goddess of clarity: a blog about politics, culture, and serenity

Archive: August 1 - August 31, 2007

August 29, 2007 —21:18 EDT

Quote of the Day

Mr Goddess, eyeing the menu at our local Greek restaurant:

I want the vegetarian combo, but with chicken.

—lori.

August 27, 2007 —19:40 EDT

Unflattering Politician Photo of the Week

Alberto-To-Go-Go Edition

Big up yourself, sukkas. Booyakasha!

After low ratings and poor performances, "Da Ali G Show" has finally been cancelled in Washington DC. Attorney General Alberto "Fredo" Gonzales has suddenly felt the need to spend more time with his family.

Gonzales has been responsible for some of the more interesting moments of the Bush administration, and by "interesting" I mean "infuriatingly cynical if not criminal." A recent favorite: Gonzales answers that he "cannot recall" more than 70 times in one hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee investigating the suspect firings of eight US Attorneys General. Maybe if the good senators were able to administer some of the "interrogation techniques" Gonzales recommended for use against enemy combatants, they'd have more luck jogging his memory.

How many different ways can you say, "I don't remember."

1. I don't remember.
2. I don't recall.
3. Nope, that's not ringing any bells.
4. I forget.
5. That one must have fallen through the cracks.
6. We've been having problems with our email.
7. Wow, I totally spaced on that, man. Sorry, dude.
8. I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached.
9. My bad.
10. I was really drunk that night, Senator.

—lori.

August 24, 2007 —20:26 EDT

Monday was my birthday, and though I didn't need any outside confirmation of the fact that I am officially old, confirmation came in the form of this week's Rolling Stone magazine. (Did you ever start getting a magazine, and you have no idea why, and you don't remember ever paying for it, yet there it is, in your mailbox, week after week? That's Rolling Stone in our house.)

On the back page of each issue of Rolling Stone is a list of the current top ten hits in these United States. This week, they are as follows:

1. Sean Kingston, "Beautiful Girls"
2. Plain White Ts, "Hey There Delilah"
3. Timbaland, "The Way I Are"
4. Fergie, "Big Girls Don't Cry"
5. Akon, "Sorry, Blame It On Me"
6. Rihanna, "Umbrella"
7. Rihanna, "Shut Up and Dance"
8. Hurricane Chris, "A Bay Bay"
9. Aly and AJ, "Potential Breakup Song"
10. Shop Boyz, "Party Like a Rockstar"

Now, I've at least heard of Timbaland and Fergie, but I don't think I could pick the rest of these guys out of a lineup, let alone bop along to one of their tunes.

Continuing down the back page of Rolling Stone I see -- as if to mock me on my birthday -- the "From the Vault" section, listing the top ten songs from this week 20 years ago. August 20, 1987. I was 16, and I had a cast on my foot because I'd slipped on someone's bottle of contact lens solution and fallen down the school bus steps. Yeah, I was smooth.

1. U2, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
2. Madonna, "Who's That Girl"
3. George Michael, "I Want Your Sex"
4. Suzanne Vega, "Luka"
5. Los Lobos, "La Bamba"
6. T'Pau, "Heart and Soul"
7. Richard Marx, "Don't Mean Nothing"
8. The Jets, "Cross My Broken Heart"
9. Debbie Gibson, "Only in My Dreams"
10. Gloria Estafan and the Miami Sound Machine, "Rhythm Is Gonna Get You"

Not only do I know all these songs, I could sing you any one of them. "My name is Luka / I live on the second floor / I live upstairs from you / Yeah I think you've seen me before."

See, old. I'm officially a curmudgeon. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the parlor room to listen to some musical numbers on the Victrola.

—lori.

August 14, 2007 —19:38 EDT

Unflattering Politician Photo of the Week

Exit Stage Far-Right Edition

Ah, buck up there, little turd blossom. Don't cry. I'm sure now you'll have plenty of time to start vicious rumors about your friends and neighbors. C'mon, there. Who's my little soldier?

Some things you may not have known about Karl Rove, the president's right-hand man, who resigned yesterday leaving the president to use his left-hand.

• His middle name is "Christian" and he was born on Christmas Day.
• President Bush's father fired Rove from his own presidential campaign in 1984 for leaking information to columnist Robert Novak. So it's a good thing he learned his lesson, huh?
• Rove bugged his own office during a Texas gubernatorial campaign, then called the FBI in an attempt to smear rival Democracts.
• Rove dropped out of the University of Utah in 1970 to take the paid position of executive director of the College Republicans. He dropped back in on occasion, from 1971 to 1973, when the military draft ended.
• Rove enjoys parties, temper tantrums, whispering campaigns, old movies, and crushing others' will to live.

—lori.

August 9, 2007 —20:19 EDT

Barry "Horse Steroids -- Allegedly" Bonds broke baseball's all-time homerun record last night, finally putting an end to the question of whether performance enhancing drugs actually enhance performance.

There are those fans out there who say, "Hey! Leave the poor multi-millionaire athlete alone! Can't you see he's suffered enough? Besides, we don't know that he used steroids or human growth hormone or moose laxatives. Nobody's proved that he's guilty of anything."

To those fans, I offer one fact: Barry Bonds' feet have gotten bigger. His shoe size has increased from size 10 1/2 to size 13 in the last 9 years. I've been a size 8 1/2 since I was 15 years old. Your feet don't just start to grow when your hit 32, unless you're repeatedly beating them with meat tenderizers. Or unless you are injecting yourself with meat tenderizers.

Don't take my word for it. These dramatic photos don't lie.

Barry Bonds Then	Barry Bonds Now

Barry Bonds In The Future

—lori.