Friday Night at 8: Random

Old family story.  My mother would never admit she was wrong about anything while we kids were growing up … with six children and little money, I guess she felt she had to be stronger than human or everything would fall apart.

Anyway, one day we were getting out our cereal for breakfast and my sister says, “Ma, this milk is spoiled!”

For some reason my mother didn’t want to hear that.

So she walked over to the table, drank some of the milk right out of the carton and proclaimed immediately “Sweet as sugar!”

A split second later the milk registered on her taste buds and she exclaimed “Sour as hell!”

It became a family joke, of course, used on many different occasions.

I once heard a woman say that having her purse stolen felt like being violated … not rape, but in the same vein.  Now with the giant handbags women wear in New York City, I’d say it’s more like having your car stolen.

I haven’t checked my 401(k) statement yet – I was going to, but I forgot my password.  It’s probably a lot less than it was.

I wish I could describe the feeling aroused in me when I read about or hear the mean words being spoken at McCain/Palin campaign stops and how those speakers are really playing with fire.  Reminds me of the feeling I had in 2000 when they showed all those white men rushing towards the room where the hanging chads were being counted, the contorted angry hateful faces, the hints of violence.

I don’t want to describe what they’re doing, hell that’s obvious.  I just wish I could describe my own feeling when confronted by that kind of behavior.  It’s similar, somehow, to the vibe I’m getting from everyone around me both in New York City and on the blogosphere about the economy, nebulous fears of “losing” something, “losing” everything.  Something to do with control, not having control, or maybe finding out the control I thought I possessed is, in this crazy world, a phantom, an illusion.

I read something somewhere or heard it at a Buddhist teaching — a young student is hearing about the Buddhist concept of “emptiness,” that nothing is real in the sense of independently existing, everything is interdependent and ultimately creations of the mind, which is also empty, and so on.  So this young student is talking to his teacher and is all arrogant about this new realization, tries to show his teacher how cool he is by walking right into a tree.  Of course he immediately knocks himself unconscious.  I don’t remember the punch line, though, sorry.

It was interesting to read over at the Orange, all the diaries about the election, fighting to defeat the Republicans, even as the economy was melting down, there was sort of a brave defiance there that I liked.  I do election diary rescue (I’m a data miner) at Daily Kos, and I felt a special affection towards those who have been consistently covering downticket races, and they didn’t miss a beat.  It reminded me, somehow, of the old Star Trek episodes (the ones with Captain Kirk) where the Enterprise was heading into a completely doomed situation, but they still kept at their work stations with all the flashing lights and such, they kept their focus.  I like to see people choose to work even when reality gets a little fuzzy around the edges.

And then the contrast, coming to Docudharma and reading about every subject under the sun.  And I think about how we all at one time or the other get a lot of attention, but then in ten minutes someone else comes along and writes something completely different and it becomes a real marketplace of ideas, with haggling and everything!  Kind of like I’d imagine a crazy souk in some Mad Max desert town of the future.

Blogging catastrophes is addictive!

It’s been quite a week.

Happy Friday.  Here’s a cool video written and performed by Jose Conde, video and YouTube courtesy of Nicole Betancort, entitled “Respondele a Obama”: