From an Angry Wife

Dear Idiot Brother-in-law,

You are an ungrateful snot. Pay your god damned car note before you completely fuck up your brother's credit. If my husband and I can't buy a house or get a student loan because of YOU and your ridiculous need to drive a sports car, I will BEAT THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF YOU.

Don't ask us for Christmas or birthday presents anymore. Don't ask for "help" buying a motorcycle. Pay us back the money you already owe us (which is accruing interest, by the way), and start acting like a responsible adult instead of a hissy-fit-throwing child. How can you be so behind on your bills when YOU HAVE A FREE APARTMENT?!

You're a jackass and I can't stand you. Stop coming to the house when Bizarro Dad is not here.

Up yours,
Sleepless Mama

Dear Houston Rockets

You suck.

Nah, not really. You aren't that bad.

And I know the Denver Nuggets are a tough team, what with them being able to fly and all.

But you totally screwed up, Bettier, fouling that dude at 4.5 seconds left in double overtime.

I was willing to flash you if you'd won.

(Well, I was willing to flash the TV.)

BUT NO.

You can't hang on to a lead to save yourself from a titty-less existence.

So I'm just going to have to keep them right here under my shirt.

Do better next game, fellas.

Graphic courtesy of abc13.com.

Letter to a skank

Dear Whore-y Bitch,

That security guard you asked to walk you out to your car in the parking lot? Yeah, he's married.

Flirting with him was not a good idea.

Nor was hugging him.

And especially not the part where you shook your ass near his face three times when he bent down to turn on the escalator. Three times.

By the way, that last part was caught on tape. And replayed for everyone in the office to see.

Back the fuck off. Seriously. Back. The fuck. Off. Girls like you are the reason so many women hate each other. Girls like you are also the reason I keep bricks in my purse.

Yours,
The Wife

How To Annoy Your Loved Ones and Make Them Not Want to Help You

1. Get into a relationship with and eventually marry a loser who lies, cheats on you, and makes you feel bad about yourself.
2. Move this loser in with you, into a home that your family is providing for you.
3. Keep having kids with the guy, even though he obviously doesn't really want to help you take care of them.
4. Don't give him any real consequences when he stays out until 4 in the morning.
5. Keep asking your family for money the whole time, since he obviously isn't providing enough.
6. When your family does give you money, spend it on stupid stuff that you don't need.
7. Lie unconvincingly to everyone, including yourself, about the loser's nocturnal habits.
8. Accumulate tons of circumstantial evidence that he's cheating, and talk about it with friends and family, but never do anything about it.
9. Tell him you're kicking him out, but let him back into the house anyway because you're too busy trying to be civil to realize that what you need to do is let your anger work for you and make him understand that you're serious.
10. Keep having sex with him, even though you suspect he's cheating.
11. Do this for five years.
12. Kick him out when you finally have "concrete" proof of infidelity (as in a third party calls your house asking for his mistress, preferably over a legal matter).
13. Now that you're a single mother, don't even start looking for a job for at least two months.
14. Complain that you have to be in the MOOD to find a job.
15. Tell your parents not to give you any money so that you'll get off your ass and get a job, and then complain when they won't give you any money.
16. Rely on your parents for everying that food stamps won't pay for, like electricity and toilet paper.
17. Complain that you can't get a job unless you get a car.
18. Complain about why public transportation is a terribly inconvenient way to travel, and that you'd be able to do everything you need to do if you just had a car.
19. Forget that when your parents gave you money before you kicked your husband out, you HAD enough for a used car. In fact, forget that they gave you money.
20. Beg your sister to buy things for your kids or to move in and help you with bills, even though she's told you "no" many times.
21. Ask for free babysitting from your sick mother, your friends with kids of their own, and your in-laws. Ask for it all the time. And during the time they are babysitting, use that time to search for jobs you know you don't want and can't (or won't) accept.
22. Don't make up your mind about whether you want your husband to come home or not.
23. Take FOREVER to file a child support claim against him. In fact, wait until he's not working anymore. Because then you'll get some money.
24. When you speak to your husband, demand that he buy you a car. Because that's going to happen when he's not working. (He may buy a car, actually, but I promise you that his mistress is paying for it.)
25. Complain to your friends and family that he won't hurry up and buy you a car, and that he should be buying you a car.
26. Act like you're the only single mother of three in the world, when in fact you're not even the only one in your neighborhood.
27. Yell at your children constantly, and then complain to your would-be babysitters that the two-year-old is always screaming.
28. Act surprised and upset when your mother doesn't want to babysit your hellcat children after being hospitalized for heart problems.
29. Ask people for favors that you know PERFECTLY WELL conflict with their own schedules.
30. Interrupt your friends and family with constant phone calls, also during times that conflict with their routine.
31. Cry that you need help and you don't understand why nobody wants to help you.

"Guns don't kill people" my ass

I don't know what the damn deal is with all these trigger-happy turd brains in this country, but I've had just about enough.

I refer you to the crazy shit that happened at NASA today. You may get confused by the poorly written article, so in a nutshell: Bill Phillips a contractor with Jacobs Engineering who worked at Johnson Space Center, went nuts today and took some people hostage in Building 44. He killed one of the hostages at about 2:oo PM and himself at around 5:00. I don't know what he expected to accomplish in the three hours in between, but whatever it was, I'm sure it wasn't worth killing an innocent man.

What really pisses me off is that I just took my whole freaking family to NASA four days ago. Yeah, that's right. And here I was all disappointed that we didn't see any actual astronauts or engineers on the tour because it was a weekend and most of the NASA employees were at home. Thank heaven we went on a day when Mr. A Gun Solves Everything was at home, stroking his piece.

What the hell is wrong with the people in this country? Have we really fallen so far from a civilized way of life that everybody thinks the best revenge for any ill is to take firearms to school or work and make like it's an X-Box game? What's the matter, did someone call you a nerd or a loser or a cracker? Dude, get the fuck OVER it. People call each other names. It's hurtful and it sucks, but it is not a good reason to break out the duct tape and pistol.

You know, our country has spent all this time and energy trying to keep foreign terrorists out and invade countries that might produce more terrorists, and all the while we're breeding new terrorists right here at home. It's enough to make me want to move to Canada. Over there, you can't even point a FAKE gun at someone without getting a dozen Mounties on your ass. But here? Nobody's safe from harm, not the college students, not the astronauts, not even the Amish.

God, what a punk bitch.

Conservative hate

Will somebody please tell me why the hell conservative politicians still associate themselves with Ann Coulter?

In case you didn't click on that link, Coulter went before the Conservative Political Action Conference and, in a piddling attempt at a joke, called Presidential hopeful John Edwards a faggot. And got a slow but building laugh.

I know liberals tend to call far-right conservatives a bunch of hate mongers and imbeciles. Normally I would say it's wrong to label an entire group of people in such a way, but I think we can safely say the above statement is true of the CPAC at the very least.

I'm pretty sure many of the audience members were people who identify themselves as Christians. Where were their Christian consciences telling them that Jesus doesn't like it when you call people names? Particularly a peaceful man whose wife has battled breast cancer? Heck, where was their BASIC HUMAN DECENCY?!

Yeah, I suppose I should be more outraged at Ann Coulter, but as I said elsewhere, this kind of moronic attempt at a joke is something I expect from the woman who went on the air and said that the United States allows Canada to be our neighbor.

Instead, I find myself appalled that no person in that audience booed the woman down, or went on record calling for her to apologize, or yelled at her that she's a horsey, man-faced bitch, or called her a Godless whore, or anything like that. (Yeah, I know. Jesus doesn't like it when you call people names. Clearly the audience didn't have a problem with name-calling in general, or there wouldn't have been any applause at all. If they're going to support name-calling, they can call someone who acts like a bitch a bitch.)

I'd also like to know how calling a man a faggot constitutes political action. Rednecks who couldn't pass eighth grade might be impressed by the political connotations, but I fail to see why elected officials with degrees find that kind of thing helpful to their cause. Do you see, Conservative Politicians? Ann Coulter's idiotic remarks and, more importantly, YOUR REACTION TO HER are the reasons why liberals and even moderates think you're a bunch of inbred hillbilly morons. Of course, Ann Coulter wouldn't have told that "joke" if she weren't counting on exactly the reaction she got. So even Ann Coulter thinks you're all inbred hillbilly morons.

You should feel insulted, but not by me.

"And now, a word from the president"

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta
Getting voted into the White House
Everything looking good to the people of the world
But the Mafia family is my boss
So every now and then I owe a favor gettin' down
Like lettin' a big drug shipment through
And send 'em to the poor communities
So we can bust you know who
The Voters of the world keep supportin' me
And I promise to take you very far
Other leaders better not upset me
Or I'll send a million troops to die at war
To all you Republicans that helped me win
I'd sincerely like to thank ya
'Cause now I got the world swinging from my nuts
And Damn it feels good to be a gangsta

--Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta, Geto Boys,

This song was first popular when I was in junior high, maybe high school. I remember my cousins and I thought of the last verse as the comments that a black man from the ghetto might make if he were elected president. (Oh hush, there were lots of songs to that effect back then, including one that suggested painting the White House black.)

What we didn't understand, what I just didn't think about until today, is that those lyrics were meant to describe President Bush Sr. In fact, I'd say they do a superior job of describing President Bush Jr.

America's government is supposed to be a system of checks and balances. In theory, Congress is supposed to represent the Will of the People. The president can't just declare war of his own accord; Congress has to vote on it. And Congress did indeed vote to approve the US invasion of Iraq.

But why haven't they voted to pull our troops out?

I know it was right to hunt down Saddam Hussein; the man was deliberately hurting his own people. But what good are we doing there now? The Iraqi people don't want us there anymore. And, try as he might, Bush can't just install democracy somewhere.

The American people are calling for Bush to bring our boys home. Even the Republican citizens are getting sick of this crap. With so many constituents screaming to bring the troops home, why isn't Congress doing it? Does the will of the people not actually mean anything?

(I think we know the answer to that. The will of the people only means something at election time.)

I'm probably oversimplifying this. Obama and H. Clinton are duking it out right now over who has the better plan to withdraw troops. How much do you want to bet that when it comes to a vote, it's split along party lines, rather than based on what the constituents have asked for?

In the meantime, President Bush is planning to recall 40,000 troops back to active duty. I'm talking about people who already served four or five years of active duty and have returned to civilian life. Yes, it's true, that's part of the contract when you swear in: the committment to return to active duty if it becomes necessary. But please, explain to me, why is it necessary?

Who does our President answer to? He's not answering to me or my congresswoman. He's just doing what he wants, sending our people to die for someone else's country. All the hell he raised about the U.N. not forcing Hussein to answer for his actions, but is Bush being made to answer for his own? The world really is hanging from his nuts.

In Case of Emergency

Here's something you need to know if you're living with very old people:

They don't know that they're supposed to call 9-1-1 immediately in a medical emergency.

I'm probably overgeneralizing. Maybe it's just MY grandparents, because they grew up as migrant farm workers with very little formal education. Maybe it's generational (no phones when they were kids, no 911 when they were raising kids), maybe it's because when they were young only rich people could call medics to come to the house, maybe it's just that they're senile.

Just please, explain this to them, and not just once in a while, I mean weekly: if there's a medical emergency, call 911 immediately. Don't try and revive the person yourself, don't wait a while and see if he gets better, don't half-assedly attempt to wake up someone else in the house, don't call the neighbors or the relatives and ask THEM to call an ambulance. Grandma, if something is wrong, don't wait. Call 911, and do it fast.

Grandpa will never be the same. His arm is dead, his leg is partly paralyzed, his face is stuck, he falls asleep for fifteen minutes and thinks a whole day has passed.

Not a joke

I was originally going to post this as a response to someone's blog, but I thought it would be better as my own blog entry. It has been slightly edited.

You're just mean, aren't you? Or perhaps you think poking fun at scrawny women will make them eat? Yeah, that's a real self-esteem booster. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. *eye roll*

Don't get me wrong, I think the skin-and-bones look is unhealthy and unattractive, but anorexics need to treatment that is based on positive reinforcement and good nutrition, not snarky comments from movie critics and gossip mavens who would better serve the world by discussing films and television shows or shutting up entirely.

You think anorexia is an important issue? Treat it that way, not as a passing joke meant to get cheap laughs. People are dying, have already died, from anorexia. Do you have anything funny to say about that?

I don't want to see it

Attention: all ladies, young and old, tall and short, thin and chubby, born-a-girl and used-to-be-a-dude.

I'm not about to tell you never, ever to wear short skirts in public. We live in a free country, so I can't do that. Everyone has different ideas about modesty. Fine. But please listen this heartfelt plea:

When you wear a skirt that comes to the knee or above, please do not cross your legs at the knee when seated. Whoever is sitting across from you can see all the way up.

I do not want to see the color of your underwear while resting on a bench at the mall. I do not want to explain to my children why they can see your ladyparts, or (so help me) what they are for. I do not want to have to go over to you and whisper in your ear that I can see your stuff, but I will if you don't uncross those legs already, because there's nowhere else for me to sit but across from you, and there's no way I'm spending my only ten minutes of rest with your womanly glory in my line of vision. And I imagine YOU don't want some pervert guy taking my seat after I get up, pulling out his camera phone, and e-mailing pictures of your womanhood to his skeezy friends.

This goes double for church. In my opinion you have no business wearing a skirt that short to church anyway, but if you do insist on entering the Lord's House dressed like it's time to go clubbin', please have the courtesy to either cross your legs at the ankle or not cross them at all. I certainly do not want to see your panties while I'm sitting in the foyer waiting for my appointment with the bishop, nor do I think that 10-year-old boy's mother would appreciate your inadvertently educating her son on the mysteries of How Lingerie Fits. And I can assure you, the bishop doesn't need to see it, nor do any of the other husbands. That's why they have wives.

So from now on, keep your Victoria's Secrets to yourselves.

Immigrant Protest: The Day After

Just so you know, my great-grandmother came to Texas decades ago, bringing her widowed mother and younger siblings to some place where they could find work and be a family. She payed six cents to cross the border.

Does this make her a legal immigrant, or an illegal one?

Yesterday factories shut down, businesses probably closed (though from what I read, there were still a large number of people out shopping), the neighbors didn't send their kids to school, all that jazz.

You know what? My garbage still got picked up on time. One of the sanitation workers in the truck was on his cel phone, jabbering away.

I didn't go grocery shopping, not because of my immigrant sympathy, but because I had a migraine.

On the one hand, I think there's something to the idea of a Guest Worker program, with the option to become a citizen later. Give these people a chance to be taxpaying citizens instead of burdens on welfare programs. I certainly oppose any law that would make illegal immigration (or giving aid to illegal immigrants) a felony.

On the other hand, I agree with the legal immigrant who said that instantly granting citizenship to 12 million illegal aliens is a surrender. We can't handle having the entire Western hemisphere show up at our border demanding a green card, a job and a house. We only offer that kind of welcome package to people from the Eastern hemisphere, particularly Arab countries. (What? It's true. The U.S. recruits people from Arab countries to move here, granting them $50,000 and ten years of free rent.)

Seriously, how screwed up is America's immigration policy?

One thing I definitely oppose, and that's a wall along our border. When did we become East Berlin? Does anybody seriously think that if we put up a wall, the terrorists won't get through? Does anyone actually think some razorwire is going to keep someone from getting into our country and bombing us? Honey, I lived in a prison town during college; we had three separate incidents of escapes in a single year, include men on Death Row. Trust me, razor wire is not the most effective deterrent to a truly determined man.

The N Word

The other night at a family get-together, my aunt said something racist, even though she is not (to my knowledge) a racist. Then again, maybe my knowledge of her is not what I thought it was.

We were at the dinner table, just Aunt (age 42?), my cousin D (male, age 25) and me (age 27). The rest of the family were in various parts of Grandma's house, watching movies or playing with kids or whatever. Aunt said she was exhausted after a long week, because with the new bank merger her company is involved in, everybody who was not downsized suddenly has a lot to do. She said, "They've been making us work like niggaz."

I stopped, my fork in the air, and said nothing. I'm sure I had an ugly look on my face, but Aunt was sitting to my left, not across from me, so I don't know what she saw. I looked over at my cousin, who was sitting across from her. He also said nothing, but didn't pause as long as I did, and kept his countenance enough to keep eating.

My aunt was instantly embarrassed (I think), and said kind of meekly, "Excuse my language." Pause. Meek voice: "But it's true."

I am sure that my facial expression did not get any nicer. Cousin D, after swallowing his food, was able to continue the conversation by asking more specific questions about the merger and who'd been let go. I kept silent for a while.

First of all, I think it's ridiculous that a 42-year-old banker is using ANY words that end in a-z. Getting that out of the way, I wondered what the hell was going through my aunt's educated mind that she felt it would be okay to use the N word at the dinner table (even if most of the family had already finished dinner). And most of all, I wondered why saying, "But it's true," was supposed to excuse the use of the word. Why would it be "true?"

Perhaps she was using that word in place of "slaves." Slave is, I think, a word that can be used without necessarily sounding racist. I used to work at WalMart, but my friends and I all called it SlaveMart. It was not a racist comment, but more of a comment on the practices of management and of the corporation at large. But then why didn't Aunt just say slaves if that's what she meant? It certainly would have made for more comfortable dinner conversation and would have been highly effective at conveying her feelings about work.

Later I remembered an incident from my aunt's life that might possibly explain her derogatory attitude. As a direct result of the actions of a black nurse in the maternity ward, my aunt's guts came spilling out of her stitched-up (stapled?) body a few hours after her caesarian. She has never properly healed from this, and has always always ALWAYS blamed that black nurse who gave her an attitude, wouldn't listen, and chose to manhandle her instead of asking her what was going on or even reading the damn chart. So yeah, I can kind of see where some hostility might come in. On the other hand, that was one nurse, not an entire community of people.

Then something else happened that night. I was talking to cousin R (female, age 24), who is D's sister, and her friend N (female, same age). Their families grew up in the same neighborhood that Aunt (and all my father's immediate family) grew up in, the same neighborhood we were sitting in that night. And this poor Hispanic neighborhood (poor being subject to interpretation) is in close proximity to an equally poor black neighborhood of local fame. I'm talking about Fifth Ward, which, for all those who listened to rap music back in the early nineties, is home of the Geto Boys rapper Willie D. (This is back when everything did not have a Z at the end.) This is a tough neighborhood, let me tell you. Some would call it a ghetto and some of the houses would certainly qualify. Lots of crime, lots of gangs, lots of parents who don't care.

So I'm talking to R and N. They had taken two children, ages 4 and 5, to a nearby Chuck E Cheese earlier that day. We talk about what it was like, and basically I hear a 15 minute diatribe about the atrocious parenting skills they found there. The complaints are about specific families, not one group or another, but all the families talked about are black. This mother watched her child push my niece off the merry-go-round and said nothing. That child kept pushing my son. I had to stop another child, age 8, who was beating a younger boy senseless. Another mother was looking at me, waiting for me to reprimand her misbehaving child so that she would have an excuse to come tell me off. This is the kind of thing I'm being told. And N says, "These black people, they didn't even care about watching their kids."

(Personally, I think Chuck E Cheese attracts bad parents of all races and ethnicities; I've seen a family of Mexican immigrants in that same restaurant (same location) start an argument with a black woman who was being a good parent and telling her own child to get off a ride so that the next person in line could have a turn. Same thing happens at Chuck E Cheeses all over Houston. Basically you have an enclosed location with games and pizza and a system implemented to keep children from being kidnapped whether you are watching your kids or not. It is an invitation to turn your kids loose without supervision while you sit at a table and enjoy a couple of slices. This is enticing to neglectful parents who are sick of their kids screaming about random stuff in an attempt to get attention. Some very violent kids are left to their own devices for two whole hours or more. Which is why I no longer take my children there.)

Do you see it? Do you see the social and racial prejudice at work, even among those who know better than to say The N Word? Do you see where it comes from?

There is an attitude about black people, I think, that the people of my aunt's and cousins' neighbohood have developed as a result of living near a group of people who have proven themselves to be examples of social deviance. Is this accepted stereotype an accurate example of black people in general? No. I don't even think it's an accurate example of the entire population of Fifth Ward. It is, however, an example of how the behavior of a small group of people affect the perceptions others have of a larger group. It is the reason why we all need to strive to be better people. We need to educate ourselves against having prejudices, but we also need to not spur new ones on with our own bad behavior. Stereotypes, however wrong they are, are rooted in a grain of truth. The best way to conquer stereotypes is not live up to them.

Lost and Found

Found: Three shell casings to a .40 calibur handgun, located directly in front of my mother's driveway. You were driving a dark-colored late model mid-size pickup truck, and at approximately 6:45 PM last night, you rolled down your window, looked directly at my mother (who was standing outside), and fired at least 4 shots straight into the air, then continued driving at a leisurely 25 mph and turned right three streets up. According to HPD (who showed up several hours after calls to 911), your shell casings are regarded as Found Property. Please contact me, so that I might refer you to the officer currently in possession of said evidence, I mean property. Please also give me your license plate number, driver's license number, and the registration data for the handgun you used, so that I can verify that these are in fact your shell casings.
Sincerely,
Sleepless Mama

It was just a suggestion!

In our family, we have an agreement. Bizarro Dad makes the money. I pay the bills. We spend money on other stuff that we feel we need, or would like to have, or would like for the girls, whatever. But lately, we're having a problem with this arrangement.

My husband is having trouble controlling his spending. I get that he makes more money now than he did when he was in the military, so he feels he should be able to afford more luxuries. And I agree. Our luxury is called an auto loan. It is what pays for our minivan, which we had to get when our Daewoo died a horrible death. And the payments that he agreed to? More than I told him we could afford. That's our damn luxury.

But does my husband understand this? No. He does not. No matter what I say, no matter how many times the checking account gets down to a zero balance, he Does. Not. Get. It. He just goes on, spending money on stupid stuff that we don't need. I tell him "Okay, honey, you can have a $40 allowance each month." He spends the $40. Then he spends another $60. Then another $60. And what does he have to show for it? A stack of movies that he'll only watch twice, and another stack of movies that he's rented from Blockbuster and kept past the due date, and some other random crap that he can't even account for the day after he's bought it. And that doesn't even include all the meals he buys for himself when he's at work. Dude? They're called sandwiches, and you can make them at home. For free. And when I tell him, "Honey, you've got to stop. How are we supposed to afford our life insurance premium?" he just says, "By me not spending so much." Then goes on to spend some more two days later.

So I thought about this. I thought about the stress of being the one who has to remember when all the bills are due, how much they are, and which paycheck they'll come out of. I thought about how much it sucks to sit there and wonder if the increase in local gasoline prices will affect what kind of groceries I can get this week. And I decided that in order for Bizarro Dad to understand the importance of not spending money like it's made of nothing, he needs to understand the burden of being responsible for actually writing the checks and mailing them out. The decision to tell him this did not come easily, as I am not normally one to relinquish control over something as important as financial security. I put it off all last night, until finally we were lying in bed, about to go to sleep.

Me: I think you should have charge of the checking account....just for a month.
Him: (immediately) No!
Me: Come on. Just for a month.
Him: No.
Me: Would you just think about it?
Him: I have thought about it.
Me: Really? When?
Him: Just now. No.
Me: Why not?
Him: The bills would never get paid.
Me: You wouldn't pay them?
Him: I'd forget ALL about them. We'd go broke!
Me: We're gonna go broke anyway if you keep spending money the way you do. You might as well learn how to deal with paying bills.
Him: No.
Me: Come on. Please?
Him: No.
Me: *sigh*
Him: ...zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Gamer Gene, Part 2

I know I said I was hiatus for the weekend, but this is nagging me, so I need to get it out in the open.

Thursday I put up a post about my family's Gamer Gene. And then Part Time Gamer read my post, and linked to it here, with some comment on it. He followed it a few posts later with one about Jared the Subway guy , and how it sucked that Jared blamed his initial weight game on Nintendo when in fact he simply wouldn't get up off his ass to exercise when he was a kid, and his parents didn't make him do anything until it was too late (I agree with Part Time Gamer; that is just plain stupid, especially for the son of a doctor). And then I put two and two together (slowly, I know) and understood what Part Time Gamer was accusing me of.

It never occured to me that my children were not getting enough exercise, not because I'm blaming a video game for their inactivity, but because they are not, in fact, inactive. I took them outside the same day as my post, and the day before that, as I do all the time. Yeah, they've had to spend a lot of time indoors because of the weather, but now that warmth is coming to Texas and I have a garden to tend, we spend plenty of time outdoors. The girls chase the dog and play wiffle ball and help me dig in the dirt. But since I didn't say any of this in my Gamer Gene post, how was Part Time Gamer to know?

Then I thought about the post itself, and reread it. I realize now that what I was thinking and how I came across were two different things. So I think I should clarify.

When I say Gamer, I mean someone who is actually talented at video games. I do not consider myself to be such a person. I do not mean a person who does no kind of physical activity because he's too busy gaming. My brother, who I spoke about as a Gamer, was also the kind of child who would play basketball with his friends, or go swimming, or get in the occasional fistfight. My husband, who I called a hard core Gamer, has had very physical jobs for the majority of our marriage, first as a Marine, and now as an EMT responsible for lifting some very heavy people on stretchers. (You might say that this is not a physical job. I would say that any job that makes him come home in as much pain as he does counts as very physical indeed.)

I realize also that I came across as being of the opinion that all Gamers are consumed by Gaming, which is not true and is not my actual opinion. I do apologize. What I actually believe is that my husband is consumed by Gaming. Not because he sits for two or three hours straight in front of the computer, but because he sits for six hours straight or longer in front of the computer after being at work all day, to the point where I sometimes feel he is ignoring the rest of the family, staying up very late when he and I both know he needs to wake up at 3 AM for work. Sometimes I want to take his Guild Wars disc and snap it right in half, but if it weren't that game it would be another. The problem is him. I am perfectly aware that not all Gamers do this.

And so when I marvel at my own child's gaming, I am simultaneously amazed by her attention span (something rare in a 4-year-old), surprised by her talent, concerned that she might one day do as her father does, and guilty that I am not directing her attention to her books, her instruments, her crayons, her paintbrushes, her trains, or her Playdough. But the truth is, even when she is playing with one of those things, I still feel guilty that she's not doing one of the others. And knowing this about myself, and that the game is in fact educational, I go ahead and let her play her V. Smile. Once she tires of it (45 minutes later) or I think she's had enough, off it goes, and we do something else.

All the King's Networks and All the King's Anchors

In response to the mass outrage regarding the inaccurate reporting of the West Virginia miners, which Nilo was good enough to blog about, news broadcasters have become anxious to assure the general public that THEY will not do anything so stupid as report that someone is alive when in fact that someone is dead.

I submit to you the latest commercial for KHOU 11 News (that's the local CBS channel here in Houston), which used a mere ten second spot to claim it's moral superiority. "KHOU. Reporting the news ethically and responsibly."

"Oh, Sleepless Mama, you're reaching." Am I? They certainly hadn't said that kind of thing before, not on a ten-second ad. In fact, I highly doubt any CBS local anchors have wanted to say anything of the kind since Dan Rather disgraced himself with that whole fake military document thing. But now, after Gerald Rivera made a fool of himself on Fox, my local CBS is all "Oh no, we'd NEVER do anything like that. We always report the truth, and we never get out of line."

Granted, Dan Rather was not a local anchor. He was national. The local guys are basically trying to keep their own credibility. I guess I can understand that.

But really, it's hardly necessary. ANYBODY looks highly credible compared to Geraldo Rivera. Hell, Geraldo makes Maury Povich look like Honest Abe.

Why did I do that the way I did it?

Today, while driving some back streets to get myself back to the feeder road, I saw such a disgusting thing.

I saw a man walk across the street, go up to a woman (presumably his girlfriend), and slap her. Then, he turned around, saw me and the angry look on my face, and went back across the street.

Keep in mind, this happened in the middle of the day. In broad daylight. With other people around, some of them on that very sidewalk.

I don't know if the guy took off because he saw me (I very much doubt it). I pulled over to ask the lady if she needed help. She shook her head and sobbed "No," and kept on walking.

This woman, she didn't hit the man back or scream something like "How dare you!?" or even use the phone in her hand to call the police. She just cried, and walked away.

Now, I know, I know, that when a couple gets into a physical altercation, it is not for me to jump in and start smacking the dude upside the head with my MagLight. For one thing, he'd probably just turn around and mess me up, too, since I'm such a short little woman. But I have another reason. My grandfather once witnessed a man beating on his wife. Grandpa (who was young then, I'm sure) jumped out of his car and pulled the man off the woman. And you know what she said? "Get the hell offa him!" And she started hitting my grandpa!

So when I see something like this going on, I know that my job is to call 911 and let the cops deal with it, rather than try to insert myself into the situation.

So why didn't I call them today?

For one thing, the man, as I said, hit her once, and took off. He did not continue beating her. If he'd kept on hitting her, I would have dialed 911 without further hesitation, and possibly revved my engine menacingly so as to make the man think I was about to run him over (believe me, the thought crossed my mind). But he didn't, so I didn't. He just looked at me and left (still visibly angry). And the woman took off, too. By the time the cops arrived, both of them would have been long gone.

Still, I couldn't just leave her. Which is why I stopped to ask her if she wanted help. I could have taken her to the doctor (right around the corner), or called the cops for her, or even given her a ride home. But she didn't want my help. I also noticed that she was carrying her own cell phone in her hand. Apparently she didn't want the cops' immediate assistance, either, or she'd have called them right then and there.

So instead, I drove away slowly, thinking these thoughts:

• Should I have called 911? Should I have just immediately picked up my cell phone and started dialing
• What the heck kind of neighborhood is this? If this is the kind of thing that happens at 11:00 in the morning, what must this place be like at 10:00 at night?
• I am so never moving out here. (I should add, the neighborhood seemed made up of umpteen different apartment complexes.)
• In my own neighborhood, that kind of thing probably does happen, but the men have sense enough not to do that crap in the middle of the street, in the middle of the day.
• Then again, how would I know that, since I stay inside all day?
• My husband would so never do that to me. He's not that kind of man, which is why I married him. Plus, he knows that my dad would totally kick his a$$.
• I wonder if that lady said something that made that man mad?
• Did he stop and leave because he saw me looking at him? If I hadn't accidentally come down this road and witnessed this incident, would he have done worse?
• She probably had battered woman's syndrome, or low self-esteem, or both.
• Then again, her not hitting him back may have been the best thing to do, lest she incite him to do more damage.
• Her lip sure did look swollen, but not on the side of her face where his hand actually hit.
• That's it, there's no way I'm doing any shopping out here in Greenspoint (a.k.a. Gangspoint). I'm taking myself and my money out to Deerbrook, where it's nice and calm, and I don't care if I have to get back on the freeway to get there.

When I got home and told my family what happened, my father told me I did the right thing not getting in the middle. He didn't tell me whether I should have called 911, though. I think I'll ask him in the morning.

What would you have done, and why?

I sure hope that lady called the cops when she got home. I hope she takes out a restraining order. I hope she doesn't get back with him.

Political mini-rant

George, I must tell you, I really do feel betrayed. I know it was important that Saddam Hussein be taken out of power, because he was a rapist and murderer and basically a Hitler in his own land. And I know that it was important that Iraq be made to comply with the UN mandated searches. And I know that the UN was basically not doing a damn thing to stop Saddam from having all those women raped, all those people tortured and killed. And I know it was important to give the people of Iraq a chance to have their own democracy, their own constitution, their own freedom.

But I must say, clearly, we are no longer wanted there. The people of Iraq have voted on a new constitution, and we here in America, who are sending men and women over there to die at the hands of suicide bombers, are not even being told what the outcome of that vote was, or how much longer it will be until our troops can come home. We are not wanted any longer. We have our own problems here. This war is NOT boosting our economy, as wars normally have in the past. You are not even arming our troops adequately. Not the ones in Afghanistan, nor the ones in Iraq. If you are going to send them to war, give them what they need. If you cannot do that, then you need to bring them home.

I do believe in doing one's duty. My husband did his duty to his country, serving in the Marine Corps. He and I serve our community now. We do what we can.

But you?

You serve yourself. Your cronyism is astounding. You nominated your lawyer as a potential Supreme Court Justice for no apparent reason, except perhaps to keep one more of your cronies in a position of power. Your self-proclaimed FEMA "fashion god" is completely out of touch. Do you realize that hundreds of people here in Houston who escaped from New Orleans with their lives are about to be evicted from their new homes simply because FEMA won't cough up the money they've already promised to pay? Do you realize that the minimum wage hasn't been raised in about 8 years or so? Do you know how hard it is to keep a roof over your head on $5.15 an hour? Heck, do you know how hard it is to do that at $10 an hour? You want to spend $7.1 billion prepping for the bird flu, which is good, but where were you back when people were dying left and right from the regular flu? Were you not thinking about it? And how is it that you can just keep increasing government spending while simultaneously decreasing positive cash flow? Why do you think it is a good idea to lower taxes while fighting an expensive (yet underfunded) war and approve every single spending bill that Congress has to offer? You keep promising everyone money, but you're not bringing any money in. You just keep borrowing and borrowing. What happens when that money has to get paid back?

No, of course you don't realize any of this. It doesn't directly affect you, except perhaps for your approval ratings. But since this is your last term, you don't care about those, either. Because every president knows that once you make it to a second term, you can pretty much do as you please, since you're not trying to curry favor with voters anymore. Bill Clinton even said it out loud. And you took it to heart. Do you not see what you are doing anymore?

I voted for you because I thought you were a moral man of good character. But you're not. You're a self-serving dog. You got our nation into so much debt that we may never recover, but you don't care, because it's not money that you have to pay back out of your own pocket.

John Kerry, come back in 2008, and this time I'll vote for you!