Rose of Charon

New Columnist in the Cause

One thing you should definitely do today, even if you're on soul-crunching deadline, as I am, is head on over to Democratic Underground and read their new columnist, The Plaid Adder. She reluctantly holds forth on gay marriage today, the Rs having decided to beat that drum in hopes we won't notice the body count in Iraq and other atrocities. While you're there, enjoy Ask Auntie Pinko, Top Ten Conservative Idiots, and Angry Patriot Bob Boudelang. And if you haven't been called enough names today, read the hate mailbag.

If you like fantasy novels, follow the link to the Adder's Lair, where you can sample the Women on Fire series. Guaranteed Elf and Dragon-free. But full of kick-ass lesbian heroines and lots of laughs. You go, Plaidder! Congrats on your new forum!

What blog?

Sorry to flake out with no notice. I have work! Lots of work! Every publisher I know wants one last book out before the end of the year (that being defined as early November). This is good. I think. At least, it is money. But it may not give me extra arm power or time to blog.

Last weekend I went to a conference for one of my professions. New exciting tools to make us more valuable as the hiring wage dwindles from $70/hour to $7! Call yourself something different to avoid that trap. Business analyst. Information architect. Jargon-enabled bullshitter.

Don't waste a hiring manager's time! Spend hours crafting your resume and portfolio to the specific manager so that he can toss you aside in only 30 seconds!

Good news: There are jobs! Offshoring hasn't worked well in communication fields. (Duh.) Bad news: Senior employees are being hired at junior wages. Newbies and freshouts not hired at all.

Own your project! Feel a sense of urgency! No, don't own your project! Be a team player! Aim for sustainable pace!

A bit sour, I may be. The conference had a lot of trouble mustering numbers, only to be expected in a field with 50% unemployment. I came away wanting a different profession. I'm rather sick of acquiring expert skills for less money, working on increasingly horrid deadlines, and being lashed by the twin demons of perfectionism and urgency. Thank the goddess that I work in another arm of the profession, the laid-back, low-stress milieu of book publishing. [RUN LAUGH TRACK HERE.]

We Owe, We Owe. Americans just keep piling up the debt. [The Motley Fool]a

A dangerously unpatriotic article that suggests that we ought to actually think about what we get from what we buy.

Bloodsucking Vampire Monkey

Online propaganda short from Korea: "Fuck'n USA". From RobPongi's blog, which features lots of streaming media oddities from Japan and other Asian countries: "This is a very shocking anti-American propoganda video made by North Koreans and previously broadcast on South Korean and Japanese Television." Don't miss the part right after George W. Bush's head morphs into a bloodsucking vampire monkey, where they call America an "audacious" country that "stole the Olympic gold Medal from us." Link [Boing Boing Blog]

Disgruntled Fan Arrested, Indicted For Spam Attacks [Slashdot] This I like: arresting folks who put your email address on the From: line.

Cell phone explodes in trousers. A Dutch supermarket employee is the second person to be injured by a malfunctioning Nokia phone in the past two months, according to a consumer group. [CNET News.com - Front Door]

Dave Barry, have you heard? This could replace the cow schtick.

Campaign Strategy

Californians are going to the polls tomorrow. Despite charges of groping, Nazi sympathies, and consenual political intercourse with Ken De Lay, Arnold has a good chance of winning. I don't get it, but let's take advantage of it. See, we'll make a movie starring all the Democratic candidates--or maybe a movie for each one. It will be more entertaining than those boring debates, more people will see it/them, and they'll vote for name recognition and the thrill of being close to a celebrity. Or whatever is playing out in electing someone with no experience and some definite nastiness in the background. It's worked for far-too-many celebrities. And if the candidates can't act or don't come across well on screen--look-alike actors! How hard can it be? Someone get to work on a script, maybe of Wesley Clark and his last European fracas.

But seriously, folks, there's another big fat whopping issue that could make our efforts to Elect Anybody Else in 2004 all for nought. I'm due elsewhere at the moment, but I'll write about it tomorrow. Till then, walk that frog till it needs new Skechers.

For the Feast of St. Francis and Other Holy Men

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."--Mahatma Gandhi (Oct. 2, 1869 - 1948)

My Cats' Favorite Scripture (besides the Talmudic commandment to always feed your beasts first)

"The Divine Mother revealed to me in the Kali temple that it was She who had become everything...That was why I fed a cat with the food that was to be offered to the Divine Mother. I clearly perceived that the Divine Mother Herself had become everything--even the cat."--from The Gospel of Ramakrishna

Dramatis Felinae, with Approprite Noms de Net

Their names shall be derived from when they arrived. The first is my son's cat Mr. Christmas, monster cat, now 10 years old and diabetic.

The next also came in December a few years later. So he will be known as Hanukkah, or by his function, co-alpha but in the Taoist manner. Very supportive. Trains foster kittens in the Jedi cat way. I give you Han the Yodacat.

This dumb but gorgeous metaphorical blonde is one of Han's pupils, remaindered to our house because of a heart defect. We hadn't planned on a another cat, but I blubbered to my husband that she was going to be put down if we didn't take her, that the shelter vet said she'd be lethargic, stunted, and short lived. Of course, that vet also said she was a male. Based on how she's fulfilled the first two prophecies, she'll live to be 20. Born on Feb. 16, her name has to be Valentine.

We took a very pregnant teenage cat off the streets (via the HSUS) just before Easter. Easter wishes she were an only cat.

Thank you for the abundance of small animals that share our home. May I always perceive that the Divine Mother has become the little cats, no matter what they destroy or when they wake me up. Bless them and all the creatures You asked us to care for.

James Thurber. "It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers." [Quotes of the Day]

Alexandre Dumas. "Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest." [Quotes of the Day]

Stranger Than...

They should not do things like this to me. Can you imagine how I felt, reading "Secretary Rumsfeld resigns after Kay report, citing pledge to grandson," before seeing the itsy bitsy word "satire" up in the corner?

President Bush Pens a Poem. This one is real. Roll over, Robert Frost and all you other word frauds.

Quirky Scientists Win Ig Nobelity. Celebrating cutting-edge scientific discoveries such as how best to drag a sheep to be sheared and necrophilia in mallard ducks, the Ig Nobel awards honor scientists who fail to draw mainstream attention for their research. Mark Baard reports from Cambridge, Massachusetts. [Wired News]

You can read about past winners in The Ig Nobel Prizes, which the publisher calls "A sidesplitting compendium that pays tribute to those individuals whose scientific achievements cannot or should not be reproduced." Some of the more notable winners were:

creators of a birthing machine that spins expectant mothers at a high speed [You try it, buddy, with a watermelon strapped to your gizzard.]
authors who explain why people don't need to eat food [oh, please]
church leaders who devised a mathmatical formula for determining how many Alabamans were bound for hell [including themselves?]
scientists who deemed romantic love indistinguishable from obsessive-compulsive disorder [You know, they just might be on to something.]

Scientists Meditate on Happiness. In other strange liaisons, the Dalai Lama took part in the recent Investigating the Mind conference at MIT. He's been in dialog with scientists for 17 years in pursuit of physical evidence for the benefits of contemplative practice. Were it not for centuries-old prior commitments, the Dalai Lama speculates he would have been an engineer. At least in this economy, he's got a steady job, unlike engineers.

Things That Make You Go Hmm

Though I've attended church for much of my adult life, I've never considered my pastor du jour as a spiritual guide. I knew they were overworked, underpaid, and on another plane altogether. I couldn't see bothering them with my little problems. Most of the frontline spiritual guidance I've received has been from my 12-step sponsor. Last night I talked with the one who counseled me for many years. "Julie" was much younger than I, she'd started the program at an early age. I didn't. She was a performer too, and I felt like she understood the special problems of melding that crazy life with anything called sanity. Our drug of choice was food, and as a ballet dancer she certainly knew about the extremes of indulgence and deprivation that I struggled with. When a ballet dancer tells you you're too thin, you better listen. She was a perfect combination of New Age flakery and hard-headed common sense for me as she helped me pound my beliefs and attitudes out of the theoretical into the now.

Over the years our relationship sloshed into close friendship, maybe like sisters, though neither of us would know what that was like. I think I was able to provide comfort and support for her on occasion; surely I learned something in my extra years. We retired from our professions at about the same time. I moved away, but we kept in touch. She was trying to get a college education--dancers don't have the luxury of getting a degree when other people do; the performing years are too scarce and precious. She was eligible for financial aid , but she had no job skills. Fortunately, life as a dancer had prepared her to live on peanuts (styrofoam, in some cases) and work at jobs like retail, waitress, companion to the elderly.

Then she became a stripper and began taking home $300/night. It was good to see her able to afford basic necessities. Maybe we could decrease poverty if we made sure that high school graduates could do a good table dance before we turn them loose on the world. The sex industry sure pays better than anything with a keyboard or any of those other "job skills" we make them learn. Does this bother anybody but me? It's not the "morality" involved. I'm not picking up the first stone. But where we put our money shows what we value, what is most important to us. Well, we always knew no one cared about our art. Someone showed me a charitable fundraising effort on the web that involved paying to see breasts. Wildly successful, I'm sure.

Julie told me last night that the worst had happened, her greatest fear that we'd discussed for several years. She was arrested. "Lewd behavior?" I said. "That's better than prostitution." (Strippers can be arrested for prostitution on the flimsiest excuses--or none.) "No," she said. "Prostitution is a Class C misdemeanor. Lewd behavior is Class A, just under a felony." (Priorities again?) She didn't even know she'd been arrested until she discovered the outstanding warrant out. (Don't they have to give you a ticket?) She turned herself in and sat handcuffed in a cell for six hours. Horrible, but she gave thanks it was only six hours.

She's got a good lawyer, and she had the necessary $4000 put aside for this contingency. She's positive she's never seen the vice cop. ("Good looking, clean cut, dark-haired man? I definitely would have remembered," she said.) In a few weeks I'll go visit her, and we'll shop for the appropriate trial clothes. Ugly accountant-type stuff, or whatever the lawyer recommends. My MBA's good for something at last. In a few months I'll go sit in the courtroom when she's tried and, I pray, released. It's the least I can do for my spiritual counselor.

Pentagon Spy Office to Close "House and Senate negotiators have decided to close a Pentagon office that was developing a vast computerized terrorism surveillance system and bar spending that would allow those high-tech spying tools to be used against Americans on U.S. soil."

We can go back to the library now?

Ten Technologies That Deserve to Die Some technologies are so blatantly obnoxious that the human race would rejoice if they were summarily executed. A humorist and science fiction writer [Texas Bruce Sterling] offers some candidates.

North Korea Calls Rumsfeld Illiterate Psychopath"SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea described Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as a dictatorial psychopath and a politically illiterate old man..." Korean news agency KCNA said, "It is not likely at all that he would speak truth as he is obsessed with wantonly harassing peace and security in different parts of the world and igniting wars. His outbursts, therefore, cannot be construed otherwise than a desperate shrill cry of a psychopath on his death bed." It said Rumsfeld was cursed and hated worldwide.

Don't hold back. Tell us what you really think.