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wThursday, January 20, 2005 |
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black thursday
"We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world."
- Howard Zinn
non-inauguration day
things to do on non-inauguration day, thursday jan 20:
not one damn dime
don't spend one damn dime.
not one red cent
(for the decent folk in your life who are offended by the curse word 'damn')
quit smoking. don't give phillip morris another cent of your hard-earned money.
don't buy one cent of gas.
carpool, walk, bike, whatever you have to do. if you can't not buy gas for one week, you're part of this never-ending problem. ride the bus. get over yourself. you're not that great.
gasoline boycott day
black thursday
another black thursday
bush black out
black out your blog or web site for just one day
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
-President Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 16, 1953
jazz funeral for democracy in new orleans
Traditional New Orleans jazz funeral entitled "A Wake for Peace": Jazz Funeral for Democracy timed to coincide with the inauguration of George W. Bush. Street theater encouraged. March, rally and inaugural ball featuring local New Orleans musicians.
code pink - women for peace
There'll be two oaths taken come January 20th, 2005. The first, by George W. Bush, is a promise to continue the appalling and self-serving agenda of a handful of rightwing extremists cloaked under the guise of a falsely assumed people's mandate.
The second oath is a collective one. And there's nothing false about it. It's an unwavering pledge by the tens of thousands of people who mobilized in unprecedented numbers during the election to peaceably counter the Bush agenda.
posted by
zenbetty at 11:01 AM
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black thursday, part deux
i'm not gonna spend one damn dime on non-inauguration day. why don't you try it. what if worked?
don't spend one damn dime. of course we want to do more, we will do more. but start here. maybe they'll listen. maybe they'll see.
on a hoax web site, I found this last month (excellent):
posted by (now) site owner of not one damn dime
"Not One Damn Dime Day is not a hoax in the sense of the usual email hoaxes on this website. I received that same email around Dec. 15 and I thought it looked like a pretty effective form of protest. Yes, it's "small" because it's only one day, but if several million people participate, Bush WILL notice (if for no other reason than the glitch in the GDP statistics).
I liked the idea so much -- and found that no one had posted it on a website -- that I set up http://www.NotOneDamnDime.com -- same text as the letter below, more or less. For those with mild sensitivities about that cussword there's also http://www.NotOneRedCent.com
The press has certainly noticed already -- this week the email is getting into mainstream press. That's the way that it will become effective -- boycotts need publicity -- so if you like the idea, go spread the email around!"
Thank you jesse gordon, whoever you are, fellow democrat, in cambridge massachusetts.
Subject: Not One Damn Dime! - Jan 20 (Non-Inauguration Day)
Don't spend a dime on January 20, 2005 (pass it on! far & wide!)
It doesn't really matter that everyone will be out spending what they didn't the next day - a point or two will have been made: Since our religious leaders will not speak out against the war in Iraq, since our political leaders don't have the moral courage to oppose it. Inauguration Day, Thursday, January 20th, 2005 is "Not One Damn Dime Day" in America.
On "Not One Damn Dime Day" those who oppose what is happening in our name in Iraq can speak up with a 24-hour national boycott of all forms of consumer spending. During "Not One Damn Dime Day," please don't spend money. Not one damn dime for gasoline. Not one damn dime for necessities or for impulse purchases.
Not one damn dime for anything for 24 hours. On "Not One Damn Dime Day," please boycott Walmart & KMart. Please don't go to the mall or the local convenience store. Please don't buy any fast food (or any groceries at all for that matter).
For 24 hours, please do what you can to shut the retail economy down. The object is simple. Remind the people in power that the war in Iraq is immoral and illegal; that they are responsible for starting it and that it is their responsibility to stop it. If you're a small business owner, shut down your doors for one day. If you have a web site, black it out for just one day.
"Not One Damn Dime Day" is to remind them, too, that they work for the people of the United States of America, not for the international corporations and K Street lobbyists who represent them and funnel cash into American politics. "Not One Damn Dime Day" is about supporting the troops. The politicians put the troops in harm's way. Now 1,300 brave young Americans and (some estimate) 100,000 Iraqis have died. The politicians owe our troops a plan -- a way to come home.
There's no rally to attend. No marching to do. No left or right wing agenda to rant about. On "Not One Damn Dime Day" you take action by doing nothing. You open your mouth by keeping your wallet closed. For 24 hours, nothing gets spent, not one damn dime, to remind our religious leaders and our politicians of their moral responsibility to end the war in Iraq and give America back to the people.
--
Sister Joan Chittister:
January 6, 2005
"All I have to do, the announcement tells me, is to refuse to spend a single dime on anything -- food, gas, entertainment, hardware, necessities or consumables -- for one day, Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, to protest the war in Iraq.
I don't need to march anywhere, hold any signs, risk any jail term, absorb any jeers from passers-by, or tell my family. All I need to do is to join millions of other people in sending a silent but potent signal to the people in power that I am opposed to the war in Iraq and that we are calling on the government that started it to do something about ending it. It is an attempt, the organizers say, to "remind them, too, that they work for the people of the United States of America, not for the international corporations and … lobbyists who represent the corporations and funnel cash into American politics."
No doubt about it, here's another way to organize. Here's another way to be a presence in society. As the organizer puts it, "What if it worked?"
The Internet might even be a way to organize national conversation on current issues. We could start, for instance, by asking ourselves spiritual question about political subjects - like why it is that we are all so stunned, shocked, dismayed about the 150,000 deaths in Asia from a tsunami but we don't seem to be bothered a bit about the over 100,000 civilian deaths - most of them women and children - which, the Lancet study tells us, have resulted from our own invasion of Iraq?"
NEW: Questions for an Inauguration
-Sister Joan Chittister
January 20, 2005
It's Inauguration Day. It's time to ask that revered old political question again, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"
posted by
zenbetty at 11:00 AM
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Quit Smoking Today
cancer of the bladder. this one they don't tell you about. sure you know your lungs are shot. and then, if you get your lungs checked out and they're still okay, you think, hey, i can go on and keep smoking.
until
cancer of the bladder.
my father had to have his bladder removed. spent the last few years of his life with an ostomy bag. you know, people don't really talk about these kinds of things. but we should. you should know.
you should know what it feels like looking at your father lying on the bathroom floor as you change his ostomy bag, connected directly to a hole right out of his stomach. yeah, we don't talk about things like this. yet people still smoke. my father still smoked. i still smoke.
what a fucking idiot, i am still smoking. and to you smokers out there, i'm sorry but i may not be able to hang out with you for a while. it's hard to be around. it's hard to not lecture you. it's hard to not want to join you. i don't want to be that prude bitch who's all scrinching up her face and going eeeew cigarettes are gross, i'm so not cool. yeah it's cool to smoke, we all know that. but lying on the bathroom floor changing your father's ostomy bag is no longer cool.
i'm saying this more to scare me than to scare you. but if it scares you too then good.
Phases of Psychological Adaptation
Almost every patient goes through four phases of recovery following an accident or illness that results in loss of function of an important part of the body. The patient, along with the family, goes through these phases, varying only in the time required for each phase.
1. Shock or Panic
2. Defense/Retreat/Denial
3. Acknowledgment
4. Adaptation/Resolution
"The urine passes through an opening (stoma) on the body."
translation: there was a fucking hole on my father's stomach because he had no bladder because he smoked.
damn, i'm so not strong. why does anybody in the world think i'm fucking strong. it's all a fucking lie.
i have to deal with this all someday. i think that day is now, dammit, and i don't think i'm ready yet.
20 Minutes After Quitting
Your heart rate drops.
12 hours After Quitting
Carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal.
i just checked out Death Be Not Proud - Gunther
it's a memoir by the father of a 17-year-old son dying of a brain tumor.
i don't know why i do things like this. to test myself? to see if i can handle exposing myself to such things? to push my own limits? last night i watched a movie about a pedophiliac.
"During the months of his final illness everyone near him was unforgettably impressed by his level-headed courage, his wit and quiet friendliness, and above all, his unfaltering patience through the times of despair..."
i know i will be sad. why read a book like this?
because, the cover says: "If courage is the antidote to pain and grief, the disease and the cure are both in this book." -new york times
the pedophilia movie, well i wasn't affected as much by it as others sitting next to me. to say quite bluntly, i was never molested by a brother, uncle, or worse. and i am lucky. it seems, unfortunately, sexual abuse is much more common than we think, and that is a very very sad subject. it is also a touchy subject which many people are afraid to speak about, too. sexual abuse. cancer. death. if we talk about such things, are we focusing on the negative? no, we are trying to heal from the past. we are trying to prevent for the future. you can't prevent a brain tumor, but you can prevent the loss of your bladder and ultimate death by just putting out that cigarette.
i don't know where i'm going with all this today. basically, let's just start with
quit smoking NOW.
and then we can deal with the other issues later...
posted by
zenbetty at 1:25 PM
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wThursday, January 13, 2005 |
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 "On Thursday, January 13th, Saturn will be 750 million miles from Earth--the closest we get to the ringed planet this year--compared to a maximum distance of almost a billion miles. An astronomer would say "Saturn is at opposition" because Saturn and the Sun are on opposite sides of the sky. The 2005 opposition of Saturn is so perfect that, if you were on Saturn, you would see Earth transiting the face of the Sun. This year's is considered the brightest till the opposition on December 11, 2031.
To find Saturn, step outside around 7:30 p.m. local time and face east. The planet is easy to see almost halfway up the sky. Got a telescope? Point it at Saturn. Even a small department-store 'scope will show the planet's rings. They are breathtaking. You might also notice a little pinprick of light near Saturn. That's Titan, Saturn's largest moon.
The European Space Agency's (ESA's) Huygens probe will attempt to land on Titan on January 14th. With hypothesized methane rain, gasoline seas, hot lightning and icy mountains, Titan could be the weirdest world in the solar system. Or not. No one knows because dense orange clouds hide the giant moon's surface."
posted by
zenbetty at 2:26 AM
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wFriday, January 07, 2005 |
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"I just opened a new restaurant, Dog Almighty, that offers its entire menu as beef or veggie. We serve hot dogs, burgers, hand dipped corn dogs, frito pies, chili cheese fries, etc. Also, our veggie chili just won second place in the lonestar veg network's cook-off. W e are trying to create a place where veggies and omnivores can both go and feel at home, without having to give in to the other's tastes. To top it off we have free ping-pong and foosball.
Check it out @ 6701 Burnet Rd. in the Farmer's Market (across from Putt Putt)"
Dog Almighty
someone wanna join me one day for lunch?
posted by
zenbetty at 11:54 AM
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Ramblings at Work on a Thursday before the Holidays (12/23/04)
*spoilers* involved. do not read if you hate spoilers as i do. until you've seen Life Aquatic, House of Flying Daggers, Kinsey, Finding Neverland, Closer, or the remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. and don't get me started on remakes! unless you know of a good one. then post a comment below because ubershauna and i were trying to think of a remake that might be even better than the original and i couldn't think of one! not one. i heard that the manchurian candidate might have been okay, but the original was just fine. why do we (who is we anyway? americans? money-grubbing scum in the film industry? the sad masses who can't watch a black n white movie without getting bored?!) why do *we* feel the need to remake a perfectly good original movie??? oh, okay, yeah, was i gonna post something? well here it is:
oh not yet, and i'm not gonna edit or spell-check or add html for the links so you can just cut & paste cuz i'm lazy and hopefully we'll get outta here early but i'm starting to doubt it more & more. and yes, there are a ton of movie references here, but you're just gonna have to deal with it for today!
okay, begin now:
it's subtle, it's deadpan, it's funny-sad
it's dry
you have to appreciate willem dafoe being funny and admire anjelica huston onscreen without words to convey what she's thinking
Bill Murray shakes his groove thing, it's sort of on mute, wes anderson appreciates the intelligence of his audience and doesn't feel the need to spell out everything as the big blockbusters do for the masses.
i could cry right now just thinking about it.
re: Life Aquatic
i think i'm getting soft. this has *got* to change. maybe it's just the holidays...i'll harden up again this new year.
Closer looks dumb. natalie portman is soo not convincing in this 'adult' role, in just the previews alone. is she like half of jude law's age?? i mean, c'mon. gimme a break. and the movie looks so spelled out for you. just break up already and be together. i never understood movies like this.
i'm listening to the Cars right now. i had no idea i liked this: Don't Cha Stop song. i don't think i've even ever heard it before, but i love the Cars so i suck for not knowing them better. my brother-in-law is copying all his music onto his computer so he's getting rid of all his cd's after he copies them. and I get them. yea! especially yea cuz it's a lot of great classics that i never bought, well, because, there's always such great new music to buy. i haven't bought music in forever though, so who am i kidding.
"The heightened emotions are restrained and therefore more affecting; and the sentimentality is all the more sweet because Anderson doesn’t indulge in it."
see...this is how a movie should be. not so obvious & pathetic like Closer. natalie portman is sooo not convincing as a stripper/prostitute/whatever she's supposed to be. kind of like julia roberts in pretty woman. yeah, julia, i really buy that you're a prostitute. whatEver people, shit.
"He’s an outright son-of-a-bitch, selfish, pigheaded, opportunistic, frequently drunk and stoned, and somehow loveable despite himself."
"...balancing the sweet, the sour, the absurd, and the genuine."
added bonus: i LOVE david bowie and the music was all him. and portuguese acoustic covers of him, which were wonderful as well. i wanted to sing out loud in the theater, i couldn't help smiling, bowie moves me. i tried to sing a bowie song at common interest (karaoke bar) but i ended up sounding more like william shatner instead of david bowie. but not even a good shatner. but then again, i was with friends, and i didn't really care. nor do i care what the people of the common interest think of me. let's see, i know i have it online.
It Ain't Easy
see if you can recognize this song in the movie (bowie didn't write this song, but this is his version. love it)
okay, I can't find rock n roll suicide. i can't remember how i wrote the link. blargh. well that's the song i was singing and reaching out GIMME YOUR HANDS!!! on stage at common interest. well, i was trying to sing it like that. i just looked like a bad commercial, whatever that means. man, i LOVE that song.
"time takes a cigarette. puts in your mouth." too bad i can't remember the link.
the guy who directed monster's ball directed finding neverland. what a wide range across the spectrum that is!
i kinda wanna see finding neverland. 1 - because it looks good. 2 - because I absolutely adore johnny depp.
(i've never seen monster's ball; i just know that is has a rather graphic sex scene, well, i know this because my roommate L said he saw this movie with his mother and couldn't believe how long & awkward that scene was. ha!)
omigoodness, i love this song: Don’t Cha Stop
and I want to see kinsey. me & my pal ruth were gonna try go see it, but she & her husband (slight) are livin it up in new york right now, partying with her sister & our good ol' friend rogelio. man, what a great guy roger is. and what a great couple they are. i love them, i really do. i got them something! which surprised me cuz i don't buy gifts. but it made me think of them when i saw it & i thought that it would look good in their house and i'm so cheap i don't think i ever bought them a wedding present. cuz i suck like that. yeah.
when I make a lot of money, i'm gonna make up for all the non-shopping times i had to miss out on. well, i didn't have to miss out on. i could stay at home and not spend 40+ bucks in the bar every night, but hey, then i wouldn't be me, right?
so i'm gonna start this other wish list. not a wish for me, but if i had money, this is what i would have bought for you this christmas season. starting with my friend antneon, i would have bought you this personal library kit for cinephiles to thank you for last january when i was blue and you let me borrow a dozen of your dvd's. of course i never finished dekalog, but then of course we never expected me to.
i wrote this thing at work; i drew this little sketch of this dude during a meeting (don't tell, i wasn't paying attention) and then the storyline just flowed out from the sketch. he was talking, and he was sort of a jerk. he didn't mean to be, didn't want to be, it just sort of happened. you know like when you don't ever move away from your hometown and people won't let you break the mold of who you've become, or who you were ten years ago. yeah, it's sort of like that. yeah. sort of autobiographical, if I had turned out to be a guy, who was tall, and well-hung, of course. but then, not really autobiographical at all.
yeah, i'm not working today, don't tell. we're closed tomorrow, and we're all just sort of sitting here waiting for 'them' to tell us we can go home now. i'm off all next week, so stayed tuned for a daily update! how exciting. i'm gonna stay at home in bed on my laptop and watch bad TV for a week! just like the good ol' days...
i do need to get my car checked & oil changed, get my eyes checked & new contacts, go to the dentist, meet a few people for lunch that I've fallen out of touch with, paint a room in my mom's rental house, get my computer & desk & bike & entertainment center from my old house. damn! all i wanted to do was stay in bed on the computer and watch bad TV. ya think i could have done all that stuff when i was unemployed for six months. yeah i could have...
could have should have would have
i'm going to TinStar on my way home from here (man, i really hope we get out early). i have a coupon for a free taco. i wrote something at TinStar the other week, i'll see if i can find. i want to do a review page. or i want to do a review tv show (cable access is fine) where i just sit there and criticize or compliment whatever i'm watching/doing/thinking in my own way. yeah, i wonder if anybody would watch it. drinking would be required while watching my show. and prerequisite is that i'm hungover. i'm so much funnier when i'm hungover and i don't give a damn. like now for instance. i crack myself up.
i bought new socks at target, and i'm trying to match what i wear with them in a funny sort of way each morning. i can't explain, cuz i'm not really serious, but i crack myself up. today i'm tiger stripe girl. not that it's not a tiger print, more like this. aha!
no...this is what i really meant:
zebra stripe girl! fruit stripe! wow, i miss that gum!
anyway, i show people in the front office that i bought new socks, i holler, as i lift up my pant leg: "Look! I match!" but nobody really seems to care.
i just figured out today that farewell doesn't really mean good-bye. it means more like live long & prosper. you know Fare Well. like i asked my friend the other day, "how did you fare?" (well i typed it on aim, i don't talk like that but i sometimes write odd words & phrases) and then today someone typed "fare thee well." and then it clicked: that farewell means fare well. i mean c'mon, i really take some words for granted and i don't analyze phrases whatnot. i should really take a latin course or something, and figure out etymology once & for all.
etymology : the history of a linguistic form (as a word) shown by tracing its development since its earliest recorded occurrence in the language where it is found, by tracing its transmission from one language to another, by analyzing it into its component parts, by identifying its cognates in other languages, or by tracing it and its cognates to a common ancestral form in an ancestral language
how fun! and how well put! (i had to look up the word to make sure i was using the correct one)
oh where was i, yeah, i want to see kinsey. looks good. and good topic, too.
The writer/director also did gods and monsters, which now looking at it, i don't think i've ever seen. but i get it mixed up with heavenly creatures for some strange reason. no, wait, maybe it's angels & insects that i get confused. aw, forget it all.
Ebert even liked Kinsey. i do love Ebert. did i say that already? well, i meant to.
"When Kinsey's first study of human sexual behavior was published in 1947, it was more or less universally agreed that masturbation would make you go blind or insane..."
but then again, Ebert did help write Beyond the Valley of the Dolls so you know he's got to be at least a little bit out there, which is what i respect & probably relate to.
Ha! House of Flying Daggers isn't coming out until jan 14th and i get to see it jan 4th. i rule. i actually get a +1 to this so if you wanna go (and you're terribly nice to me this week. no gifts though, please) i'll think about it. no really just let me know. i do have to ask one person first though.
Director Zhang Yimou on shooting the final fight scene in the snow.
In Film Threat, Phil Hall just raves about how good House of Flying Daggers is.
i'm not gonna read it though, i've read too much already. i think that anything you read about a movie is a spoiler. and i freak people out sometimes about it. i mean, i HATE when people tell me anything about a movie. i won't say whether Life Aquatic was good or bad (except i did a little bit in this post cuz i'm hungover and i don't care & it's been playing for a couple of weeks now, and you would have seen it already if you had wanted to or if you like wes anderson films at all). but go see it and then we'll talk about it. else, admit that you're never ever gonna see it and then i'll talk about it. but i'm not gonna be blamed for getting your hopes up for a movie and then you not like it. and i won't tell you the ending and spoil it for you. that's half the fun of watching a movie. sometimes, though, when you've read the book first, the fun part is watching how the movie unfolds and how the book translates onto the big screen (or how the scriptwriter interpreted it, or who was involved in writing it, or who the director chose to play the characters, etc etc).
like i didn't even want to know that johnny depp was playing the charlie & the chocolate factory guy (i can't think of his name right now). i mean, what a surprise that would have been had i just seen it on the big screen and found out. but i guess i couldn't avoid the ads forever. i do try to avoid as many tv ads as possible...they blare those commercials so LOUD.
it's a weird oxymoron, i hate trailers and i love trailers. I HATE the trailers that give away the entire plot, i mean the ENTIRE plot. give me a break! 've seen this done before, and it just absolutely kills me, what's the point of that!?! you don't have to go see the movie if you know everything about it. (except in the book-to-film case, or based on a true story, okay there are exceptions, get off my back!) but the best trailer, just glimpses at scenes, few words, less dialogue, maybe some of the soundtrack/score to intrigue, dark and mysterious, like a want-ad...and you just want to find out more! you must know! how does it end?! what happens next?! give me one word and let me roll that taste around in my mouth for a long time, until i just have to find out more, how does the sentence end. but start with just one word to chew on.
Feel.
posted by
zenbetty at 2:18 PM
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wSaturday, January 01, 2005 |
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Best of the Year: MMIV
Pitchfork: Top 50 Albums of the Year
sadly enough, i don't even know about 30 of these artists. and i actually don't think i own any of these albums. man, i so do not belong in the music industry. please don't out me.
PopMatters: Top 100 Albums of the Year
again, i don't recognize the majority of artists, and i probably own zero of these albums. anyone, please triple my CD collection...and fast! i'm so unhip!
Roger Ebert: Top 10 Films of the Year
i always have liked Ebert's reviews. however, i have only seen 2 of his top 10, and hadn't even heard of 3 of them...
(he even has the worst 10 of 2004...with Troy & Alexander both tied for first. ha!)
let me know if you have any other, or any better, "Best of 2004" lists.
posted by
zenbetty at 8:41 PM
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