Well, if I can’t post with any real regularity, then I can at least try to make the ones I get to JUICY.
I think it’s time for another actual RANT. Some Sam-patented heck-raising. Are you ready?
Wait, I have to get what Stewart calls my “Clint-Eastwood-don’t-!@#$-with-me” face* on…
There. Now…
Of course, with the world situation heating up, I can’t have an Official RANT without some news and opinions regarding the Evil Clowns that are currently running our country. How ‘bout THIS lovely headline:
“Bush Acknowledges Iraq 'Miscalculation'
(complete article linked in title)WASHINGTON - President Bush said for the first time on Thursday he made a "miscalculation of what the conditions would be" after U.S. troops went to Iraq, The New York Times reported. The insurgency, he maintained, was the unintended result of a "swift victory" that led to Iraqi troops disappearing into the cities and mounting a rebellion……Public opinion initially favored Bush's decision to go to war but, after months of casualties and chaos, the public is evenly divided on the subject now.In a separate interview with USA Today, Bush said Thursday that he believes he made the right decision to invade Iraq and thinks voters will not deny him a second term even if they disagree with the war.

[you can bet your bottom dollar, along with all of your friends’ and families’ bottom dollars too, that THIS voter will do her very best to deny him a second term, and precisely BECAUSE of her disagreement with the war.]

With the number of U.S. casualties expected to reach 1,000 well before the election, Bush said, "The president has to make hard decisions. My job is to confront problems not pass them on. And the American people have seen me make the hardest of decisions. That's just going to have to be a part of their decision-making process."In the USA Today interview, Bush was asked why he is staying in politics."There's a lot of my friends who come and bass-fish with me. They don't say it out loud, I know they're thinking it: Why?" Bush said. "And the answer is because the stakes are high. Because there is more work to be done to make the world a freer and more peaceful place**.”

[More work like the work he’s already done? Lovely. And this s.o.b. is !@#$ bass-fishing while our soldiers are being fired on in the desert. In my opinion, the collective Christian vision of Hell is not big enough to contain this man’s administration and their wrongdoing.]

“It is essential that America lead in the 21st century in order to defeat the ideologues who use terror as a weapon, in order to secure the homeland, but also in order to spread liberty.”…

['DEFEAT IDEOLOGUES WHO USE TERROR AS A WEAPON'?!?! Does that include OUR government?! 'Spread LIBERTY'?!?! Is THAT what we’ve decided to call it? This literally makes me sick.]

…On other points, Bush said:”_The campaign for the White House "really doesn't seem that ugly to me" despite the furor over political ads by outside groups attacking Kerry's war record.

[WHAT?!?!]

_The most disappointing thing about his four years in office has been his inability to change the "harsh environment" in Washington.”

[…and hopefully THAT will change when we get him OUT of there in November.]
-end

So, here is our fearful leader referring to our military men and women dying by the hundreds (and soon to be thousands, along with the thousands of civilians) as a “miscalculation”. How can anyone, with any conscience vote for this administration again? Well, technically I suppose we didn’t vote for him the first time. If he wins this time, I feel that this will be the official death of democracy in this country.
The latest nausea-inducing factors, the ipecac of the world situation, as it were, are the ridiculous ploys for the liberal vote. As soon as I heard of Cheney’s big “gay rights confession” I immediately thought “shameless ploy!” – not “Oh how wonderful! They’re actually human after all!” – which is, I am sure, what they are shooting for. And it’s all just going to get nastier and nastier, and more and more people will die in the meanwhile. Sometimes I feel that the only hope our soldiers have is that Dumbya will get so desperate near election time that he will bring them home.
Pray, hope, and VOTE!In COMPLETELY unrelated news (yeah, right), here’s a little medical report that I found VERY interesting:
Revenge Is Indeed Sweet, Study Finds
(complete article linked in title)Dirty Harry had it right: Brain scans show revenge really might make your day. Planning revenge sparks enough satisfaction to motivate getting even — and the amount of satisfaction actually predicts who will go to greater lengths to do so, report Swiss researchers who monitored people's brain activity during an elaborate game of double-cross [see complete article – link in title – for details]…
…The new study chips "yet another sliver from the rational model of economic man," said Stanford University psychologist Brian Knutson, who reviewed the Swiss research. "Instead of cold, calculated reason, it is passion that may plant the seeds of revenge," he said. …The PET scans showed a brain region known to be important for enjoyment and satisfaction — the dorsal striatum — became active in those players who decided to retaliate. It wasn't an afterglow from revenge, but satisfaction from anticipating it.When the retaliation cost them money, a second brain region that helps weigh costs and benefits got involved, too, but the striatum remained key. The level of activity actually predicted which players would spend more money to get revenge."Their behavior does not reflect blind revenge that follows from overwhelming emotions," cautioned study co-author Ernst Fehr, director of the University of Zurich's economic research institute. "They reduce punishment if it is costly for them in the same way as they reduce buying goods if the goods become more expensive."Moreover, that same satisfaction-causing brain circuitry seems to be involved in the evolution of human cooperation, providing incentive to get along with strangers in setting social norms, the researchers write in Science. Punishing violators of those norms even if you personally don't stand to gain may be the flip side.The study involved only men, and more work is needed to see if women and people of varying social and income groups react similarly, Stanford's Knutson said.But the research is important as scientists try to dissect how emotion interacts with analytical decision-making, he stressed."For a long time, sociologists and economists have not paid a lot of attention to people's feelings, especially before an event," Knutson explained. "It's almost like your mind imagines the outcome before it happens. That's a lot of what motivates behavior."
-end

In personal news, I am also dealing with a terrorist situation. I am extremely allergic to most perfumes, all hairsprays, and indeed most mainstream cosmetic and cleaning chemicals, especially those fragrant ones. I get the full anaphylactic monty, the closed throat, tight lungs, sneezing, watery eyes, runny nose, and general malaise. They also kick the fibromyalgia pain up a notch, and - the cherry on the sundae – bring on migraines. Whee. I work in a very public place, and so I have to face the occasional Clinique Commando, those women who come in with the whole !@#$ perfume counter sprayed on. Generally they just breeze in and breeze out and usually an ephedrine tab and a few minutes outside can set me fairly straight, though I always feel like crap for the rest of the day after I’ve been ‘attacked’. I have one visitor however whose personal assault array of chemicals (hairspray, body lotion, hand cream, perfume, body spray, butt spray, flea spray (hell if I know, this woman is FRAGRANT) clear-coat, etc. is SO particularly vile and noxious and overwhelming that I not only can’t be in the same room with her, but I can’t come into a room she has been in – even briefly – until several hours after she’s left without getting very sick. I’m not the only one either. When she goes downstairs to use the lab, people surge upstairs like rats leaving a stinking ship. The brave few who remain at their computers down there sound like a cholera ward on the intercom – it’s ugly.
I finally had to mention it to her. My reaction to her chemical blend and it’s lasting potency is so strong that I am afraid that I am going to have to start wearing a mask and get a prescription to keep steroid shots on hand. I was as gentle as I could be when I brought it up, of course. I was embarrassed for myself and for her, but it couldn’t be helped.
Do you know what she said?
“Well, yeah, my kids and I are allergic to it too, but I don’t care.”
…
WHAT?!?! Maybe we should ship HER to Iraq. Or better yet, the White House. Oh wait, Dumbya’s never there, he’s !@#$ BASS-FISHING. *sheesh *.
I honestly believe that she has been trying harder since then to make it worse, and what can I do? Hosing her down as she tries to walk in the door is a favorite fantasy… or just pulling out the fire extinguisher and giving her a taste of her own medicine… RAAR!

And, last but not least, what would a good, healthy, red-blooded, all-american, end-of-summer Sam-rant be without griping about the inevitable onset of winter. *sigh *
I will spare you TOO much rantage today, though, because I am starting so early, I know y’all will be reaaaalllly sick of it by next spring. SO I’ll just leave you with two lovely poems reflecting my feelings on the subject, by my favorite poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins:


Spring and Fall

To a young child

Márgarét, áre you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow's spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

***

‘In the last few years of his life, Hopkins sank into a bleak depression from which he was never to recover. "I began to enter on that course of loathing and hopelessness which I have so often felt before, which made me fear madness ... All my undertakings miscarry: I am like a straining eunuch."

My own heart let me more have pity on; let
Me live to my own sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst's all-in-all in all a world of wet.
Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise
You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile
's not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather -- as skies
Betweenpie mountains -- lights a lovely mile.

Hopkins died in Dublin in 1889, aged 44. The first collection of his poetry was published in 1918***.

-Poor Gerard. He probably hated winter too.

Oh, and one more interesting note. I was driving down the hill o’ death in Chris’ car the other day when my neighbor’s sweet little Shetland pony, Sonny (family member of Delilah the Goat), CHASED THE CAR. (Have I mentioned that Delilah and Sonny have about 5 dog-siblings and that Delilah thinks she’s a dog?)As I drove by, Sonny got a wild look in his eye and suddenly took off – just like a dog – running alongside the car. Instead of biting at the tires though, he executed a very sharp hind-leg kick – both legs – in the direction of the car.

“Vend-a-moos”, miniature car-chasing horses, the American government, Jen and Burt FINALLY tying the knot… all signs of the Apocalypse, I’m telling you! Go to church! Stockpile canned goods! Read those dumb Lahaye/Jenkins books! Repent! But then how can we repent if we haven’t even pented yet?
*sigh *

Enjoy summers’ end my lovelies. Depending on what happens in November, it could be a VERY long winter.
Much love,
-s

*those of you who know my mother do not have to wonder where I got THAT from…
**can you !@#$ BELIEVE this?!?!
***this is a MOST interesting and valuable site...