FRIDAY FAST ONES

1.) Thanks for all the good wishes about my interviews. Next time, assuming there is a next time, I will not report it. I will wait to report in when I actually gain employment.

2.) Am I the only one who thinks they are making way too much of the seasoned air traffic controller who is on the headset with his children and tells them what to say to departing planes which are on the ground and who can override whatever they might say wrong at any moment? I mean, geez, people. Lighten up. There are more significant problems in this world - hell, in the airline industry that we could shine a light on and we are spending hours of our time and who knows how much money investigating this? Get a grip people, stop projecting what the controller might have done that could have caused a disaster and focus on the harmless thing that actually happened. Harmless.

3.) Looking forward to the Oscars on Sunday. Miss the old days when the stars weren't so processed up by stylists, but I enjoy the spectacle, none the less.

4.) Finally broke down and bought new windshield wipers for my car. Now the forecast changed and we have a dry week ahead. So those of you in the Bay Area can thank me for the sunshine this weekend.

IS IT JUST ME?

Perhaps it is just me, but I do not feel any safer today than I did on September 12, 2001.

I don't think flying is safer, I don't think attacking Iraq has been helpful in any way and I don't think that the intrusion into basic civil rights and the erosion of our national morality has made us safe.

That Cheney et. al, claim the ends (our security) justify the means makes me ill. I agree with Jeff Schweitzer 's article in the Huffington Post:

"When we appeal to the corrupt idea that ends trump means, nothing constrains our worst instincts. We end up with Japanese detention camps, witch hunts for "communists" by the House Un-American Activities Committee, illegal wire tapping, falsified evidence for war, and torture.."

In other words - we just keep on repeating our history of wrong headed, demoralizing, inhumane activities and learn nothing and become ever more morally bankrupt. Quite frankly if the lawyers who drafted those torture guidelines are not prosecuted, or at least have their "careers" destroyed, then it will never, ever stop. Just as those people on Wall Street and in the banks and mortgage companies who made a killing before it all came tumbling down will just go out and do it again unless they are regulated into responsibility.

I question the Obama administration's reluctance to further investigate and prosecute those who made these abhorrent activities possible. I know that there is concern that seeking "retribution" will divert time and attention from the bigger agenda items. However, I don't see how we can go forward as a nation of conscience if we don't make it very clear that, yet again, we have blundered and take responsibility for the damage done.

CHANGE IS MOSTLY JUST CHANGE

I have been avoiding my favorite Raleys grocery store because they have been undergoing an obnoxious remodel. I can cope with things being in a different place each time I go and I enjoy taking to the staff about what's happening, but everything is so dirty and somehow I find that a negative when I am purchasing groceries.

Anyway, they are almost done and I am not happy. Please understand that I drive some distance to shop at this store. I like that it was clean and bright and had wide aisles that management didn't feel the need to block with little displays which I hate because I knocked one over once.

Again, anyway, they are almost done and it is dark and moody and the selection is smaller and the aisles are narrower in order to make room for things someone must have on a weekly basis like olive tasting bars and little tables scattered about so they can kick back and savor the grocery store ambiance. It's outfitted like a singles bar or something. I asked the checker if a man did the new design and she said yes and that he was pretty strange, and didn't appear to have ever shopped for a family.

The wine and liquor area is huge, spacious, the deli is twice the size and there is now a full on Peet's coffee. Lucky for us grocery shoppers, the bank they wanted to build in was canceled or we'd have to shop elsewhere for cereal.

Maybe I am cranky about it because I am getting older and broker and now I can not only not afford the new stuff at the store, I can't find it because it is so dark in there.

WHAT I WITNESS

The street we live off is the main cut through to get to the high school, so unless we get out the door early, it is bumper to bumper with cars. Sometimes someone slows down to let us turn right into the traffic, more days not. So I force my way In or wait until there is a break in the flow.

So, these folks are using my residential street as a short cut, but don't have the manners to let the residents enter the road. Nice.

What floors me is that car after car zipping by has little emblems and bumper stickers proclaiming the folks inside the cars are "good" Christian people. My understanding is that these emblems are intened to identify the driver as a "witness" as explained here:

The VALIDITY of our witness will be shown in how we live our lives. Philippians 2:15 sets this goal for us: “ the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.” The effective Christian witness will live his/her life above reproach in the power of the Holy Spirit, whose fruit we exhibit when we remain in Christ (John 15:1-8; Galatians 5:22-23).

So, I wonder about that when I am driving to work and the car in front of me has all kids of "witnessing" messages, yet they don't let merge the car stuck in the wrong lane - the driver signaling desperately trying to get over before being forced to turn left?

There was the woman behind me at Costco with her "Jesus loves me" lanyard who swings her cart in around to be first in the new lane when the clerk has asked the people who have been waiting longer to move over. Another day, three teens at the mall were swearing a blue streak and when I asked them please to watch their language around my children, swore at me. They were wearing t-shirts from a church teen group.

This is what I witness.

A BIG THANK YOU TO "THE VIEW"

No matter what you might think about the TV show "The View", they were actually ground breaking last week when they interviewed McCain. Joy Behar, used the word LIE with regard to some of the McCain ads. My husband and I have been wondering why all the media folks have not been calling the candidates on all the lies. They have been so namby pamby, not calling either candidate on their ads and statements. But since footage of The View was shown around - all of a sudden CNN can't say lies often enough.

I am sure this has been an effort to appear unbiased. After McCain cancelled an interview on Larry King because his handlers thought Campbell Brown went "over the line" when attempting to elicit an actual straight answer from one of McCain's spokesmen. Right on cue Bush and the Republicans started in on their "elite media" and "angry left" rant and everyone backed down. At least until the ladies of The View got a positive response for calling a lie a lie.

I do fault the media for making every little gaff or misstatement a circus. Enough with the damn pigs and lipstick. But I must say I can't see the Palin/Clinton Saturday Night Live opener enough. My only complaint...Clinton should have offered up a pair of ovaries - not balls. We all know which equipment is made of stronger stuff.