you could plug in "her," then you want "its" to signify a possessive for a gender-free entity. "She has simplified her policies." "The university has simplified its policies." (Of course, in British English, they'd say "their," I think, because they consider groups plural, and the university, to them, would probably qualify as a group, the way a
corporation does.)

 

Now, go look at Mars. I hope you don't have a thick cloud cover, as we do. It's too overcast to see the sky very well. But I've been feeling Mars's [yep, that's correct, says the style manual of today] aggression and influence for a while now. It's probably why everyone's at war and blowing each other up. Even worse than usual. lt;sigh> But it's a pretty sight, they tell me. Those away from urban areas and lightspill should be having a field night!