Color me surprised

I knew Obama might win, but I sure didn't expect him to win by such a large margin.

But hey! My guy came in second (barely)!
Way to go, buddy!

Meanwhile, Clinton's in third and looking a little depressed:

Things are going to get interesting now, I think. I'm heartened by Edwards' strong showing; I was afraid he'd get waxed. That honor, however, must go to Rudy Jewels, who was soundly beaten by Fuckabee, Mittens, The Living Corpse, Walnuts McCain, and RON FUCKING PAUL! I mean, how pathetic is that!?

Here are the dem results, courtesy of The Carpetbagger Report:
1. Obama — 38%
2. Edwards — 30%
3. Clinton — 29%
4. Richardson — 2%
5. Biden — 0.9%
6. Dodd — 0.02%

And the Republicans:
1. Huckabee — 34%
2. Romney — 25%
3. Thompson — 13.3%
4. McCain — 13.1%
5. Paul — 10%
6. Giuliani — 3%

Wow. I think it goes to show that Rudy's standing in this race has been a completely media-manufactured illusion all along. Whatever attention was paid to him resulted solely from his non-stop screaming of "9/11." When the voters came out, however, we saw what the people really think, and that's that Rudy is irrelevant.

I can hardly believe Mr. Coma came in third, though--the guy's been asleep since his last filming session of Law & Order! Which begs the question: how fucking NUTS are those repubs in Iowa? Fuckabee doesn't know his foreign policy from a pheasant's ass, yet his "I'm with Jesus and Walker TX Ranger" act got him a nine-point victory over Mittens, who poured a ton of money into that state AND can probably tell you where Pakistan is on the map. Poor Mittens. Somehow, though, I doubt that "crucifix on my shoulder" routine will translate well in the northeast.

And that's really the question now, isn't it? What will happen in New Hampshire and beyond? I know there are a lot of white evangelicals there, but I doubt the state will buy into the Jesus card quite as completely as Iowa did.

And what about Obama? Everything will depend on whether he can repeat this drubbing of the competition. If he doesn't, look for him to go back to second- (or even third-) place status.

Hillary may be down, but if anything, this defeat will only make her refocus her efforts, cut out any and all hijinks (see: "Obama did drugs!"), and get really fecking SERIOUS. This is just the first caucus; it's a looong way to November. And remember--Bill Clinton wasn't called The Comeback Kid for nothing. Check out the results from the 1992 Iowa dem caucus (courtesy of the Iowa Caucus web site:
1. Tom Harkin 76%
2. Paul Tsongas 4%
3. Bill Clinton 3%
4. Bob Kerrey 2%
5. Jerry Brown 2%

OUCH! Talk about getting drilled! So you know that Hillary can take this; she's been in this position before (albeit as wife and supporter, but still), even worse. The Clintons will probably hole up, recharge, and come out fighting. I just hope she doesn't do anything stupid--she needs to stick to the issues, leave the negative shit out, and DAZZLE. Look for Bill to hit the campaign trail even harder than he has been. You just know he wants back into the White House, and he seems like the kind of guy who does not take "no" for an answer. (okay, okay, put all those snarky skirt-chaser remarks away! this is serious political analysis, man! *snicker*)

As for Edwards, he'll need to use this as a jumping-off point -- raise more money, hit the road hard in the northeast, and keep walking the walk. My fingers are crossed for him.

More greatness from TPM

God, I love the folks at Talking Points Memo. I didn't even bother to follow the link--the little subhed and that corpsy photo say all that needs to be said.

The 7 Faces of Dr. Delia

NOW PLAYING: The 7 Faces of Dr. Delia! "A mysterious circus comes to a western town bearing wonders and characters that entertain the inhabitants and teach valuable lessons."

I have to tell you that this movie scared the bejeesus out of me when I was a kid; I seem to remember him turning into some sort of giant snake or caterpillar or something, and I wigged out in the theatre and started crying. However, when someone (I can't even remember who) tagged me for the 7 Lies meme, this was the first thing I thought of. What follows are seven UNtrue things about me.

And now... Back to tonight's feature.

[Enter STAFF SERGEANT GUZMAN, U.S. AIR FORCE] Hello, you miserable recruits! You are the sorriest bunch of asswipes I've seen in my twenty-five years of service! My name is of no consequence to you--you will address me as MA'AM, YES MA'AM! Now open your ears and shut yer yaps! Drop and gimme 20! I love the Air Force! I love the Corporate States of America, and I'm proud to serve and die for my CEO-in-Chief, George W Bush! That man makes me proud to be an Amurkan! "Taps" is now being played so get in yer bunks and shut the hell up! [Exits.]

[Enter DGUZMAN, GOVERNOR OF THE GREAT STATE OF TEXAS] Hello, thaynk yew verah much for invahtin' me to speechify at this here barbecue! Me and mah momma, we wanna thaink yew fer votin' fer me, based on my ads on the teevee talkin' bout how religious Ah am. And Ah wanna tell ya, I LOVE JEEE-ZUS. Ah call him on mah cellphone ever'day to aisk him just what he would do 'bout ever' li'l thang that's goin' on in this here state. He told me to fry ever crim'nal, stop ever 'bortion, and only let 'em teach the Bahble's creation in the (whaddya call those classes? oh yeah) Science classes. And Ah believe in all them thangs! One hunnerd percint! Praise the Lord! Ever'body make shure to git yer free gun down at the front of the stage, okay, ya'll? Amen! [Exits.]

[Enter DCLEAVER, PROUD WIFE AND MOTHER] Good afternoon, ladies. I want to thank you for inviting me here to discuss the proper role of a wife and mother in this new century! First and foremost, we must all graciously submit to our husbands; Reverend Huckabee says that's the way to be, and I believe he knows best. After all, he is a man AND a man of God! Second, I believe that more women should stay home, avoid education at all costs, and be fruitful and multiply! Marriage, that blessed institution, is the union of a man and a woman, as God tells us in his holy book! Anyone who deviates -- and I stress the word DEVIATE! -- from this, our greatest mission in life, is bound to burn in the fires of hell! And yes, I'm talking about all those hairy-legged, bra-burning, man-hating lesbo college-going freaks! Now, ladies--do what God and our husbands intended us to do: go to your homes, prepare a bountiful meal for your husbands, and prepare to serve! [Exits.]

[Enter DGUZE, STONER] Hey, man... I'd like to tell you something but I'm so wasted I can't remember what it is! [Exits.]

[Enter DGUZMAN, EVEN-TEMPERED DRIVER] Ahhh, I so enjoy my time behind the wheel. Come along with me on a typical drive down America's highways. Oh, look over at the gentlemen to our right: he's eating his breakfast in the car! Now isn't that ingenius! Look how he's steering with his knee as he stirs his coffee and takes a bite of his Egg McMuffin all at once time! Incredible; I really admire his hand-eye coordination. And if you'll check the rearview mirror, you'll see a young college student, talking on her cellphone, zipping through her iPod selections, and running a stopsign. Way to multi-task, young woman! Oh, she just bent over while driving 65 mph to look through her purse! You go, girl! [Exits. In a fiery crash, that is.]

[Enter DED NUGENT, GUN LOVER] Yo America! Wango tango with the NRA, YEE-OW! Yeah! When it comes time to vote this year, remember to vote PRO-GUN, PRO-LIFE, PRO-DEATH PENALTY, PRO-CREATE, PRO-BUSINESS, PRO-FIT! Vote republican and you'll be able to shoot people in the street, bomb abortion clinics, and eat all the red meat Rush can feed ya! Cat-scratch fevah! Go out and shoot something! Yeah! [Exits.]

[Enter DGUZMAN, BUSINESSWOMAN] Good afternoon, future CEOs! If you want to be like me, roll up your sleeves and work for it! Yes, you too can learn to kiss the RIGHT asses, suck the RIGHT dicks, and sponge off the federal government's bailouts of big business! You only have to get into the RIGHT business! Faith-based, global, tax-exempt government contracting is where it's at! Just set up your Big Pharma, Insurance, Oil, Credit Card, "International Security" firms (hee hee, right Mr. Prince?), or--get into the most lucrative business of them all--POLITICS!

The End. We hope you enjoyed the show. Please use the trash receptacles at the exits, and come again soon.

"other dreams" -- a new hope

Back from Ohio, and already missing my nieces and my little sister. I took some photos, but I left the camera at home--I'll update tomorrow so you can see how unbelievably freakin' cute they are!

I was trying to catch up on my blogreading (would that be 'greading?) and I came across this post on Splotch's site. Optimism has never been my strong suit. In fact, I don't even own that suit. But last night, as I tossed and turned in a fitful bout with my bedsheets, I had a thought: "it just CAN'T happen."

Let me explain:
My brain was replaying a news item I heard about the delayed elections in Pakistan, which made me think about whether Chimpy is going to try that same little song-and-dance here come November, and suddenly my brain said, "Nope. It CAN'T happen. No way." Then I thought about how bad Big Dick wants to bomb Iran, and again, my brain said, "Nope. Can't happen. WON'T happen. Will not."

And that got me thinking: Optimistic people are always talking about the "power of positive thinking" and how if you just THINK positive, then positive things will happen because you'll be putting out that good juju or whatever. What if everyone were to start thinking, "It can't happen" and saying that and really focusing on that whenever the subject of all the potentially horrible things Chimpy might do to end his term with a bang (literally) comes up? What if we all really DO start thinking "positive" in the sense that we simply REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE POSSIBILITY that Chimpy will:
a. be allowed to finish his term without being impeached
b. be unindicted of war crimes and high treason (not to mention outright grand theft)
c. take us into another war
d. suspend the next presidential election or do ANYTHING that might delay his and Big Dick's getting the hell out of D.C.

What if we all just do our damnedest to move the juju of the universe toward impeachment, indictment, prosecution, a new start with an honest administration, a return to true investigative journalism in the MSM, the end of news-as-spectacle/entertainment, the swinging of the national pendulum back to the left and away from this christofascist Fuckabee-style theocracy? We all start thinking and saying that THESE are things that are going to happen. The bad stuff just CAN'T happen. Will not happen. Cannot happen.

Or am I just ridiculously naive?

Public Service Announcement

I'm about to take a couple of days off. Going out of town to see the cutest little nieces in the world. I don't know how much time I'll spend online, so don't get too worried -- unless I don't post by, say, Tuesday. In that case, I'll see you guys at Gitmo. I hear the eggplant parm's to die for.

The old and the clueless

Let's look at a couple of "responses" to yesterday's tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto -- after spending yesterday in a heightened state of anxiety (and it's not much better today), I could use a laugh.

First, and foremost, Fuckabee's response: the guy doesn't know his geography, offers prayers, and then of all things offers "apologies." WTF? (His handlers have since claimed he meant to say "sympathies." Because "sympathies" sounds so much like "apologies" and the words are practically synonyms, right?) Is there a doubt in ANYONE'S mind now that this guy is even dumber and more uninformed than W? (hardly thought that was possible, but I'm more convinced every day)

Second, Grandpa Hound Dog Thompson: "It reminds us that things can happen in faraway places of the world that can affect the United States. I think this should be of great concern to us." NO SHIT, Fred. Break it down for us in little words, Grandpa, because we need a big strong grandpa hick like yourself to point out the fucking OBVIOUS. Is that the best you can do? Why don't you tell us some more of your great earth-shattering thoughts, like "the world is round" or "people can communicate globally in milliseconds via the Internet." Fucking idiot.

McCain/Mittens/Rudy/generic republican response: I just have to group these because they're all exactly the same--fear fear fear!--featuring empty platitudes like "must be brought to justice" and "win the terror's war on us" (Giuliani, in an interestingly backward spin on our GWOT), "grave dangers we face in the world today" (McCain), "global violent radical jihadism" (Mittens).

I think the only people who've offered anything like sincere (or at least sincere-sounding) comments worthy of a president are the dems, and really only John Edwards' response made me sit up and take notice. I'm starting to really like that guy.

Conspiracy theories already

Been flying around the web, reading all I can on Bhutto, and only one thing is really clear: we'll never know the true cause of death for sure (no autopsy), or who really was responsible. This just opens the whole thing up for conspiracy theories, from convincing to wildly speculative.

Which raises the obvious question: Why don't officials do real, competent autopsies whenever a political figure dies? Why isn't there some sort of official investigation by a respected institution like Scotland Yard or Interpol? Or even some independent investigative body? Why is there always the rush to bury, the rush to cover up details?

It's incredible to me that the UN or some or other governing body -- or just plain public outcry -- has not put into place some system of official autopsy by competent medical examiners whenever a death as important as Bhutto's has occurred, no matter what the religious beliefs of the victim, etc.--just for the sake of learning the FACTS. I mean, after the whole debacle of the JFK "autopsy," you'd think people would've learned. You'd think that even IF Musharef was involved, he'd FAKE a freakin' autopsy. If they're gonna sell us a story, make 'em freakin' WORK for it, you know?

Bhutto assassinated

Benazir Bhutto's been killed in Pakistan. I know her administration was corrupt as all get-out, but she was also a symbol of hope in that country. She wasn't Bush's pal like Mushareff is.

UPDATE: Is it just me, or is it strange that McCain made a statement (just on Fox Nazi Channel) before Bush could sober up to make his statement? Why would they air his statement, in which he discussed what he would do if he were president (meet with advisors, Ntl Security Council, blah blah) right now, before the actual president's statement? WTF?

I can't help but think that events around the world are linked, as though a grander plan is being put into motion. The Russians are test-firing their latest nuke missile, Musharef's eliminating his enemies (most likely with BushCo's approval), Israel is showing aggression (as usual). The Turks are bombing Iraq.

A friend said to keep an eye on oil supplies: prices went up yesterday. Again.

I worry that what's happening in Pakistan--suspended elections, political unrest caused by assassinations and other machinations--is just a dress rehearsal being run for the benefit of BushCo. Testing the waters to see what will happen if BushCo tries this same strategy in 2008.

Does this man look familiar, Mrs. Cheney?

THE WACKY 2008 TO COME!

Why not make some predictions for next year, right? It's what all the cool kids do.

1. Every single college kid in America will have an IPod or a cellphone, or both. Trust me on this: It's a rare day that I see even one person who isn't listening to music on an IPod or talking on his/her cellphone (or both, at once).

2. Articles of impeachment will be filed on Dick Cheney. Again--why not go all out? Of course, nothing will come of it, but some dems will be able to say they tried.

3. Someone--most likely Israel--will bomb Iran, and we'll be "obligated" to help out our good friends and join in the shock-and-awe-fest. Chimpy will get his war on, one way or another; this seems like an easy way to get it going.

4. The democratically elected and tough-as-nails president of Ecuador will be killed in an "accident" and be replaced by an American-backed puppet regime. Read John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hitman to learn how the pros (Nixon, Reagan, Poppy Bush, Big Dick Cheney) eliminate pesky foreign leaders who tell the US to stick it; read Greg Palast's latest post to see just how pesky Rafael Correa Delgado has been.

5. Vikkitikkitavi's Bells On blog will fail (yes, FAIL!) to win a third consecutive Drysdale Trophy for Least Influential Political Blog, because EVERYONE will be reading it, talking about it, and asking why the fuck they didn't listen to her in the first place before all this shit got so fucked up. You'd better start reading it now, so you'll be ahead of the curve.

6. The Monkey/Love campaign will kick it into high gear and sweep the early primaries in 2008, coasting to a landslide victory in the November elections. However, after prediction #3 happens, Bush will suspend all elections, so it won't matter. Then Cheney, in a emotive fit not unlike that of Darth Sidious screaming "Un! Limited! Power!" in Revenge of the Sith, will rip Chimpy's heart out of his chest, eat it raw on the White House lawn, and declare himself Emperor for Life.

Got any other predictions?

My Secret Santa Victim

Well, it's Christmas Eve, and Santa's in his sleigh, spending about .000025468 seconds per chimney, dropping presents all over the world. (except I'm sure in those Islamofascist countries who haven't been saved yet and don't believe in the Baby Jeebus and his brother Saint Nicholas--or something like that)

Anyway, my gifts are as follows, for you, my little Secret Santa gem: Dr. Zaius!

A lifetime membership to the Charlton Heston Fan Club! They say he's truly a "renaissance man" just like you, Dr. Z! (I can't believe they used that phrase for him, especially after we all know that Mittens Zelig is the true renaissance man).

Second, I give you this striking description of Heston from some web site that obviously didn't know what his most important films were, as The Planet of the Apes series was not mentioned!
"A brawny, virile classical actor whose physical presence, intelligent performances and authoritative voice left a distinctive mark on fifty years of Hollywood filmmaking, Charlton Heston's career encompassed roles in numerous historical epics, period dramas, and Hollywood adventure films, earning him the Academy Award as Best Actor (for his performance in BEN-HUR (1959)). At his best in the 1950s and '60s, Heston continued to play leading roles through the 1990s and was also called upon to lend his voice or imposing stature to certain supporting roles no one quite as large ever really emerged to fill."

Wow. Now THAT'S a description, eh? "no one quite as large ever really emerged to fill" indeed. Just like you, Dr. Zaius!

Finally, I've ordered you LIFESIZE PRINTS of all the photos from the movie! See this site for views of all the great movie stills! Just watch your little mailbox; I'm sure they'll turn up any day. They didn't have Paypal or anything, but the guy who emailed me from www.scamarama.apeworld.comeonman.orgy.com said he'd run my credit card through, no problem!

I leave with you my favorite line from The Planet of the Apes!

"It's a mad house! A mad house!"

Holy crap

Well, sure enough, I somehow managed an A in calculus. I know you were all waiting on the edges of your seats! I don't really know how it happened, but I hope that the lucky star or planetary alignment continues through next semester. One more math class, and I'll be able to apply for the forensic science major, and then it's CSI: State College for this gal!

Sadly, I had to miss the Christmas Bird Count, though--this morning was a little rough with the hives and the Benadryl. I suppose it's probably for the best; it was pouring rain the whole time.

I snuck up here to my office to get a little computer time during the Cookie-Baking ExtravaganzaTM that Kat and Em do before the holiday. Can't wait until those peanut butter blossoms are done--yum!

Oop--there's the timer--gotta go get some cookies!

Merry Holiday Kwaanza Happiness Joyeux Hannukah Yule to you all!

A Christmas Gift for PoP

Once upon a time, when it was very cold in the north but warmer as you went farther south, although the scientifically proven phenomenon of climate change was wreaking havoc with the predictability of the weather, but you can trust me on this that it was warmer in other places than the north, though the north in some spots was unseasonably mild, there was a wonderful woman named PoP.

All PoP wanted for her winter celebration of whatever denomination you, the reader, would like to insert here, whether it be pagan, christian, muslim, african-american, jewish, icelandic, or otherwise, and I don't mean to slight anyone who doesn't fall into those categories but they're the only categories I can think of at the moment, so please just relax and read on, because that's not really the point of this story, now is it?--as I was saying, all PoP wanted was a snowman.

And so--after a few days of wishing and waiting, and checking this blog and being disappointed, but still I hope being hopeful that this storyteller/erstwhile snowman-builder would get her shit together and put up a damned snowman already, and doing other stuff that's really just her own personal business, thank you very much, PoP got her wish:

Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukah/Joyous Kwaanza/whatever whatever to you, PoP, and to the whole PoP clan.

Mittens "Zelig" Romney

It seems that Mitt Romney's dad wasn't alone during that Michigan march with Martin Luther King, Jr. Mittens is now admitting that HE and his father both marched with King! It took quite a bit of expert questioning and trust-building, but Mittens confessed the whole thing to the Boston Globe.

Ever the avid historian, I did a little searching in the archives of all the great photo databases: Corbis, Getty, Fotosearch, the usual ones. Lo and behold, that Mittens gets around! Let me share the results I found; turns out that Mittens really was the "renaissance man" of the 20th century.

Here he is back in the early 1920s with the great Albert Einstein:

It's said they were great friends, and Al got some of his best ideas from the free-thinking Mittens. I know you're skeptical, but really! This is all in the archives.

Seems he also spent some time in India back then, helping Gandhi overthrow the British:

Mittens' contributions were such that he even helped Gandhi spin the cloth for his saris and sari-panties. Again--don't shoot the messenger! I'm just reporting what I found in my exhaustive search of the annals of history.

If you have doubted Mittens' experience with what the presidency can be like during wartime, doubt no more, dear friends:

Aides to FDR often reported that Mittens was never far from Roosevelt's side, and sometimes Eleanor even let Romney borrow some of her clothes when he spent the night at the White House after staying up late with FDR and talking about global politics. Mittens reportedly even made some contributions to the New Deal, suggesting letter combinations that amazed and delighted Roosevelt and his staff. An experienced war president AND an economic and social-programs genius! Who knew?

My search in the archives was really paying off. But what about the last half of the 20th century? Did Mittens lay low, or was he still out there at the cutting edge of history? My answers came swiftly -- and with photographic evidence!

Mittens shared a one-room apartment with Marlon Brando just before Brando hit it big in the movie version of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire." Here's a candid snapshot, taken by Elaine Strich, Brando's gal-pal at the time:

According to her unpublished diaries, made available to me through special negotiations with the National Archives, Strichy often complained to Brando that Mittens was a little uptight and didn't drink enough to be really fun, but Brando knew talent when he saw it. Strich ended her affair with Brando shortly after this photo was taken. Wow. Mittens was there, in the thick of it, during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Amazing.

But Hollywood couldn't hold Mittens' attention forever; his father's political connections drew Mitt back into the Beltway ballyhoo that was Camelot. Here, he rides in a Florida motorcade (thankfully, not THAT motorcade!) with JFK and an unidentified general shortly after astronaut John Glenn's historic spaceflight:

In an impeachmentandotherdreams exclusive interview, John Glenn told this reporter that Mittens is the one who urged the astronaut to try his hand at politics. Mitt's eye for political talent and savvy?--pretty impressive, no?


After so many hours online and in the photo archives, I was chased out by an angry Giuliani-supporting librarian, who told me in a voice not unlike that of actress Rosie Perez that I'd "better get the hell outta here, yo, and quit scanning all these old photos of grandpas."

I'd clearly touched a nerve.

Finally, someone's fighting back against the Farter-in-Chief!

Ahnuld's had enough of that shit.

(actual screen capture from Talking Points Memo)

Splotchy Alert!

Passing by the TV in the work cafeteria, and sneakily switching the channel to CNN instead of Fox, I saw that the cops in NOLA are using tear gas and stun guns to dispel a crowd of protesters who are trying to stop the bulldozing of public housing.

What if Splotchy's in that crowd?

Should we get bail money together?

How will we know if anything's happened to him?

Bugs Bunny and Splotchy

I'm worried.

Simian Secret Santa!

Click on this link if you want to play--it's an online gift exchange, sponsored by our future leaders, Dr. Monkey von Monkerstein and Dr. Zaius.


Not everyone can play, however; some people are, in Dr. Zaius' own words, "a menace, a walking pestilence." The following walking pestilences will not under any circumstances be allowed to play:

Reason: Assholes.

Reason: Wannabe world-dominator sociopathic asshole. Oh, and he shot at Santa's reindeer last year, thinking they were part of his "wild" safari hunt.

Reason: greedy bloodsucking elitist wannabe asshole, shops only for self

But anyone else can jump on in!

I want to be a Lakota

You can just call me "Flies with Birds" or "Looks at twigs and rocks" or something. I want to be a Lakota:

from the great people at Raw Story:
Descendants of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse break away from US

The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday."We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference....

A delegation of Lakota leaders delivered a message to the State Department on Monday, announcing they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the United States, some of them more than 150 years old....

The treaties signed with the United States are merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists say on their website.

You go, people. And please--take me with you!

Great first lines

KGMom did a great post listing some of her favorite opening lines in literature, and I just had to steal her idea and give you a few of my own. One of my favorite parts of The Hours is the portrayal of just how freakin' long it takes Virginia Woolf to write the first line of Mrs. Dalloway; I can imagine that the first line of any literary work would probably be the hardest to write.

Her post is well-stocked with some of my favorites (Melville, Kafka, Fitzgerald, Homer, to name a few), so count those among my favorites. You're probably guessing the Melville ("Call me Ishmael") and the Kafka ("As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect"), but you may be wondering about the Homer. As an English major, I read a lot of the classics, and I even taught a course in Early World Literature way back when, and Homer's The Odyssey opens with a line containing a beautiful epithet, "rosy-fingered dawn," which has long been one of my favorite literary phrases. My photo at the top of the post is a decent example of "rosy-fingered dawn," but I've seen better.

Some of my other favorites:
"124 was spiteful." The Great Toni Morrison, Beloved -- one of the best books ever written by an American, period.

"When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun. " Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd -- is there any better description of a smile? Hardy could be rather verbose, but he really nailed it on this one.

"None of them knew the color of the sky." Steven Crane, "The Open Boat" -- not really a novel, more like a very long short story, but a beautiful piece of writing. There are so many phrases that I love in this story: "appropos of nothing" (nope, Sheryl Crow didn't write that one), "It was precisely like the point of a pin," (that's tiny!) and "It was less to him than the breaking of a pencil's point" (ouch!).

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye -- Salinger obviously remembered what it was like to be a teenage boy, full of pepper and sarcasm, and unable to understand the world around him.

"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York." Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar -- In high school, when I read this book the first time, I felt incredibly depressed for about two solid weeks. It just killed me knowing that the protagonist in the book got better, but Plath never did. I also have remembered that phrase about electrocuting the Rosenbergs since then.

What are some of your favorite opening lines?

A brilliant mind at work

No, not mine, of course! But The Cunning Runt is working up something good, and it's a must-read.

Fun with Spam

I work in a pretty large company, and as a result, I receive two or three of those "chain-email" Spams every day from well-intentioned coworkers. Some don't bother me (when they have links to games, etc.) but the religious ones tend to grate on my nerves, as I'm a non-believer and don't appreciate being told about the power of prayer, the watchfulness of angels, etc.

I got one of these emails the other day, and I thought I'd share MY version of it with you. But be forewarned, if you take this Jesus-is-the-reason-for-the-season seriously and have no sense of humor about it -- well, perhaps you should not read this.

Why Jesus is better than Santa

Santa lives at the North Pole ...
JESUS has a cool pad in the Gaza Strip! …Oh wait…

Santa rides in a sleigh ..
JESUS rides on the wind and walks on the water. He leaps tall buildings in a single bound, and he don’t take no shit from you, asshole.

Santa comes but once a year ...
JESUS is celibate, thank you.

Santa fills your stockings with goodies ...
JESUS supplies all your needs, and I bet he even offers free shipping at Christmas.

Santa comes down your chimney uninvited ..
JESUS might be a little creeped out by the breaking and entering thing.

You have to wait in line to see Santa ...
JESUS is as close as Mike Fuckabee’s cellphone.

Santa lets you sit on his lap ...
JESUS lets you rest in His arms, he’s got the whole world in his hands, and he is the wind beneath my wings... Oh, sorry, got carried away there.

Santa doesn't know your name, all he can say is
"Hi little boy or girl, what's your name?" ...
JESUS knew our name before we were born.
Not only does He know our name,
He knows our address too.
He knows our history and future and
He even knows how many hairs are on our heads. He’s even reading your email right now. But that’s because the Patriot Act allows his favorite commander guy George W Bush to collect all that information without your knowledge. Bet that makes you feel all safe and secure, doesn’t it? Of course it does.

Santa has a belly like a bowl full of jelly ...
JESUS has always worked out and has a six-pack.

All Santa can offer is HO HO HO ...
JESUS would never call anyone a ho.

Santa says "You better not cry" ...
JESUS says "I’ll give you somethin’ to cry about!” when he’s in a bad mood. And let’s face it, humans are enough to put even Jesus into a bad mood, so shut the hell up with your whining.

Santa's little helpers make toys ...
JESUS makes new life, mends wounded hearts, repairs broken homes and builds mansions. Too bad you commie atheist America-hating liberals can’t afford those mansions! You can just live out in the cold, you unpatriotic traitors!

Santa may make you chuckle but ...
JESUS gives you joy by telling some really kick-ass knock-knock jokes.

While Santa puts gifts under your tree ...
JESUS is kinda sorta in baby form at that time of year, so you better hope Santa doesn’t get pissed off by this little list, or it’s coal for your sorry ass. REMEMBER: We need to keep Christ in CHRISTmas.... Otherwise, it’s misspelled, although “Xmas” is acceptable in informal writing.