I have sneezles and a coldish. I don’t understand this. I never get sick. I just got over being sick which I never get, never isn’t due to roll around again for like, three years.
Going to bed. The blogosphere must carry on without me.
Archive for Deborah Lipp
No Reasoning Here, We’re Partisan!
Per Alas (a Blog) I find this article on lack of thinking among partisan men.
It seems if you’re partisan (either Democrat or Republican) then, when faced with a contradiction between your candidate’s words and deeds, you don’t engage the reasoning part of your brain.
Not that I’m surprised.
Monday Movie Review: Munich
Munich 10/10
After Black September murders eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics in 1972, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meier authorizes the creation of a covert assassination squad to avenge the deaths.
Steven Spielberg has created a masterful work. It is moving without being manipulative, disturbing without being grotesque; it shows great restraint and bravado excess.
The arguments against this film seem to be three: That it is too anti-Israel, that it is too pro-Israel, and that it is historically false. One would hope the very fact that the first two arguments co-exist would cancel them out, but that’s probably optimistic. » Read more..
The world is less smart and funny today
Wendy Wasserstein has died. Wasserstein was probably best known for her play Uncommon Women…and Others, a PBS version of which, starring Swoozie Kurtz, Meryl Streep, and others, used to play in virtual perpetuity on TV.
I saw the brilliant The Heidi Chronicles with my mom on Broadway (it was her birthday gift to me). I cried at the scene where Heidi complains about feminism being swallowed up by the next generation’s indifference. A few years later, also for my birthday, mom and I saw The Sisters Rosensweig, and we joked that we’d do this every year that a new Wasserstein play was out. Now I guess we won’t anymore.
Wasserstein wrote with humor and insight about feminism, and she had a unique voice about what we now call “Will and Grace” relationships; about the connections between straight women and gay men (she also wrote the screenplay for The Object of My Affection).
She made my life richer. Funnier. Smarter. I’m sad she’s gone. May she be born again among us.
Target Does the Right Thing
From Pandagon I learn that Target is doing the right thing, and has fired a pharmacist for refusing to fill a Plan B prescription, and even refusing to refer customers to another pharmacist.
Since I had previously written to complain to Target, I now have written to thank them:
Dear Target:
In choosing to fire a pharmacist for refusing to do her job, Target has done the right thing. I applaud your decision and am happy to shop in my local Target.
Kind regards,
Deborah Lipp
It’s not easy to find contact information, by the way, but through long and arduous menu clicking, I eventually found an email form.
Kitten-blogging (pretend it’s not Sunday, ‘kay?)
They wanted to be blogged, so what’s a couple of days between friends. (Next week, the Gods willing, we return to our regular Friday schedule.)
I keep baskets on the dining room table. Cats like baskets.
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Finally!
Finally have my sites restored to the new hard drive, so I can start updating. The Events page now lists the Conference in Brazil (and not much else, but it’s early yet; the bookings will pick up in February or March) and I tidied up the home page on my main site.
Now I have to get work on the James Bond site.
Kittens to Mom: But we WANT to be blogged
Let’s see. Went to the movies last night and got home tennish. Started the process of installing Dreamweaver. Halfway through, my mousies died. No mousie. And actually, there’s a lot you can do without a mousie, but one thing you can’t do, it turns out, is use Help windows. You can use F1 to open help and Tab to move through the Table of Contents, but you can’t Tab over to the help text to make it scroll down. So I couldn’t finish setting up Dreamweaver to manage the website, because I couldn’t remember all the steps.
Anyway, so I thought I’d at least ftp some kittenism from work. Plugged my camera into my work computer and got the pics, but it turns out my ftp site is blocked by the corporate firewall. (Sounds like a job for Harrison Ford.)
So allow me to assure you they’re still cute.
Ten Views I Hold Without Evidence
Because memes are the fun.
1. That Watusi is out there somewhere, looking for the perfect kill, and when that bird is dead, dead, dead, she will come home.
2. That the Democrats will win back Congress this year. (Okay, there’s some evidence, but the stars they are in my eyes.)
3. That I am, yes indeed, the hottest hottie in Hottenville, despite weighing 100 pounds more than when I was 22. This is only fair, since when I was 22 I had no idea I was a hottie, and I thought all those passes I got were flukes. So now that I know I was a hottie then, when I had evidence, it’s only right that I also know I’m a hottie now, without evidence.
4. People are basically good.
5. Coincidence isn’t.
6. I have good taste in clothing. Which, don’t ask.
7. People want to see my scars. Really. I come upon the notion, from time to time, that showing others my big, ugly, scary scars with staple marks is the height of social interaction. I suppose they’re an improvement on my clothing.
8. People want my advise. This is not unlike #7. While it is true that sometimes, on rare occasions which I find memorable and thrilling, someone actually asks my advise, it is largely the case that I give it, unsolicited, and then, noticing it has not been taken, give it again. The “not been taken??? part of the equation might constitute evidence to some, but my belief is unshakeable.
9. Vulgarity is next to godliness.
10. Cat people are better than dog people. They just are.
Did I mention “scary”?
A combination of two stories at AmericaBlog paint a picture of U.S. life inching rapidly towards totalitarianism:
First, a link to a NY Times article about changes in attitudes about using the Internet.
The government has been more aggressive recently in its efforts to obtain data on Internet activity, invoking the fight against terrorism and the prosecution of online crime. A surveillance program in which the National Security Agency intercepted certain international phone calls and e-mail in the United States without court-approved warrants prompted an outcry among civil libertarians. And under the antiterrorism USA Patriot Act, the Justice Department has demanded records on library patrons’ Internet use.
Those actions have put some Internet users on edge, as they confront the complications and contradictions of online life.
…
“It’s scary to think that it may just be a matter of time before Googling will invite an F.B.I. agent to tap your phone or interrogate you,” Ms. Farrell said.
You almost have to ask: If people are nervous about their private reading in their private homes, in what way are we free?
Second, the juxtaposition of two headlines paints a dark picture of priorities in the legal system:
War Protester Sentenced to 6 Months for Damaging Upstate Recruiting Station
vs.
No Prison Time for Soldier Held in Iraqi’s Death
