'Out Of Gas'
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
Re: politics
I was overhearing 2 black people on my bus talking about Obama, and they were really hung up on his name. Not necessarily the Osama/Obama thing, but that it wasn't "a black man's name" so they weren't sure if they would vote for him.
Another lady predicted that he would get elected and then assasinated, because "they wouldn't let a black man be president". Which, after I thought about it, didn't seem all that unlikely.
the way the really serious HRC-haters talk about her is almost exactly the way they talk about Saddam Hussein.
What I'm hoping is that she'll have the money to do as much in-person campaigning as possible and be able to win over right-of-center women to her side. My impression (which may be completely wrongheaded) is that a fair sized portion of the right wing knows that they're supposed to hate her, but are a little fuzzy on remembering exactly why.
Honestly? As best I can tell, they spent so many years listening to the right wing machine demonize her as this crazy ultra liberal feminist who wants to take your children away to be raised by a village of gay people, or something.
There's other stuff going on too, of course, most of it I think related to the underlying misogyny that a lot of people try to pretend is a thing of the past. She wears pants! She has policy opinions and seems to think that she deserves a role in government just because she sleeps with the president! We didn't elect her!
Nevermind that she was as qualified as any other cabinet member or other appointed role. In some quarters there was just such an outrage that HRC failed to adhere to her traditional First Lady role that it set off years of demonizing her every move simply to justify the virulence of the reaction and make it something other than what it was.
The upshot is that to this day, there are tons of people in this country who simply aren't rational on the subject, in the sense that their perception of her postion on the political continum is quite at odds with reality. And I don't how that changes.
[Among rational people, of course, there are plenty of reasons to either support or oppose her depending on your own bent on the issues or HRC as a person/candidate/politician. But the rabidity on the right is a whole other thing.]
But do authors normally have to register? Allyson--ask Hec or Deb if they have. I guess, if they do, that the party issuing the 1099 might be the trigger.
Someone recently told me that the City of LA requires professional writers to have a business license. If you make less than a certain amount, you can file for an exemption, as long as you do it before the end of February.
Allyson, here's the page about the exemption.
Awesome quote:
"'Politics' is made up of two words. 'Poli,' which is Greek for 'many,' and 'tics,' which are bloodsucking insects." Gore Vidal
New favorite Giuliani-related article. The reporters call Chuck Grassley "butthead": [link]
My impression (which may be completely wrongheaded) is that a fair sized portion of the right wing knows that they're supposed to hate her, but are a little fuzzy on remembering exactly why.
I think Brenda summed it up very precisely.
Has Nilly finally gotten to see snow?
Nilly finally gotten to take a peek at b.org during working hours. And to be surprised and touched that Tom thought of her (and surprised to find out that ynet has an English version). But, no, no snow. It was in Jerusalem, the mountains up north (where Hil saw snow last year when she was in Israel) and some of the higher places in the south and around Jerusalem. Here we had only rain and hail.
In Jerusalem and up north they had snow days (yesterday and today), no school, the university canceled lessons, the whole thing. And it was funny to remember some of the descriptions from you guys regarding your snow days, and compare (um, you have much more of a winter than we do, in case it wasn't clear).
Hi Nilly! What have you been up to these days?
what kinda makes me crazy is that the extreme right WILL motivate against someone and vote for a candiate they don't really like just to oppose someone else, but many of the extreme left won't - they instead work against the centrist or left of center candidate for not being left ENOUGH.
who am I kidding with that "kinda" above, it makes me INSANE. I want to take all the people who were apathetic and said "doesn't matter who wins now, they both suck" in 04 out back and brand them with "It's my fault we had 8 years of W".