from abc’s new eli stone show:

“it would have been easier to go through the naturalization process, instead they doused themselves with water so they wouldn’t dehydrate when they were crammed into a hidden compartment of a pick up truck… and they didn’t do it, so they could come and pick strawberries, they did it because they believed in america. 

in russia, iraq, afghanistan, we’re seeing, first hand, the seeds of democracy… they don’t grow on every patch of earth.  the freedom we have here is unique, it’s special.  they were willing to risk their lives for it.  i’m not saying that citizenship should be a prize for making it over the border.  i’m not saying that immigration isn’t a major issue facing this country.  but they’re not a policy, they’re people… and if this truly is the home of the brave, then they’re just as american as anyone in this country.”

back when i used to like sports in the good old houston oiler days of “luv ya blue!”, dan patrick was the local sportscaster.  funny little guy.  i remember something about him putting another hat on every time the team won, until he had a stack of hats...or something like that.  i was just a kid and i thought he was funny.

then.  later.  many years later.  (we won’t say just how many!  ) i flipped my radio dial over to the local talk radio program and stumbled upon dan patrick.  amusingly, he had as a host a certain “jon mathews”, who had once been a radio personality on one of the top rock stations in houston.  not that i ever listened to it, as being a teenaged girl, i found the subject matter to be offensive, embarrassing, and utterly moronic.  he apparently decided to continue in that vein as he was one of the most caustic, hateful, mean-spirited, belligerent talk radio hosts that i’ve ever heard.  jon matthews would later be arrested for indecency with a child.  nasty, icky man.

anyways, on to dan patrick.  if jon mathews was caustic, hateful, mean-spirited and belligerent, dan patrick was all of that and more.  i once called his show, after listening to him attack homosexuality by increasingly dehumanizing gays.  my point to mr. patrick was that these were people, they were friends and family members, and in my particular case, my father, so while you may believe that “homosexuality” is wrong, ranting and name-calling is certainly not going to make your point for you and will instead solidify opposition to you.  of course… that would have been my point to mr patrick; however, he responded to me by literally SCREAMING at me over the phone, saying how i shouldn’t even be alive, because my father’s genes were “tainted”, etc.  i’ve often wondered whether or not he considered his behaviour at that moment to be “moral”.  if so, irony meters beware!  nevermind that i was tempted to run around houston spreading my “tainted” genes and making people catch gay   i quit listening to his show after that.  who wants to be subjected to that type of abuse, much less listen to it?

side note: dan patrick is sometimes credited with having “discovered” rush limbaugh. 

i was saddened to see mr patrick win election to the texas senate in 2006.  his district his heavily republican, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected once he announced his candidacy, but it was disheartening to say the least.  to say that mr patrick is “rabidly” right wing is an understatement. 

i’ve been somewhat amused in a “omg, this man is a texas senator, i’m so embarrassed” kinda way by mr patrick’s actions in the senate.  i’d be so very curious to see if the onion’s readership has fallen off in recent years, because the *real* news is even more bizarre than they can print! 

i give you texas senator dan patrick at his, uh...finest

read on...

i’ve always been a bit of a bookworm.  back when i was 18 or so, very good friends*** suggested that i read the spenser: for hire series by robert b parker.  they thought the books might be good for me.  i gave them a shot and, over the years, i’ve become an addict.  with every new book release, i re-read the entire series.  if things in life are not going well, i re-read the entire series.  if i feel like i need to get back in touch with myself...yep, i re-read the series why, exactly, the books affect me as they do, i’m not sure.  but by now, they’re like going home.  *shrug* it works for me, so i go with it

quotes that i liked from spenser novels:

“...if you lay back and let oblivion roll over you, it will be your fault.  you’re old enough now to start becoming a person.  and you’re old enough now so that you’ll have to start taking some kind of responsibility for your life.”

“what you’re good at is less important than being good at something.”

“...you are going to have to get autonomous....autonomous. dependent upon yourself.  not influenced unduly by things outside yourself.”

--from Early Autumn, by robert b. parker

“in many ways, he’s typical of this town.  a bit more extreme, a bit more unloving, but essentially he’s left a very much different kind of social circumstance, maybe the first generation to go to college or wear a suit to work.  they’ve moved away, people like (him).  moved away from the old neighbourhood, both literally and figuratively.  the old rules from that neighbourhood don’t apply here.  or people like (him) don’t think they do.  they don’t know the new rules, so they latch on to the conventions of the media and the assumptions of the magazine ads and the situation comedies.  they try to be like everyone else, and what makes it so hard is that everyone else is trying to be like them.”

--from Ceremony, by robert b. parker

“extend that logic, and we eventually have to decide that no one can understand anyone.  maybe the matter of understanding has been overrated.  maybe i don’t have to understand your situation to sympathize with it, to help you alter it, to be on your side.  i’ve never experienced starvation either, but i’m opposed to it.  when i encounter it, i try to alleviate it.  i sympathize with its victims.  the question of whether i understand it doesn’t arise. ... maybe civilization is possible, if at all, only because people can care about conditions they haven’t experienced.  maybe you need understanding like a fish needs a bicycle.”

--from A Savage Place, by robert b. parker

***it is robert and natalie who are my namesakes, tho i don’t believe they were ever aware of it.  before they left to return to boston, they gave me a kitten.  i wanted a name that would help keep them with me and i came up with “arin”, R(obert)N(atalie).  so to them: much love to the two of you, wherever you may be.  i hope the years have been kind, as you deserved nothing but the best. 

from one of my favorite books, early autumn by robert b parker:

“money isn’t everything.”

“that’s true, but have you ever tried spending sex?”

“ought not the constitution be decided on by the import of its own expressions?  what may not be the consequences if an almost unknown history (the intent of the framers of philadelphia) should govern the construction(of the constitution)?” - edmund randolph

“it’s easy to go through life putting people down because they’re different than you, but no matter who you are or where you’re from, we all enter this world the same: when we’re born, we’re naked, covered in blood, and screaming in terror… and that sort of thing doesn’t have to stop there if you know how to live right...” - dana gould, funhouse

“.. the things you used to own, now they own you..."--chuck palahniuk, fight club

“i’ll be dead after i die...and i was dead before i was born. life is a break from death."--101 reyjavik

“i don’t like people, at least, not live. not one on one."--101 reyjavik

“as a girl, you see the world like a giant candy store, filled with sweet candy and such...but one day you look around and see a prison...and you’re on death row."--the good girl

“comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable” --standing_damaged

“...these are the good old days...” --carly simon

“so you’ve wrung your eyes of all their tears and caught them in a glass, to save them for some day next year, when you’re waxing over your past, and should you ever begin to believe that the good part was worth all the waste, find your glass of last year’s tears and you take a taste...” --slobberbone, slippage

“and i find it kinda funny, i find it kinda sad, the dreams in which i’m dying are the best i’ve ever had...” --mad world

“...enlargen your world...” --mad world

“i wish that I didn’t hate you, least not as much as I do, and squander all my contempt for a little nothing like you...” --"needle time”, elvis costello

“i’m trying not to despise you with a passion that is hard to extinguish...” --"needle time”, elvis costello

“nobody wants their problems solved. their dramas. their distractions. their stories resolved. their messes cleaned up. because what would they have left? just the big scary unknown.” --chuck palahniuk, survivor

“we’re all miserable together.” --chuck palahniuk, survivor

“the first time you meet that someone special, you can count on them one day being dead and in the ground.” --chuck palahniuk, survivor

“people used what they called a telehone because they hated being close together and they were too scared of being alone.” --chuck palahniuk, survivor

“you think maybe if you just work harder and faster, you can hold off the chaos, but then one day you’re changing a patio lightbulb with a five-year life span and you realize how you’ll only be changing this lightbulb maybe ten more times before you’ll be dead.” --chuck palahniuk, survivor

“a girl calls and asks, “does it hurt very much to die?” well, sweetheart, i tell her, yes, but it hurts a lot more to keep living.” --chuck palahniuk, survivor

“her voice makes me think of her mouth makes me think of her breath makes me think of her breasts.” --chuck palahniuk, survivor

“you realize that people take drugs because it’s the only real personal adventure left to them in their time-constrained, law-and-order, property-lined world.” --chuck palahniuk, survivor

“you wonder, if there had been a low turnout at the crucifixion, would they have rescheduled?” --chuck palahniuk, survivor

“since change is constant, you wonder if people crave death because it’s the only way they can get anything really finished.” --chuck palahniuk, survivor

“reality means you live until you die. the real truth is nobody wants reality.” --chuck palahniuk, survivor

“because the only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom really is the amount of press coverage. if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, doesn’t it just lie there and rot? and if christ had died from a barbituate overdose, alone on the bathroom floor, would He be in Heaven?” --chuck palahniuk, survivor

they have rights, who dare defend them. –roger baldwin

old german proverb:
KWITEIRBELIAKIN!
–unknown

i know that you believe you understand what you think i said, but i’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what i meant! –unknown

the sun may kiss the moon good bye
the rose may kiss the butterfly
the sparkling wine may kiss the glass
but you, my friend…farewell…
–unknown

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proudly than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that’s permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
and no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish–and men do–
I shall only have good to say of you.
–Edna St. Vincent Millay

TO TRUE FRIENDS:
It is sublime to feel and say
of another, I need never meet,
or speak, or write to him; we
need not reinforce ourselves
or send tokens of remembrance;
I rely on her(him) as on myself;
If he did thus or thus, I know it
was right.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

Read any Emily Dickinson poems to the tune of “Yellow Rose of Texas”…
Her poems will never be quite the same again.

I lost a world the other day.
Has anybody found?
You’ll know it by the row of stars
Around it’s forehead bound.

A rich man may not notice it;
Yet to my frugal eye
Of more esteem than ducats.
Oh, find it, sir, for me!
–Emily Dickinson

See? Told ya so!

I’m an idealist. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way. –Carl Sandburg

“as we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” –john fitzgerald kennedy

“A career? I’ve thought about this quite a bit sir and I would have to say considering what’s waiting out there for me, I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed or buy anything sold or processed or repair anything sold, bought or processed as a career. I don’t want to do that. My father’s in the army. He wants me to join, but I can’t work for that corporation, so what I’ve been doing lately is kick-boxing, which is a new sport…as far as career longevity, I don’t really know. I can’t figure it all out tonight, sir, so I’m just gonna hang with your daughter.”
–lloyd dobler (john cusack) in “say anything” (Great Movie!)

“would you like some crackers? how about some butter and crackers? are you sure you don’t want them? i’ll butter some crackers for you…”
–ummmm, someone’s mom, yeah, that’s it….

the other night, i was lying in bed looking up at the stars…
and i wondered…
where the hell is my roof?!?
–unknown

Enron Explained

Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

Enron Venture Capitalism:

You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.

Now do you see why a company with $62 billion in assets is declaring bankruptcy?

Principles of Government

Socialism:
You have two cows.
Give one cow to your neighbor.

Communism:
You have two cows.
Give both cows to the government,
and they may give you some of the milk.

Fascism:
You have two cows.
You give all of the milk to the government,
and the government sells it.

Nazism:
You have two cows.
The government shoots you,
and takes both cows.

Anarchism:
You have two cows.
Keep both of the cows,
shoot the government agent,
and steal another cow.

Capitalism:
You have two cows.
Sell one cow and buy a bull.

Surrealism:
You have two giraffes.
The goverment makes you take harmonica lessons.