I just got word that columnist Molly Ivins has died.
She had been suffering from cancer for a while, and was thought to be in remission.
Recently, the disease came roaring back
If you know of Molly Ivins, there is little I need say about her work. She was a rarity from the start, being a liberal from Texas, and warned us about that State's former Governor long before the 2000 election. I believe the last 7 years have shown her to be correct in her assessment of the man she called "Shrub".
If you don't know who Molly Ivins was, this quote of hers may give you some idea;

"There are two kinds of humor. One kind that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity -- like what Garrison Keillor does.

The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule -- that's what I do. Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel -- it's vulgar."

While that may indicate the departure point for many of her columns, it only begins to show her sense of humor and ability to turn a phrase. I guess if you want to appreciate her work, you have to read her work.
I enjoyed reading her...and I envy those who actually knew her.

I once told someone that the second hardest thing I ever did was quitting smoking.*
I tried all the half way measures, aside from the nico-gum (that just seemed to be prolonging the agony), before finally picking a day in 1997 to quit cold turkey.
Later, I decided to quit cigarettes.
People who care, have asked how I did it...they want to know, what was the one final tipping point that made me throw a half a pack of camel filters out the car window at 60 miles an hour? Why did I suddenly and completely decide to stop wheezing and smelling of eau d'ashtray? What single thing finally motivated me to say no more?
It all happened in a sudden flash of enlightenment.
It was thinking of the Big Business that is this country's tobacco industry...and decided I would never give those murdering bastards one more dime!
At the time, the industry was losing in court all over the country. It's an oversimplification, perhaps, but the short version is that the tobacco industry was generally found to have misrepresented their product. Investigators found that the industry was saying cigarette smoking was completely harmless, while internal memos were circulating showing their product was both addictive and cancer causing.
In case you're skimming, let me repeat that; addictive and cancer causing...and they knew it all along.
There is no other industry in this country that is legally allowed to produce a product designed to kill thousands (aside from defense contractors).
For a while, I was even a small part of the industry myself.
I worked at a news and tobacco shop on Orange Avenue in Downtown Orlando, selling books, newspapers and imported cigarettes and pipe tobacco. It was actually one of the most enjoyable jobs I've ever had.
Since you could buy a pack of Kools or Marlboros at any 7-eleven, it was up to my store to offer something different.
We sold cigarettes from England (Dunhills, Silk Cut and State Express 555), France (Gitanes and Galois; very harsh) from Germany (H B, which tasted like old sweat socks) and the first clove cigarettes from Indonisia (Jakarta). Naturally, I had to smoke 'em to sell 'em and tobacco salesmen would come by the shop every day and offer samples (like any pusher, I guess)...I was just one link down the chain.
Despite the ever present shadow of alcoholism, a wine merchant can make the case that he is selling a cultured lifestyle.
I was ultimately selling death at 2 or 3 dollars a pack.
So anger at the tobacco industry, combined with a sense of guilt regarding my own participation in it, was enough to get me to quit.
I wasn't so worried about dying, as much as I angrily refused to let those bastards kill me.
Now, ten years later, the tobacco industry continues to struggle along without any help from me.
Actually, it isn't exactly struggling according to the New York Times.
In an article in today's business section, reporter Andrew Martin says that Wall Street really likes tobacco stocks!
At one time, the Phillip Morris Company (a name synonomous with cigarettes), also owned Kraft Foods (a name synonomous with, well, Oreos, Velveeta and Tang)
Now, Phillip Morris has changed its name to Altria, and is selling its holdings in Kraft. So where's the smart money going?
You guessed it.
Since October, when the plan was announced, the tobacco company's shares have gone up by 10%
I don't uaually like to lift comments from another article, but this time a single paragraph or two says it all.

"Why is Wall Street so infatuated with cigarettes? Cigarettes have certain advantages over other consumer products, not the least of which is that they are addictive. They are inexpensive to make, require almost no innovation, there is a global market for them, and cigarette makers can raise prices without seeing much of a drop in business.

On top of all that, a recent string of court decisions has convinced investors that the worst of the litigation against tobacco companies is over."

It's ten years later, and I still refuse to give those murdering, money-grubbing bastards one thin dime... and a couple of weeks ago I turned that smoldering sense of rightous anger against another industry that is ruining our country and its people.

I decided to go after the money-grubbing bastards of the credit card industry.

NEXT--how I stopped subsidizing the Bank of America.



* The hardest thing? I voted for a Republican once.

I once expressed to a friend of mine what I, half-seriously, call my theory of art and creativity.
"I truly believe that all the great works of art...", I told her, "all began with somebody just trying to show off."
Great actors and musicians, playwrites and comedians...even the very best posters here on blogstream, are, I believe, motivated by the very human need to show off what they can do.
Motivation is everything, but not the same thing, to everyone.
I don't know what motivates you to do what you do every day, and I'm really not sure what motivates me. Yet, I can remember two occassions, over ten years apart, that allowed me to accomplish two unrelated achievements, with the same motivating factors.
My good friend Mokie Joe, in his latest post talks about health and smoking. I don't imagine he'd mind if I mentioned that he and I have spent many an hour together, each with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Back then, we could even smoke in the radio station studios while we were on the air. We had a real Donald Fagen thing going on. Of course, M.J. and I had to drink the beer after work, since this WAS Indiana and all. When management brought in the new-fangled "CD Players", with their lazer eyes and whatnot, we smokers were banished to a tiny walk way on the side of the building to take a couple of drags while a long song played.
This was NOT enough motivation to get me to quit, despite standing out in the ice and snow during the Indiana winters.
As part of our daily routine at the radio station, we would tape our shows on to cassette, and listen back to see how we could "improve the on-air product". It was during these listening sessions, that I realized I could actually hear my breathing...with headphones, the slight wheezing was even more pronounced. Still, with a pre-emphasymic condition reverberating in my ears, I was closer to quitting...but it still wasn't enough motivation!
I did most of the tricks; I stepped outside to smoke, even at home...I would take just three or four puffs from a single cigarette before stubbing it out...then relighting the butt if I wanted to smoke any more. I even did a hypnosis session with my brother the Psychologist.
While it brought me a few steps closer, it still wasn't the clincher.
That came when I started looking beyond myself...and to the world of Corporate America.

(to be continued..."24" is coming on, and it confuses me enough without missing the opening 3 minutes.)

The TV weather people, team coverage and all that, are saying this will be the coldest night in 4 years for those of us here in Central Florida. Freeze warnings are in effect, and the reporters on Channels 2, 6 and 9 are talking about how to wrap your plants, while the clowns on Fox 35 are saying "HAH! What Global Warming?!"
I've got boneless, skinless chicken breasts slow cooking in some mango salsa in the oven and broccoli steaming on top. Irish pianist Mícheál Ó Súlleabháin's album is on the turntable. Yes, I'm talking Celtic Piano coming from a 12 inch record. Vinyl rules! The accompanying Bodhrán sounds very warm against the surprisingly more percussive piano, and I am thinking of an entire blog stream post regarding the beauty of music from ancient technology.
After setting the sour dough bread in the oven to warm, I pull the cork from a nicely chilled Reisling from Washington State. As the wine sits, I light a couple of candles in jars, to set a perfect romantic mood.
Damn!
I just realized I forgot to invite a date!

The last few weeks have sort of been like that for me.
Going about life in an apparently competant way, but leaving out the small, but all too important, details.
Last Saturday, I went to a local Scottish Festival...and got sunburned because I forgot the sunscreen on a bright sunny day. Even with hundreds of men, and women, dressed in kilts, it was still Florida without a cloud in the sky.
This morning I was so pleased that I managed to leave for work early, that I also managed to zip right past my exit on I-4 and ended up being 10 minutes late.
Of course, that may have had something to do with neglecting to put actual coffee in the perculator prior to adding water and turning on the heat.
I made tea, but it just wasn't the same.
I guess it's just a temporary phase I'm going through, and not some sinister indication of a more serious mental condition.
Just the same, I have put a small post-it note on my front door, so that I will see it as I leave tomorrow.
It says; "are you wearing pants?"

It has been over 2 months since I last rolled up my virtual pant legs and ventured into the blogstream.
I kept wanting to make a quick comment about important things like The Election, The War and The Economy, and how that Bush Boy is dealing, or not dealing, with each of the above. Yet, I couldn't come up with anything I thought was worth saying, or anything that had not already been said, with more eloquence by better bloggers than I. (See the listings on the right of the page, for examples.)
For some reason, I felt I could not trust my instincts regarding what was good or bad. I've never been very good about ignoring nuance and rendering issues into neat little black and white arguments. What little skills I did have in that area seemed to have diminished, to the point where I had a severe case of the "Liberal Disease". I found I couldn't take one side or another, without considering all sides of an issue.
I mean, dropping Sadam Hussein through a trap door with a thick rope around his neck and having the whole drama on the internet within an hour or two...was that good? Bad? Or, a little of both?
Then, there were those issues of lessor consequence, at least from a World View, like the unseasonably warm weather here in Central Florida, the sudden proliferation of those blow-up Christmas lawn ornaments that have popped up all over my neighborhood (frosty in a giant beachball, they look like to me.), or the fact that my old Alma Mater's team is in Arizona to play for the the Championship of College Football.
Go Gators!
No, I was just meandering into the New Year with nothing to say, until a strange statement from an even stranger little man got my attention. No, I'm not talking about Seinfeld Alum/apparent racist Michael Richards.
I'm talking about highly paid Tele-preacher/apparent nutjob Pat Robertson.
It seems, the Virginia-based Reverend is conversing with God again, and has decided to pass along a few pearls of wisdom from The Almighty.
In short, God says "You're all gonna die!"
OK, so maybe not ALL of you (or all of US, if I may be so inclusive) will be part of what Robertson is calling a "mass killing" sometime after September of this year.
But it is gonna happen, because God told him so.
It's been years since I got out of Catholic School, and I'm no Biblical Scholar, but I'm pretty certain that Rev. Pat may have violated at least 20 percent of the 10 commandments this time around. You know, the ones about "bearing false witness" and "taking the Lord thy God's name in vain"?
Ok, despite my scepticism, maybe the conversation did actually take place...and maybe it went something like this;

GOD (voice of Michael Richards); You're not going to believe this, Patty-Pat...I mean, this is the truth comin' right atcha! (makes a bizzarre hand gesture)...I have worked up the biggest, the BEST death and destruction scenario you are ever gonna see, Jerry!

PAT (voice of Don Knotts); It's Pat, Lord.

GOD; What is?

Pat; My name...It's Pat, not Jerry.

GOD; Wha? Oh, relax, I just got you mixed up with Falwell.

And so on , and so forth...actually, I can imagine Pat on his knees in prayer, and God bursts in the door without knocking.
But I'll leave that for the screen play.

***
The fact is, I was being too hard on myself, expecting to make the perfect comment on serious events...But now I realize that any comment is better than no comment at all.
As they say in Indiana; "I'm gonna have me some fun with this here blogstream thingamajig in 2007!"
Now to catch up on my friends here on the stream...it's comment time!