Black Monday …

... and I am once again ashamed to live in a country that murders people in an alleged attempt to fight crime.

From the Associated Press:

A double murderer who said he didn't want to be known as a number became the 1,000th person executed in the United States since capital punishment resumed 28 years ago.

...

"Maybe Kenneth Boyd won't have died in vain, in a way, because I believe the more people think about the death penalty and are exposed to it, the more they don't like it," said Stephen Dear, executive director of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty.

"Any attention to the death penalty is good because it's a filthy, rotten system," he said.

iTunes is currently playing: The Mob Song from the album Beauty And The Beast by Walt Disney Music Company.

Why third world countries are …

... third world countries!

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has urged families in Venezuela not to mark Halloween, calling it a U.S. custom alien to the South American nation, the BBC reported this weekend.

"Families go and begin to disguise their children as witches. This is contrary to our way," Mr Chavez said during his weekly radio and TV show.

He also said Halloween was a "game of terror."

Chavez is known as a fierce critic of the U.S. government and President Bush personally.

iTunes is currently playing: Ghost Story from the album Brand New Day by Sting.

i’m as patriotic as the next guy …

... but red, white, and blue POP TARTS?? i'm sorry, but that is just too gross.



iTunes is currently playing: America from the album West Side Story- Original Broadway Cast by Chita Rivera & Marilyn Cooper.

a lesson for the rest of us

During the last year of his life, the late Bob Denver underwent a quadruple heart bypass and suffered from cancer. Yet when asked in a recent interview to describe his best and worst memories, he responded, "I have no worst experiences."

Rest in peace, little buddy.

iTunes is currently playing: Rest For The Weary from the album The Rainy Season by Marc Cohn.

who are you and what have you done …

... with the REAL Donna Brazile??

from WashingtonPost.com:

I Will Rebuild With You, Mr. President

[snip]

On Thursday night President Bush spoke to the nation from my city. I am not a Republican. I did not vote for George W. Bush -- in fact, I worked pretty hard against him in 2000 and 2004. But on Thursday night, after watching him speak from the heart, I could not have been prouder of the president and the plan he outlined to empower those who lost everything and to rebuild the Gulf Coast.

[snip]

iTunes is currently playing: A Change Of Heart from the album A Change Of Heart by David Sanborn.

If you think your mother is a pain in the ass …

... listen to the sample cuts on "Amy's Answering Machine" Volume 1 & 2 (available individually or as a 2CD set) by Amy Borkowsky. When you stop laughing, you'll probably decide that your mom isn't so bad after all.

iTunes is currently playing: Mother Stands For Comfort from the album Hounds Of Love by Kate Bush.

Imagine paying $3.19 a gallon for gas …

... and feeling as if you got a bargain! But I do.

Every station in town is at $3.29 except for this one sleazy, independent place. Normally, I wouldn't stop there since they have antique pumps that don't take credit cards (meaning you have to go inside twice -- once to give them your credit card before you pump and then to sign the receipt when you are done) and they devote more space to drug paraphernalia than to junk food. But I hate that these other guys are gouging people just because they can.

I'm also glad that I was filling up my little Scion xA and not the GMC Yukon at the next pump.

iTunes is currently playing: Driving from the album The Language Of Life by Everything But The Girl.

What Tracfone doesn’t want you to know

If you have a digital Tracfone (pay-as-you-go cell phone), your friends can leave you voicemail messages. On the Tracfone web site, they tell you how to listen to your messages using your Tracfone. They do not, however, tell you how to retrieve messages from another phone. The reason is simple. They want you to use up your minutes listening to your voicemail from your cell phone so you will buy more Tracfone cards and spend more money.

You can retrieve your messages from any other phone using the same method that other cell phone companies offer. Just dial your Tracfone number. When your voicemail greeting starts to play, punch in * (asterisk/star) followed by your passcode/pin. The greeting stops and in a few seconds you will be told if you have new messages, just as if you had called in on your Tracfone and no minutes are deducted from your balance.

iTunes is currently playing: Lost You In The Canyon from the album Live in Long Branch [legal bootleg] by Marc Cohn.

The job offers must be just rolling in for this guy

Imad Hamdi, former head of European security for Liza Minelli and her estranged husband, David Guest, says he has written a book about their marriage called "Liza and Her Diseases" and that "Two major European publishers are bidding on it right now."

While the 27-year-old Hamdi waits for his book to be published, he provides security for Saudi princes, unnamed celebs and other VIPs who, he says, "rely on my discretion."

iTunes is currently playing: Have You Heard from the album Besancon France - July 8, 1991 (bootleg) by Pat Metheny Group.

Want to be cursed at by teenagers?

Teach high school students at the Weavers School in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire [UK].

A secondary school is to allow pupils to swear at teachers - as long as they don't do so more than five times in a lesson. A running tally of how many times the f-word has been used will be kept on the board. If a class goes over the limit, they will be 'spoken' to at the end of the lesson.

iTunes is currently playing: Things We've Handed Down from the album The Rainy Season by Marc Cohn.

if you have a boring baby …

... turn him into an iPod!

The [iPod accessories] craze has even spread to clothing -- for infants. One Web site, iPodmybaby.com, sells multicolored baby jumpers with the familiar iPod scroll wheel on the front, for people who want their children to look like life-size music players. The site has made more than 1,000 sales since it launched a couple of weeks ago, according to Dave Schroeder of Reston, who co-founded the business.



iTunes is currently playing: God Bless The Child from the album Ken Burns Jazz Collection: Billie Holiday by Billie Holiday.

here is an example of why ….

... i am sometimes embarrassed to tell people i lived in California for twenty years. if Dianne Feinstein thinks the San Francisco city supervisors are out there, you know they must really be out there.

The USS Iowa joined in battles from World War II to Korea to the Persian Gulf. It carried President Franklin Roosevelt home from the Teheran conference of allied leaders, and four decades later, suffered one of the nation's most deadly military accidents.

Veterans groups and history buffs had hoped that tourists in San Francisco could walk the same teak decks where sailors dodged Japanese machine-gun fire and fired 16-inch guns that helped win battles across the South Pacific.

Instead, it appears that the retired battleship is headed about 80 miles inland, to Stockton, a gritty agricultural port town on the San Joaquin River and home of California's annual asparagus festival.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a former San Francisco mayor, helped secure $3 million to tow the Iowa from Rhode Island to the Bay Area in 2001 in hopes of making touristy Fisherman's Wharf its new home.

But city supervisors voted 8-3 last month to oppose taking in the ship, citing local opposition to the Iraq war and the military's stance on gays, among other things.

"If I was going to commit any kind of money in recognition of war, then it should be toward peace, given what our war is in Iraq right now," Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said.

Feinstein called it a "very petty decision."

"This isn't the San Francisco that I've known and loved and grew up in and was born in," Feinstein said.

iTunes is currently playing: Life During Wartime from the album Fear Of Music by Talking Heads.

Good things come to those who wait

As a Mac user who fell in love with Konfabulator, I was upset when Apple built their own widget system from scratch instead of buying the original from its developers. Looks like the guys will come out alright after all.

iTunes is currently playing: Better Days Ahead from the (bootleg) album Besancon France - July 8, 1991 by Pat Metheny Group.

Liz Smith on the Katie Holmes Interview

"W MAGAZINE has the scariest piece of celebrity journalism in a long time. Yes, indeed, I do mean the Katie Holmes interview. You must read every word. It is true that most writers arrive with their own spin — and not necessarily the correct spin. But if Robert Haskell's report is even half of what Miss Holmes said, didn't say, and allowed her Scientologist "friend" to say for her, this July profile becomes immediately immortal. It will be used as the prototype alarm-ringing article if Tom Cruise and Miss Holmes don't live happily ever after."

iTunes is currently playing: Baby, We're Really In Love from the album 24 Greatest Hits by Hank Williams.

26 going on 15

"Tom and I will always be in our honeymoon phase," Katie Holmes says in an interview with W magazine, on newsstands July 22.

iTunes is currently playing: When I Grow Up from the album Short Sharp Shocked by Michelle Shocked.

file under “Read It and Weep”

A Fox News poll asked viewers whether Bill O'Reilly is a journalist or not. 40% said yes. When asked the same question of Bob Woodward, just 30% answered yes.

iTunes is currently playing: I Don't Wanna Know from the album Simple Things by Richie Havens.

I wish I ate pizza …

... so I could boycott Pizza Hut.

From today's L.A.Times:
Steve Harvey: Only in L.A.

'And Would You Like a Reminder of Your Age With the Pizza?'

"Getting old is getting old," said Alvin Ellis, age 63, "but who wants to be reminded of it while dining at Pizza Hut?" Ellis was referring to a sales receipt he received at an L.A. eatery that identified him and his 79-year-old companion as "A Old Man and A Old Woman" (see accompanying).

Ellis complained at the time, and said he was told by the cashier that she was sorry but that "it was to assist her in remembering who had placed the order." He talked to the cashier's supervisor, and was told she also was sorry but that it happened "to be the way they do things here."

Finally, he phoned the company's complaint line and was told that the identification was not "appropriate" and that the cost of his meal would be refunded. More than 60 days later, he said, he still hasn't received the refund.

iTunes is currently playing: What Goes Around from the album Too Far To Whisper by Shadowfax.

If I open my windows …

... and turn my stereo up really loud and you sit outside in your car listening to my music, are you breaking the law?

It seems to me that if someone is dumb enough to set up a wireless network and leave it open to the world... oh, well ...

iTunes is currently playing: Steal Me Blind from the album Alf by Alison Moyet.

A Blast from the Past (almost)

I went to a concert/dance tonight. (For those who find that hard to believe, I have the video to prove it! Someone even asked me to dance. Imagine that :) )

A local band called Together played at the East Chicago Marina (near the floating casinos). I never knew that East Chicago had a marina. Maybe it is new (as in "built since I moved away in 1979").

In any case, the band was great. They played soul from the 60's (Temptations, the Dells, Rare Earth...) along with salsa, Sinatra, and a bit of disco thrown in for good measure. Robin says that some of the guys played with the Enchanters, a band we danced to in high school. If I ever throw a party with live music, I'll get these guys to play.

Here is a picture of a little girl who attended the concert but was more interested in the fireworks show which was to follow the music and dancing. Isn't she cute?



iTunes is currently playing: Dance Away from the album Heart Still Beating by Roxy Music.

Dear Brooke Shields:

Tom Cruise is a f***ing idiot and everybody knows it.

As my mother always says, consider the source.

iTunes is currently playing: When Sunny Gets Blue from the album 16 Most Requested Songs by Johnny Mathis.

POSITIVELY GIDDY!

That's how I felt as I drove my new Scion xA off the dealer's lot.

Is it cute or what?!



iTunes is currently playing: Driving from the album The Language Of Life by Everything But The Girl.

Book Report: The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman

Do you think life sucks? Do you look around, take note of the pain that bombards us relentlessly as we move through life, and wonder why we don't all just blow our brains out and get it over with? If so, DO NOT read Alice Hoffman's "The Ice Queen". I cannot remember when I've read a drearier book. Not that the story and characters won't hold your interest. They will. But if you are prone to depression, you will pay the price for reading this book.

You have been warned.

iTunes is currently playing: Tears All Over Town from the album Idlewild by Everything But The Girl.

I Love Cemeteries

They contain so many stories, the details of which we can only guess. These gravestones, located near my family's plots in Northwest Indiana, are two of my favorites. I want to know so much more than what appears on the stones...





iTunes is currently playing: Lost Child (String Quartet Remix) from the album Moto.Tronic by Ryuichi Sakamoto.

No wonder he chose to write fiction

The current (March/April 2005) issue of Poets and Writers magazine includes an article about a young fiction writer from Thailand named Rattawut Lapcharoensap. The article says of Lapcharoensap, who recently published a collection of short stories called Sightseeing:

When he lived in Chicago, his parents frequently took in political dissidents and foreign refugees. One day, an old, scraggly man, a diswasher at a local restaurant, showed up and took over the family's couch. Lapcharoensap asked his mother who the man was and what kind of work he did. "He's a poet," his mother replied.

iTunes is currently playing: The Book I Read from the album Live at the Sun Palace (Tokyo) by Talking Heads.

2+ mil for the lawyer, 49 cents for the plaintiff

An interesting article in today's L.A. Times explains how sleazy lawyers get rich by filing class action lawsuits and then negotiate settlements that give them millions while giving each "injured" party less than a dollar. Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that many of the plaintiffs don't even know they are a party to the action until they get a check that isn't worth cashing. Strange but true...

iTunes is currently playing: The Game from the album Another Place by Hiroshima.

How can we get reporters to stop talking to this guy?

From Drudge:
En route to Rome, Clinton told reporters the pope centralized authority in the papacy again and enforced a very conservative theological doctrine. "There will be debates about that. The number of Catholics increased by 250 million on his watch. But the numbers of priests didn't. He's like all of us - he may have a mixed legacy."

iTunes is currently playing: Your Cheatin' Heart from the album 24 Greatest Hits by Hank Williams.

Zogby has restored my faith in mankind.

A Zogby poll completed after the controversial death of Terri Schiavo finds that eight-in-ten (80%) likely voters say that a disabled person who is not terminally ill or in a coma, and not being kept alive by life support should not, in the absence of a written directive to the contrary, be denied food and water.

By a three-to-one (44% to 14%) margin, likely voters say that, when there is conflicting evidence on the wishes of a patient, elected officials
should order that a feeding tube remain in place.

The same poll also finds a majority (56%) agree that Schiavo's husband Michael should have turned guardianship for the severely-disabled woman over to her parents based on his decision to have a long-term serious relationship with another woman.

By a two-to-one (44% to 24%) margin, with one-in-three (32%) undecided, the survey finds that an incapacitated person should be presumed to want to live in the absence of written instructions such as a living will.

iTunes is currently playing: Life Holds On from the album Beth Nielsen Chapman by Beth Nielsen Chapman.

I spoke too soon.

Drudge has switched to one of those ghoulish images of the dead Pope. Sigh ...

iTunes is currently playing: Never Die Young from the album Never Die Young by James Taylor.

Is anyone else creeped out …

... by all the lying-in-state pictures of the Pope that are splashed across the home pages of most of the major news web sites? Thank God for Drudge, who has the good taste to instead show a collection of touching newspaper and magazine covers bidding John Paul a fond adieu.



(Interesting tidbit I learned while verifying the spelling of adieu: While we use the word to mean farewell, it is derived from "a dieu" which was Old French -- and later, Old English -- for "I commend you to God.")

iTunes is currently playing: Goodbye from the album Lost In Translation by Kevin Shields.

My Blogging Tool of Choice

I use a nifty blogging utility called ecto. (I use the Mac version, but they have a Windows version, too.) The Wordpress interface makes it pretty easy to create and edit posts with a browser, but there are many advantages to using a full-featured blogging tool like ecto.

ecto is inexpensive ($17.95 for either version) and you can use it for a couple weeks before you buy to make sure you like it. The developer is constantly updating it and is very responsive to support questions, etc. If you do a lot of blogging, take it for a spin. Highly recommended!

iTunes is currently playing: Something To Talk About from the album Luck Of The Draw by Bonnie Raitt.

haiku for a rainy day

THE JERSEY SHORE

torrents fall on house.
cats run in all directions
dreaming of L.A.

Kathy Hand
9/13/03

iTunes is currently playing: I Think It's Going To Rain Today from the album Guilty: 30 Years Of Randy Newman (Disc 1) by Randy Newman.

Well, the flowers got water, didn’t they.

During an interview with CNN, Brian Schiavo [brother of Michael] called the Rev. Frank Pavone, a Catholic priest and close friend of the Schindler family, "a poor excuse of a priest, I'll tell you that. ... He made a comment that said the flowers in Terri's room were being treated better than she is."

iTunes is currently playing: Cold, Cold Heart from the album 24 Greatest Hits by Hank Williams.

I grew up in Northwest Indiana …

... but I never knew that Kendallville, a small town in the northeast section of the state, was the WINDMILL Capital of the world! Read about it here (courtesy of CNN).

iTunes is currently playing: Only Way Home from the album A Drop Of Water by Keiko Matsui.

Fun Web Sites

I have found a number of web sites where you can add your own text to an image of a sign or some other object to create a personalized image for your own use. Some sites offer you the opportunity to buy magnets made from your images. Here are some examples. Visit and enjoy!

THE ACME LICENSE PLATE MAKER



THE ACME HEART MAKER



THE ACME LABEL MAKER



ATOM SMASHER'S ERROR MESSAGE GENERATOR



CHURCH SIGN GENERATOR



iTunes is currently playing: Getting Some Fun Out Of Life from the boxed set Portrait (Disc 4: Past Perfect) by Billie Holiday.

That about sums it up.

Reuters quotes a gentleman outside Terri Schiavo's Pinellas Park (FL) hospice shortly after her death:

"Well they got their way," said a grizzled New York City man who gave his name as "Lifeboat" and knelt clutching a wooden rosary. "We've become barbarians. We've lost our humanity in this country."

Cool Earrings

I really like the software (WordPress) that I am using for this web site. In my quest for "plug-ins" (WordPress enhancements) that I can use to make the site even spiffier, I stumbled upon the web site of ScriptyGoddess, a young lady named Jennifer who is a php/WordPress script writer extraordinaire.

In addition to her programming prowess, she is also an artist. She has an online business called Above The Fold that sells beautiful handmade origami earrings, among other things. I ordered the butterfly earrings shown below, but she also makes lovely crane earrings. Click here to visit her store.

If starvation is so painless …

... why is Terri Schiavo on a morphine drip?

Schindler family attorney David C. Gibbs III said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that "They've begun giving her morphine drip for the pain.", according to the L.A. Times.

According to another article in the L.A.Times , some experts claim that "dying of starvation and dehydration is a peaceful end for the ill."

A third L.A. Times article says the following about a woman who allowed her son's feeding tube to be removed: For six days, [the mother] sat by her son's bed, watching him die. Blisters pocked his mouth and tongue. His frail body shook with muscle cramps. It was agonizing, she says now: "gruesome, prolonged." (This mother, incidently, believes that her decision to discontinue tube feeding was the right one for her son.)

Maybe the truth is that some people suffer horribly when deprived of food and others don't, and we won't know how a person will react until we stop feeding them.

Sometimes it seems as if …

... the Catholic Church WANTS to chase people away.

From ABCNews.com: Like many Catholic children, Haley Pelly-Waldman, 9, had looked forward to her first communion. ... Four years ago, the New Jersey girl was diagnosed with a rare digestive disorder called celiac disease, leaving her unable to eat wheat — not even the tiny amount in the wafer at the communion table. In order to accommodate Haley's medical condition, her priest substituted the wheat wafer with one made of rice. But ... the Diocese of Trenton, said, "Bread, to be valid matter for the eucharist, must be made solely of wheat." The local diocese ruled that Haley's first communion didn't count, and reprimanded the priest who gave her that rice wafer. [Read the complete story here.]

So a priest has the power to turn bread into the body of Christ during Mass, but not if the host is made of rice? If we want to get picky here, a host (even one made of wheat) isn't really BREAD, is it? It sure doesn't look like any bread I've ever eaten.

Where did these flat little wafers come from, anyway? Hundreds of years ago they didn't use them, right? So at some point, they switched from bread to wafers. And someone chiseled in stone that the wafer had to have wheat in it?

Is it just me or does it seem utterly ridiculous to exclude this devout little girl from experiencing the sacrament of Communion but to allow someone like Terri Schiavo, who is pretty much unaware of her surroundings, to partake?

testing123

xxxxxx

Who says Peeps are just for Easter?

If you look forward to finding yummy, chick-shaped Marshmallow Peeps in the stores around Easter, you might want to pick up the Marshmallow Peeps Marshmallow Maker Machine from Wham-o.

Yes, now you can have Peeps in a variety of shapes and colors all year round, assuming you are willing to concoct them yourself and then clean up the mess. (I like Peeps as much as the next guy -- okay, way more than the next guy -- but it seems like a lot of trouble to me!)

Burning The Daze

Burning The Daze
by Marc Cohn

Marc Cohn's albums are a great blend of rock, blues and ballads, with lyrics that put one in mind of Randy Newman's non-humorous songs (think "Same Girl" or "Baltimore"). It is easy to see why Cohn's fans are chomping at the bit for his long-promised fourth album.

---

Waking Hour by Vienna Teng

Waking Hour
by Vienna Teng

Singer-songwriter-pianist (and former computer programmer) Vienna Teng is opening for Marc Cohn as he tours this fall. If you get a chance to see her (with or without Grammy winner Marc "Walking in Memphis" Cohn), jump at the chance. She is amazing.

---

JT by James Taylor

JT
by James Taylor

"... no more grey mornings. I think I'd rather die ... "

James Taylor has put out so much good music over the years that it is hard to pick a favorite, but if I had to choose ... I think this would be it. The man is a god.

---

Gonna Wear Red by Wendy Woo

Gonna Wear Red
by Wendy Woo

One of these days Wendy Woo's career is going to move up to the next level and she'll finally get the national acclaim she deserves. Give her a listen.

---

Soothing the Savage Beast

Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland

Hey Nostradamus!
by Douglas Coupland

This novel by Vancouver-based author Douglas Coupland ("Microserfs") begins with a Columbine-like attack at a public high school. The opening chapter is narrated by one of the students who was murdered (a la "The Lovely Bones"). The rest of the book follows the lives of several people who were affected by the tragedy. Over a period of 15 years, we watch as they try to move past the events of that day. Some authors run out of steam after a few books. So far, Coupland is still going strong.

---

Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman

Blackbird House
by Alice Hoffman

A beautifully written collection of related stories about the families who live in a Cape Cod house during a 200 year period. If you haven't read Alice Hoffman before, you are in for a treat. If you have, you won't be disappointed.

---

A Girl Becomes A Comma Like That

A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That: A Novel

by Lisa Glatt

First novel from talented Long Beach (CA) poet Lisa Glatt. Her writing blew me away in the mid-80's (when we both attended CSULB as creative writing majors). Since then, she has only gotten better. I can't recommend "Comma" (and her poetry collections) highly enough.

---

Hostage by Robert Crais

Hostage

by Robert Crais

From the author of the Elvis Cole detective series (also highly recommended). A cop moves out to the 'burbs to forget about a hostage situation that ended badly but bad luck follows him to his new assignment. Bruce Willis stars as the tormented cop in the recently-released film version. You won't want to put this one down.

---

So many books … So little time …

Donnelly at the Yellow Balloon

To test the enhanced WordPress blog-by-email plug-in which allows one to post messages with inline graphics (written by John Blade) I selected this shot of Donnelly Jacobson (son of Ken and Nicole Jacobson) getting his first haircut at the Yellow Balloon on Ventura Blvd. If a picture appears below, it worked!

(You can download the plug-in here .)

Index of All Posts

(in reverse chronological order)

About Me

History Repeating

ON PAGE TWENTY-SIX

(for Nancy Cruzan)

the papers are filled with
talk of war and gasoline,
parched deserts and
banks gone bad.
the woman in missouri
hears none of this,
only the voices of
doctors and nurses,
judges and loved ones
squabbling over quality of life.

like them, i also had to choose.
i wonder still if i chose wisely.

some wait for houdini to return
with tales of the hereafter.
i wait for you to send word
that you concur with the courts,
that you are finally
and gratefully
at peace.

Kathy Hand
12/15/90

(Click here to read about Nancy Cruzan.)

iTunes is currently playing: History Repeating from the album Decksandrumsandrockandroll by Propellerheads & Miss Shirley Bassey.

What a lovely photo!

iTunes is currently playing: Stand And Fight from the album Dad Loves His Work by James Taylor.

How does one get nominated …

... to speak for the ENTIRE WORLD??? I think I'd like that job!

Actor Richard Gere has recorded a TV commercial urging Palestinians to vote in their election Sunday.

In a transcript obtained by The Associated Press, he said: "Hi, I'm Richard Gere, and I'm speaking for the entire world. We're with you during this election time. It's really important: Get out and vote."

Appearing with Gere in the spot are the head of the Islamic court in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the spokesman for the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem.

The spot is apparently an attempt to use both glamour and religion to get Palestinians to the polls. It will air soon. It's unclear what kind of sway Gere may have with Palestinians. One man who appeared with him in the spot said he'd never heard of Gere.

The ad will be aired on Palestinian TV and Arabic satellite channels in the next few days.

iTunes is currently playing: I Want Everyone To Like Me from the album Bad Love by Randy Newman.