Bells and things

Learned a -to me- amazing new thing tonight. PBS show about the dinosaurs of the arctic; the appearance, or lack thereof, of serrations, or 'teeth' on the edges of leaves is an almost perfect indicator of how cold or temperate the climate during a particular period . " fewer teeth, smaller tooth area, and lower degree of blade dissection in warmer environments.^" . A complicated water exchange mechanism. This was my paradigm shift moment. the rest follows nicely. So, the North coast of Alaska was far more temperate 70 million years ago. But the high latitude also made for a greater swing in high and low temps, leading to the conclusion that the 'arctic' dinos were far more adaptable than the southern cousins. Diversity was enormous then, but was already shrinking by the time the 65 million year ago asteroid climate disaster happened. Then the planet wide long winter that arose wouldn't necessarily be the extinction triggering event, since the ''arctic' dinos proved they could survive much cooler climes. Lack of diversity seems to be a species killer. We are now spiraling down that very path.

Another amazing PBS thing: The Raleigh Ringers: hand bell ensemble, with holiday music. I recently read a book in which 'ringers' appeared in a subplot. I understood the concept, but never pictured the intricacies of music they could perform. They're just a treat to watch and marvel over. "English hand bell ringing" The book, scifi alt future, was set in England. I'll remember the name of it soon.

The foriegn press, oh my!

( look up contributors list )
this prompted by a long piece on Russia Today the "mood in America" by showing some right wing radio host ( a solidly believable group NOT)about all the Obama contributors from off shore accounts. Reminds me that's exactly what my sister said. This guy was positively rabid! Is it some mineral in the soil causing otherwise intelligent humans to believe any of that crap? When it's so easily disproved with a bit of reading effort. Russia Today "poll 40% think Obama's term will end with a graceful bow before a period of US decline. 29% say change possible, whether for better or worse (these people really like decisions) 20% think it will produce a humble America (more hysterical laughter), first among equals. 11% think it will show greater tolerance and hope for minorities.

One must read or watch the foreign press. Reality knocking.

The Oprah factor

An economics pre-doc proved that Oprah's support got Barack over 1 million votes - in the primaries - leading to his place. . . in place to change history. Everything happens for a reason. Hmmm, one wonders how Hilary feels about that.

Change has come. Little black boys - and girls - can now know that anything is possible. The rest of the world is pretty happy, too. But here, we have collective guilt, responsibility, for living in, yes, the greatest country on this Earth, that was founded on genocide, inquisition and slavery. And maybe we have made an evolutionary step forward. Maybe the aliens will land now. ha ha ha ha.

I had a flash earlier about Black folks having a Sally Fields moment, where they can actually put away the pervasive feelings that no matter what, white folks will always put them down. That would certainly be a transformative paradigm shift. And there is really no other country in the world that could understand that, because there is no history anywhere else to have created our personal racial issues.

My sister - oh my goddess, an otherwise intelligent woman, today was telling me "you know, he's NOT African American, he's half African and half American, and 1/4 of his background is Muslim, and they were not the slaves, they were the slave takers." Oh. My. God. And then I asked, " so how does this pertain to him, now?" "Well, we'll see." And more from the right wing hate spewers - it was there, just waiting to pop out. Well, that didn't sound very hateful. Maybe I'm just projecting. She finished it off by saying 'well we won't have that argument right now.'

The "ultimate" color line has been crossed? Brown babies. smile

"Without contention, without having to march in the streets to get our votes counted." Gloria Steinem on Oprah (the late rerun)( cuz you know, 16:00 is for the dog park)

still tryin to publish this from the 28th

well, lookit that - it's there - twice. in IE right now. gotta switch back -. . .well, it's saved twice in draft form. let's see if i can publish from here.

(this from the 28th - when blogger.com was not lettin' me publish. or maybe it's my browser, in some inexplicable way. The 'button' "publish" connects to "Javascript:void(0)" ie., it goes nowhere and I get a "invalid character" message. Well, the hover over shows the same, now. I started up blogger.com w/IE tab in Firefox. (FF and IE tab having both worked here just fine in the past.) I suppose I'll have to try native IE. My frelling links work. but theirs don't go figure

Pakistan is on the verge of being a failed state, and it has 50 nuclear weapons. The Pashtun region, encompassing Afghanistan and Pakistan. Completely The U. S. govt. is threatening to go across the boarder into Pakistan. This, of course, is totally illegal, world-law wise. But we did. 50 nuclear weapons. Frontline has me overflowing with post-atomic world visions. That part of the world virtually glows with potential death and destruction - as I see it flashing before my eyes in clouds of light and energy. It only remains to be seen how far the glow will spread, and how far the destruction will go toward total disintegration of society.

August 4th, 1961

Barack Obama was born two days after my 19th birthday, so I could (have) be(en) his mother. Although that was several years before I decided that brown babies would be the salvation of our society. Big smile. Golly gee whiz. We've taken a step toward racial blindness. Forget equality - people are equal - as equal as the individual person can aspire to be. The Supreme Court! Ta Da! However, the three most likely justices to retire soon are already the liberal 3.

I'd wish to be more eloquent and profound here . . . I'd also wish that Blogger.com would let me publish my frelling posts without the damned javascript(void)0 error.

pre death post

laughing maniacally. . . Lying here, feeling my arteries harden. . . still having trouble, however, actually believing that this is me ME still me being, not getting, older.
I just keep putting off doing those things that will help me live. like working. and then there's the quitting . .or not . . smoking part. I was suddenly very afraid of dying - right then, or in the immediate 'next' tense. both the gray cat and the dog made sudden appearances in my face, so to speak. wrong part of the cat, however, and I had to send her packing, followed by Martina. I was thinking about what Linda told me of her mom's leg veins being totally full of plaque when she died.
goddess bless me, I almost called Joe. That would drive him crazy. Then he'd be sure I was crazy and set about having me committed. So I took an anxiety pill, instead. time will tell if. . .
So far, I've resisted clapping on the blood pressure machine.
I believe I'll take this opportunity to re-post my revised Last Will and Testament. Ah, mortality

Last Will and Testament slightly altered 10-20-2008

I leave everything I possess to my oldest son Joseph M. Zaouk, and his wife, Sandra Zaouk. After he takes what he wants , ** Andrew Bennett, his father Walter Bennett, his wife Leah Bennett; Crystal De Nova, John De Nova and Zoe Angeles, in that order, should get whatever they want, and then someone, for Pete's sake should have a garage sale or use E-Bay. ** My sister, Linda Oliver McCoy of Alva, Florida, should she chose to transport anything, or even FLY out here (little dig there Sis) would be # 2 in line. My youngest son Rached A. Zaouk, if he chooses to make an appearance, will receive his portion of the US Savings bonds (8 or 9 of them in $50.00 denominations) which I have already endorsed over to Joseph M. and Rached A. Zaouk. Omar Zaouk, younger brother of Joseph and Rached Zaouk, may also be interested in salvaging some item or another.
My good friend, Karen Higa, of San Francisco, has promised to take care of my cats should I die. You didn't think I'd forget that did you Karen? If any cash could be squeezed out of my estate to ship her,(the very word 'estate' sets me to laughing hysterically), I know my sister, Linda would take care of my best puppy, Martina. But - I'm planning on outliving all of them, and will more than likely have replacements. When asked if she'll take care of my puppy . . . if, Crystal answers, "Well, duh! But we're not gonna talk about that!" I think I'm gonna need another 5 or more years to get C. settled and aiming higher. Then I'll want to live to see her shining star ascend.

". . .the candidates' debate. . ."

Everything is a line from a rock and roll song.

Sara Palin knocked it out of the park - in terms of the questions to her debating prowess. I don't agree with (more than) half her policies. However, she expressed herself well, responded sorta on point with about 1/2 the questions, and probably conquered the "wanna drink a beer with her" group. Pundits still say J MC needs to prove himself. Is 'she' ready to be VP? No. Secretary of of Agriculture, maybe. (per some CNN pundit.) So all ya'll who were expecting/hoping ( I have to admit that thought floated in my head for a second)) she would fall on her face . . . should have checked her clips from debates in Alaska Gov. race. She rocked.

more punditm (pundit - got to be derived from the Latin - I suppose I could look it up, but no)

"Who was more in touch with the problems of people like you?" 70% for Biden. oops - CNN snatched that stat and replaced it with 50%/44% Biden/Palen. Cute. And "who seemed more like a 'politician'." that was the 70%/21%, Biden/Palin stat.

All the punditm are saying both need to address how they're going to handle the severe recession we are about to go into. I so hate to be right. If "they" had listened to me 5 years ago. . .

ego surfing

Not enough tasks; must multi more. Olympic swimming (now) on TV, (was just men's basketball (Greece vs. Spain) (don't see how that game cd be over but. . .) . . . women's soccer (Sweden vs. Argentina - and boy, are those Swedish girls big! compared to the Argentinians, who all appear to be Indias. Lawd knows, there are plenty blonde and blue Argentinians, descended from the Nazi in flux after WWII) streaming in another window on the computer. I always expect the women from Brazil and Argentina to be awesome, like their male counterparts. We'll see. Poor babies, they're just small. That could prove to be an advantage. oop - back to bb they have 1/2 time! at Olympics, just like in rl, Marian.

Once again, I am NOT working the late shift at YC cuz I need a frelling puppy sitter. My spoiled rotten puppy! She is the cutest, smartest puppy on the planet, of course. But she can't be trusted alone all night. Right now, the major problem is the family of skunks living in the back yard. I think there are at least two babies - getting bigger all the time. One almost completely black, with white blaze on face and white tail tip. Mommy has a white strip on her back. Junior hasn't got his spray on yet, but last night he charged the dog as she circled him barking her brains out. No spray, tho - I suppose there must be some time during puberty when they start charging rear end first, but this guy wasn't yet. That is certainly one of the funniest (but only in retrospect) visuals in animal behavior: the cute little furry thing running backwards toward you lickety split.
So anyway, silly puppy has been sprayed 3 three! times. The first was a face full, after which she tried to rub her face off on the living room rug. I managed to get her into the shower before she got to my bed! The next 2 01:20 showers (!) were less of a full spray, but enough - all accompanied by heavy barking, of course.

But, since the skunks are nocturnal, I can safely work a short shift and be home by dark! Here's hoping the little critters move out before the days get shorter. I really need to follow my sister's advice and call some pest control outfits and ask questions.

Spain is way ahead. No score in the soccer game yet. I suspect this is a replay. I cd probably look up the final score somewhere. I don't get "The Soccer Channel"(??) which seems to be the only place you can watch it on TV, unless you wanna watch /tape 8 hrs at a time of NBC and clones coverage, and hope what you want shows up eventually - they're not telling ahead of time, not on the TV guide on the Dish, not on nbc's online schedule info. I guess that's how they guarantee the sponsors eyes thruout.

My Missing Son

Well, missing from my life. No doubt still present in his own reality. With a $10. subscription to some 'find them' service, I'd gotten a new address and phone number for my second son, who disowned me 4 years ago. Joe and I both had rather disturbing dreams about him a week or two ago, so Joe called the number - it turned out to be really Rached Zaouk! $10. well spent. Of course, he got hung up upon as soon as his brother recognized his voice, but we've confirmed his alive-ness, if not detail health info. I'm pretty sure Jonelle would call me (now that I think about it) if there was something wrong with him. Not too happy to join his father on his shit list, but. . . My latest google of his name turned up a couple of new things - two quotes from a CSUN publication, identifying him as a "Senior History major." Date was 2007, so I guess this means he has just graduated.

Watching a great PBS "Nature" show about the rain forest. Quote: We know only 5% of the creatures living here now.
The Sumatran tiger supports its own ecosystem - a species of bat that circles it catching the flies that surround the tiger.

Anyway - my brain is multi-tasking, and I'm thinking of Rached getting a job teaching. His first student teaching assignment (musta been more than 4 years ago, cuz he told me about it) was in a 5th grade class. "I want to transfer to a lower grade - those 5th graders are little assholes!" So now I'm mentally writing his opening speech to his first (and/or maybe subsequent) class. "When I was your age, I was a little asshole. I'll be sure to recognize my fellow a-holes, so stay tuned. I was the only white kid in class my first 3 years of school - I speak the language of the street. I indirectly started the band Guns n Roses. so - welcome to my jungle! ( and maybe more, with music? nooo laughing hysterically. I really really miss my kid.)

Personal breakthough

I have just called someone - Walter and Leah - and . . .wait for it. . . asked for help! 4th day of diverticulosus -puppy desperately needs some one (else) to play with - big boys would be her preference. I texted John (DeNova - Marcy's 15 yr. old) but he claims he's not in the City. I could also use some GatorAide - Leah's JOB is roving store rep for them!! - since I can't frelling eat anything solid for at least another day. So, Walter says he'll send Leah and Andrew this afternoon - he has to clean out their garage. Terrific news all around - especially from Martina's pov.
I have a puppy! has been my answer to every "how are you feeling" question since November. She makes me laugh 50 times a day - much better than meds!

Just stopping by

Just a note to keep this thing alive.