Detroit Diva

It's cold and rainy and supposedly going to turn into snow later today, which, I guess, means fall is over and we're headed into winter. Yuck!  I'm headed to northern Michigan tomorrow for turkey day and want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and safe travels!

The new U2 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is in stores today and after listening to it online at U2.com, I gotta say I am loving it!  Can't wait for it to come from amazon. I'm really tempted to download it onto my ipod from itunes but I want the cd for my car and I can download the tunes off the cd onto my ipod so it's the best of both worlds. I'm really bummed that I got my ipod before I knew that U2 would have their own ipod - and the stupid thing is I only want the U2 ipod because it's black and red instead of the usual ipod white. Wooo -  I love U2 and ipod! The weird thing is that in thinking about U2 I realized that the first U2 album, yes an actual album, that I bought was October in 1981! I then remembered that it was my friend Jane's now husband Tim who first told us about U2 because he had bought their album Boy. At least I'm pretty sure it was Tim. All of that made me think about how long Jane and I had been friends - since we were 8. 8! Which means 35 years come 2005. Damn! From albums to ipods. We're old, U2's old, but we're still all cool. I've grown up with Jane and Tim and U2 and all I have to say is thanks for all the years of great friendship and great music and here's to many more!

Read the 2nd and 4th posts at the Inert One.  2 is sad and 4 is downright scary. You're curious now aren't you?

What do you think of my new layout? Like it, hate it, don't care?

No wonder 91% voted for Kerry

The White House won't pay the District of Columbia the estimated $16 million it will cost for the upcoming inauguration.  I think it's time to end the big January party (and not just because it's for the schrub) - don't we have better things to spend our tax dollars on. I'm sure DC would rather spend it on schools, police, fire, housing, and a dozen other things. Now, if they wanted to spend that money on impeaching him - hey, that's another story.

Awhile ago I discovered a website called CoolTown Studios. CoolTown is all about designing living areas within cities that bring the sense of community back by including housing, independent restaurants (with outdoor patios) and stores, and plazas or pedestrian only areas that encourage people to get-together and make walking and other healthy activities more accessible. What's even cooler - Detroit Synergy and Wayne State University have partnered with them to create an area down the street from my Library. Yeah!! Welcome back Detroit!

I've said it before and I'll say it again. We have a lot of work to do. A lot of work to ensure that the politicians who do not stand for intolerence and discrimination and who do not want to take away the rights of women, gays, and minorities, are kept in office.  He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken may think it's hard work being President but it's even harder work to stand up for what you believe. I know that you are all strong enough to do so and so does Sarah Goodyear, who has written an excellent Village Voice article called Voices From the Wreakage. Read it - you'll be inspired!

Thank You God!

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has resigned so now there is one less fascist in He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken's regime. Ashcrost said he could leave office now because "the objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror had been achieved."  What!!??? How ironic is that? How can a man in the current fear-based administration even say that with a straight face. Do you feel secure from crime and terror? Yeah, me neither.

And Kerry didn't take Florida, Why?

Check out this breakdown of Florida results. It's particularily interesting to compare the registered voters to election results. First look at the E-touch voting chart (everything seems in line witht the way voters were registered) and then take a look at the Op-Scan results. Did large numbers of Democrats suddenly lose their minds and vote for W.? Somehow I doubt it. Could it be that the Op-Scan machines were rigged? Sounds about right to me.

Morality? The Republicans don’t have a clue when it comes to morality. What’s moral about fear-mongering or under-funding education or giving corporations tax breaks for sending jobs overseas? What’s moral about ignoring poverty and 45 million Americans without healthcare? What’s moral about destroying the environment?  What’s moral about lying to your people and starting an unjustified war and getting over 1000 young people killed and over 7000 young people wounded? What’s moral about intolerance and discrimination? And, last but not least, what’s moral about stealing an election and subverting Democracy?  If that’s morality – you can keep it. If the Republicans want to consider me to be immoral, that’s fine. I know I share my morals with a great many people – many great people.