For the past few weeks, I've noticed a weird little verbal tic creeping into the general river of conversation. Usually, it occurs when I'm in a purchasing situation, when someone is providing a good or service, and when I provide something as slight as a phone number, the immediate response is, "Perfect!"
Really? Perfect? What exactly is perfect? That I could rattle off my phone number to you without forgetting a digit? That I could respond to you at all? What, please, is perfect?
And then I have to relax. On the Left Coast, everyone seeks perfection, whatever that means. If they can grant you a little with the verbal pat on the head, then they're willing to help you feel better. This is, "perfection" is a damn scary thing. Everything else falls short. And I don't need that reminder, to be perfectly frank.
16 June 2010
09 June 2010
New favorite website
Courtesy of the awesomest astrologer in the university, Rob Brezney, my new favorite.
You will love it.
You will love it.
08 June 2010
In defense of Helen Thomas
As if she needs any, as she's been duking it out with the big dogs for longer than I've been alive. But watching the hyenas giggling and drooling with glee over the end of her 60 years in journalism is beyond disgusting.
A rabbi at a White House event celebrating "Jewish Heritage" sticks a camera in the face of an 89-year-old newspaper columnist and asks for her opinion on Israel. She gives one that is entirely in keeping with her long-held and frequently expressed views, which have always ridden on the outside edge of the tiny, polite circle of words sanctioned for use in Washington.
This video appears on the YouWeb because the 17-year-old son of said rabbi apparently has nothing better to do than post videos of old women giving their opinions. Even more Jews take offense at this opinion, and they scream loud enough for her employer to give her the ax. (Anyone who thinks Helen would ever "retire" is dumber than dirt.) Then comes the truly courageous piling-on -- the canceling of a high-school commencement speech (to a largely Jewish audience), the ridiculous scolding from the bunny rabbits in charge of the White House Correspondents' Circle Jerk, then the shameful parting of the ways with her speakers bureau, which was created more than 20 years ago because Helen felt sorry for the woman who ran it and signed on as the only client.
Hooray for all you brave, noble sorts who believe you've struck a blow for Israel and for all Jews everywhere by mugging an old woman for giving her opinion. Then again, you all have been aiming at her for years. Because anyone who says anything that some Jew somewhere might find offensive must be drummed out of the human race. (You're not hearing anyone call her an anti-Semite, are you? A chocolate bunny to the person who can tell me why ...) Thanks, too, for all the spineless lapdogs of the White House "press corps" who ever rolled their eyes at a Helen question. Not a single one of you is fit to take obits.
Helen Thomas has done more for this country than most of the rabble inside the Beltway times 50. Unlike most of the jokers who claim to have any insight into the Middle East these days, she was actually alive when the State of Israel was created. She remembers that the chaos that flowed from that human act caused untold suffering and misery . . . and that the people who went to the newly formed State of Israel came from . . . oh, I don't know . . . Poland, Germany and America, to name only a few. So 61 years later, at a White House event celebrating "Jewish Heritage," here's a woman who is thinking about how modern Jewish Heritage came to be . . .
Frankly, I think it was damn brave of her to tell men wearing yarmulkes at a White House event celebrating "Jewish Heritage" that Israel should get the hell out of Palestine. But that's what you want in an opinion columnist -- someone who is going to give you an opinion.
I love you, Helen. Hang tough, girl.
A rabbi at a White House event celebrating "Jewish Heritage" sticks a camera in the face of an 89-year-old newspaper columnist and asks for her opinion on Israel. She gives one that is entirely in keeping with her long-held and frequently expressed views, which have always ridden on the outside edge of the tiny, polite circle of words sanctioned for use in Washington.
This video appears on the YouWeb because the 17-year-old son of said rabbi apparently has nothing better to do than post videos of old women giving their opinions. Even more Jews take offense at this opinion, and they scream loud enough for her employer to give her the ax. (Anyone who thinks Helen would ever "retire" is dumber than dirt.) Then comes the truly courageous piling-on -- the canceling of a high-school commencement speech (to a largely Jewish audience), the ridiculous scolding from the bunny rabbits in charge of the White House Correspondents' Circle Jerk, then the shameful parting of the ways with her speakers bureau, which was created more than 20 years ago because Helen felt sorry for the woman who ran it and signed on as the only client.
Hooray for all you brave, noble sorts who believe you've struck a blow for Israel and for all Jews everywhere by mugging an old woman for giving her opinion. Then again, you all have been aiming at her for years. Because anyone who says anything that some Jew somewhere might find offensive must be drummed out of the human race. (You're not hearing anyone call her an anti-Semite, are you? A chocolate bunny to the person who can tell me why ...) Thanks, too, for all the spineless lapdogs of the White House "press corps" who ever rolled their eyes at a Helen question. Not a single one of you is fit to take obits.
Helen Thomas has done more for this country than most of the rabble inside the Beltway times 50. Unlike most of the jokers who claim to have any insight into the Middle East these days, she was actually alive when the State of Israel was created. She remembers that the chaos that flowed from that human act caused untold suffering and misery . . . and that the people who went to the newly formed State of Israel came from . . . oh, I don't know . . . Poland, Germany and America, to name only a few. So 61 years later, at a White House event celebrating "Jewish Heritage," here's a woman who is thinking about how modern Jewish Heritage came to be . . .
Frankly, I think it was damn brave of her to tell men wearing yarmulkes at a White House event celebrating "Jewish Heritage" that Israel should get the hell out of Palestine. But that's what you want in an opinion columnist -- someone who is going to give you an opinion.
I love you, Helen. Hang tough, girl.
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