...the penguin returns; brrrrrrrrr!!; other stuff...

Well, this weekend was interesting. I worked the bridal show downtown at the America Center. Scott was there. Heather was with me. Heather Hahn was there...

Wait, what? Yeah. Heather Hahn. That's a name I haven't heard since Senior year of high school. In a nutshell, Heather Hahn was a starting point to many twists and turns involving both myself and Scott. Heather is an ex-girlfriend of Scott's, who went for Scott instead of me at a Trend lock-in deal. I met two girlfriends from that situation later down the line.

@Scott: Penguin? Ah-ah!

Still, it was cool to hear how everyone I knew from Affton high school was doing and whatnot. What wasn't cool is that my main identifying feature remains to be my hair, which apparently is unmistakable.

I couldn't find Heather's (MY Heather) Christmas haul list until last night, and I was in no mood to jump on here and post at that point. Now that I know where it is, it will be coming.

It's cold in St. Louis. I know it's also cold, even colder, in a wide variety of places in the country as well, but I'm HERE in St. Louis so that's the ONLY cold that I can bitch about. Some cold I can stand; THIS cold is ri-goddamn-diculous.

There's a bunch of shit going down between Francesca, Jay, and now this "Lisa Collins" (Lissan) person. It's entertaining, actually. I had a chance to read Lissan's rant about Francesca, and she REALLY went off about Fran. I agree with her on one point, though - Jay is not good enough for Fran. (I KNOW she meant to say that Fran wasn't good enough for Jay, but the typo made it sound the other way around.) If Jay and Lissan - oops, sorry; I mean "Lisa Collins" - are happy together, so be it - hopefully, Jay won't make the same mistake he did before. I can understand why Fran would write the things she does and make all of the digs at Jay that she does. It will be interesting to see how this whole thing plays out. It's almost like an episode of Jerry Springer. Break out the popcorn, this one is getting good.

Quilled Tunes: "Down With The Sickness" - Disturbed

Quote of the Blog: (paraphrased) "One thing can be said of George Bush and his administration's economy - we will forever be in his debt." - Democratic Congressman, "Meet The Press"

---IMPORTANT---IMPORTANT---IMPORTANT---IMPORTANT---

Subject: Tell Congress to protect Social Security
Dear friend:

George Bush and Republican leaders have made phasing out Social Security through privatization and massive benefit cuts their top priority for 2005. Members of Congress are choosing sides over the next couple of weeks.

We need to make sure they choose correctly now—before a massive election-style campaign by George Bush and the Wall Street interests gets to them including what might be a $100 million TV ad campaign.

MoveOn’s trying to gather 200,000 signatures to present to lawmakers when they return after the inauguration. You can sign the petition now at:

http://www.moveon.org/socialsecurity/

Social Security is a complicated issue, but the basics are really pretty simple:

° Social Security provides monthly benefits to some 44 million Americans who are retired, disabled or the survivor of a deceased parent. It provides most of the income for older Americans--some 64 percent of their support. It has lifted generations of seniors out of poverty.

° Social Security is not in crisis. That is an outright lie perpetrated in order to create the urgency for radical changes. Under conservative forecasts, the long-term challenges in Social Security do not manifest themselves until 2042. Even then Social Security has 70 percent of needed funds. That shortfall is smaller than the amount needed in 1983, the last time we overhauled Social Security. George Bush's Social Security crisis-talk is an effort to create a specter of doom -- just like the weapons of mass destruction claim in Iraq.

° Phasing out Social Security and replacing it with privatized accounts means one thing: massive cuts in monthly benefits for everybody. Social Security privatization requires diverting taxes used to pay current benefits into privatized accounts invested in risky stocks. Without that money Social Security benefits will inevitably be cut -- some proposals even cut benefits of current retirees. These benefit cuts are inevitable, since diverting Social Security money into privatized accounts means less money to pay current and future benefits.

° Every serious privatization proposal raises the Social Security retirement age to 70. That might be fine if you're a Washington special interest lobbyist but it is incredibly unfair to blue-collar Americans with tough, physical jobs, or for African Americans and Latinos with lower life expectancies.

° Privatization means gambling with your retirement security. There is probably an appropriate place for a little stock market risk in retirement planning -- but it isn't Social Security. Privatization exposes your entire retirement portfolio to stock market risks -- and the risk that you'll outlive any of your savings at retirement. You can't outlive your Social Security benefit.

° So who does benefit? Wall Street. Giant financial services firms have been salivating for decades over the prospect of taking over Social Security. Wall Street would make billions of dollars in profit by managing the privatized accounts -- money that would come directly from your benefits.

° Action is urgently needed today. President Bush and Republican leaders in Congress are joining forces with the financial services industry for a major campaign to convince the public there is a major crisis and pressure members of Congress to vote for privatization. Action is needed now before it is too late. Please sign MoveOn’s petition to protect Social Security at the link below.

http://www.moveon.org/socialsecurity/

Thanks for doing this.

---IMPORTANT---IMPORTANT---IMPORTANT---IMPORTANT---

The Bush Zone (with Apologies to Rod Serling)

By John Cory
t r u t h o u t | Perspective/Satire

Friday 14 January 2005

There is a fifth realm beyond known reality. It is a realm as vast as space and timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground of haze and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies at the pit of man's fears. This is the realm of the unimaginable. It is an area we call "The Bush Zone."

Meet Mr. and Mrs. America, faithful believers in the one true nation. They arise each morning and stand before the mirror reciting their daily mantra: "It's a grand old flag! Leader of the free world! We're no. 1!" Their iconic reflection smiles back, a warm and homemade apple pie image of the best of everything, the best medical care, the most powerful military, and the best political system of any country in the world. The mirror never lies.

But this morning, Mr. And Mrs. America, discover a warped mirror that casts a disturbing and twisted funhouse reflection of their former selves. Daily slogans are powerless against this distorted likeness, and all that they once held sacred now ripples across the glass in a deformed and misshapen wave of elongated ugliness. Mr. And Mrs. America just stepped through the looking glass and into the Bush Zone.

Submitted for your consideration: citizens of the wealthiest country in the world seek salvation via the free-market system. They organize bake sales and eBay auctions to raise money for medical therapy not covered by their profit-driven corporate HMOs, only to discover that some of that money is also needed to purchase body armor the Pentagon failed to provide to their sons and daughters in Iraq. War is never cheap, but always profitable in the Bush Zone.

Further submitted for your consideration: a President insists on free elections in his combat arena despite the risk to life and limb for Iraqis, even as his own political party strains the boundaries of legality and decency to suppress the vote of Americans at home. Democracy is only for the righteous few required to guide the many along the sacred path of destiny and empire in the Bush Zone.

This is Alberto Gonzales, lawyer on his way up, salt of the earth, minority makes good story. He is, as you have perceived, a purveyor of partisan loyalty, one of a breed who substitutes smiles for substance, venom for value, and noise for nobility. His skill is the ability to turn the objectionable into the tolerable, the illegal into legal, and define it all with the phonetics of patriotism. Mr. Gonzales sits before his inquisitors, speaking in tongues while saying nothing. He has no fear because he knows Democrats are willing ghosts without power in the Bush Zone.

Picture of a campaign paid for by $600 million dollars of private funds, a cacophonous symphony of slander, mendacious media, and clanging garbage cans of innuendo and falsehood. The prize? A lavish gala held at the picturesque white house residence of the owners of America. Attendance is by invitation only.

The Bush Zone hosts a cast of characters, who like children's fertile imaginations, have no attachment to reality. A surreal traveling Medicine Show comprised of peddlers of faith and fear, sellers of superstition, martyrs and moguls who line their pockets with the lives of the innocent and faithful, all united to market the elixirs of corporate conformity and passivity, for the price of one thin nickel plus your soul. No waiting.

Picture of a Nation gazing into a warped mirror, its reflection, a blemished garden of atrophied freedoms, the acne of cowered silence, and once bright eyes dulled by corporate greed and the focus group political entertainment of talk television. In a little while, the face in the mirror will be permanently etched into the glass unless the Nation can avert its eyes from the hypnotic glare and focus on its people, principles and Constitution.

There is a way out for all of us, albeit through a locked door.

You unlock this door with the key of democracy. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of peace and prosperity, a dimension of free speech and civil rights, a dimension of tolerance and enlightenment. You're moving out of the land of haze and shadow, and into the wondrous journey of the people, by the people and for the people.

You've just stepped out of - the Bush Zone.

That's a signpost up ahead: your next stop: the real America!

Found @ http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/011505A.shtml