A Cheerful Thought

Heard on newsradio this morning: Apparently Mike Brown (head of FEMA) was not a part of this morning's Presidential briefing on disaster relief.

The unfortunate part of that is that the man responsible for putting Brown into position to do his damage probably won't see his head roll, as it well ought to.

Side note: I'd seen it at Making Light but thanks to Nancy Lebovitz for reminding me: FEMA did not require any requests for assistance from state or local authorities to do their job.

Current Personal Soundtrack

( Oh, what providence / What divine intelligence )

On Being An Adult Occasionally

Serious envy for all the folks who have child care, or babysitting, or parents or grandparents available. Insofar as I'm looking at a school year's worth of waking to be out the door by 8 AM, and doing two pickups per day, in different directions, at least three days per week, with the remaining days either recovering from or preparing for my own work week, let me just say, I'd kill for a babysitter once every, say, two weeks.

Or a chance to go out and be with grownups weekly, as was my wont when younger.

However, I'm putting my energy into developing SOME way of getting out of the house for the night of either October 4 or October 5. I haven't seen a concert except at a con since before my son was born, and The Decemberists (my current earworms) are playing Webster Hall here in NY those nights. And dammit, if I'm only going to get to be an adult one day in the next year, I choose that.

Now to get maya_a a copy of their music (including the free and legit concert from the Live Music Archive [the http download page is missing the last track; FTP information here]) so that I can convince her she wants to go, in the middle of her workweek. Anyone else interested?

Injured

Walking along the street with shopping cart containing a (new to us, rescue) computer. Get to curb cut for crossing street, and the children are holding onto the cart, one per side. I had previously asked them to hold, not push, the cart. In the street, bottom of curb cut, the street's got a slight ditch/collapse/indent/whatever. Tried to pull back on the cart so the front wheels jumped the ditch. Kids pushed, not held -- and the wheels caught in the street. I pitched heels over head over the cart, mangling it slightly.

Only seem to have sustained one injury -- a flare in the chronic pain in my right shoulder. Came home, took two Aleve, let it settle a bit, had a hot shower. Feel mostly better, but the range of motion in the shoulder, already bad, is less now. (I wish I threw 90 mph. Then some MLB team would have sent me to Dr. James Andrews, and the shoulder'd be scheduled for surgery, or else I'd already be in therapy to recover from the surgery. One of these years I'll make a doctor's appointment for this, as well as the several other appointments I need to make.)

Don't know whether it bothered the rescue (which is a low-power PII jobbie; it automatically queues in for Linux experimenting, or jukebox work, or some such).

Two links

Partially so I don't forget. Partially because they're both worth reading. WARNING: Not for the easily offended. The second one might offend even the really thick-skinned. But some of what's there is laugh-to-disturb-the-neighbors funny. You've been warned.

1. Why are fundamentalists so frightened by liberal family values? The reasons, and why we shouldn't just dismiss them.

2. Top 20 Most Funny and Most Offensive Religious Jokes (as voted at Ship of Fools)