"we will shut them down"
at the SOAW legal collective office: very interesting operation, doing great work. their office is literally outside the front gate of Fort Benning, where the action will take place.

after so many years of knowing and hearing and reading about this event, it's super exciting to finally be here.

the flights to get to atlanta cheap were ridiculous: San Diego to LA to Las Vegas to Charlotte to Atlanta. but many frequent flyer miles were accrued, and all the flights were made. note to plane watchers: the exit rows on USAir 737-400s are great: regular tray tables on the seat in front of you, so normal seat widths, and armrests that pop up!

more soon. "staffing" the empty legal collective office now.

it's 5:12am, and i'm off to the SOA protests: see you next week!

rural border counties voting "blue"
while i still maintain that giving the republicans the color red is ironic at best, i'll use the pundit colors so as not to confuse this point: using the "purple america" maps,

http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/ ,

it looks like some counties in Arizona went heavily dem (Pima, Santa Cruz, and Coconino counties), while only one went heavily rep (Graham.) Pima and Santa Cruz together comprise, physically, a majority of the total border. now, Pima's population base is heavily centered in the relatively progressive university city of Tucson, and Santa Cruz County is tiny, but don't stop here: the other Arizona Counties, again excepting Graham (rural SE Arizona) are all varying shades of purple, meaning relatively close elections returns. so how then do we get AZ going red? how skewed do the population bases have to be for Maricopa County (Phoenix) to fuck it all up like that? well, they did. which is problematic when the "blues" can't win major urban regions. (you know, as goes Manhattan, so goes New York state; as goes LA, so goes California...) i mean, what is Washington just gave up on King County?

my main interest in this is actually that rural border counties seem to have gone "blue" in otherwise red states: Imperial County, CA (even though CA is blue, it's worth noting, especially since San Diego County went red, like it usually does. i can tell you, Imperial County is no bastion of progressive activism.) then Pima and Santa Cruz counties in AZ, then Doña Ana Co. in New Mexico. now get this: in President Dumbfuck's "home" state of Texas ("home" is in quotes since hereally grew up more at Kennebunk, but who's counting/), Presidio County went blue, and then practically all of southern Texas went blue! (Webb, Zapata, Jim Hogg, Starr, Hidalgo, Brooks, Kenedy, and Wilacy counties, it appears.) if you're wondering why Texas still did the stupid, ignorant thing overall, it's because, of these counties, only Hidalgo has a meaningful population base.

but my main question remains: what is happening in these border regions, traditionally thought of as bastions of conservativism and pro-shrub, bible belt crackers, that is casuing them to vote dem? what can be cultivated out there besides crops and cows?

Yet another interesting image of the voting results. This is not what democracy looks like...

ahhhhhhh, the taste of pickled jalapeños
this will be a super quick entry, since i literally have dinner cooking on the stove. but i had to engage in a bit of nostalgia: i just forked about half a jar of jalapeños into the pan (with already fried tofu, and red onions, to be put on Trader Ho's fresh handmade tortillas).

after the forking, i licked the fork, and was transported to Dooley Field, the little league field in Sacramento, where i first recall tasting the loveliness of pickled jalapeños. enter warm, fuzzy feelings here.

more election maps!
The Good Senator just pointed me to a fantastic set of election maps, including population cartograms, here: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/ . Good stuff.

paint the country red
The voting patterns maps going around are amusing (you know, with the "blue" states listed as Canada or the United States, and the "red" states listed as "Dumbfuckistan" or the like.)

I personally find the "Dumbfuckistan" designation offensive, especially from lefties who like to think themselves allied with people from oppressed and American-colonially occupied nations. (Which Afghanistan is, and that is apparently the reference.)

This image with two maps, however, I think illustrates the divisions well, and without resorting to the offensive invective which people can then use to ignore an otherwise valid point. Check them out:

and here is the other image i mentioned:

lazy day
Due to all of the kind shout-outs from all my loyal, devoted readers (all one of them!), I'm trying to keep this a little more consistent. We'll see how long that lasts.

Today my single largest accomplishment was cutting new(er) carpet for Petunia: she looks much brighter and happier in the back area with the grey-ish/whitish carpet from our old studio that she did with the brown crap that she came with.

And now I'm thinking about doing wedding thank you notes, but it's just not that attractive a prospect. More fun to play poker!

football, baseball, and the geography of hope
Monday Night Football is on. (those of you who know me well know that i don't much care for any major sports except baseball and soccer. for those of you who don't know me very well, i've now engaged in the necessary disclosure before you continue reading this entry.) speaking of which, who is lurking out there? i'd love to hear from you, since i know there are a few of you who i don't know, but who have noticed my blog, and have been reading it. email me: djg92167 at com dot yahoo.

i was struck yesterday, while watching the Philadelphia Eagles vs. Pittsburgh Steelers game, how different the geography of the NFL is, compared to MLB. here's the basic analysis:

look at how many dead-end, post-industrial, Rust-Belt (northeast) cities have football teams, particularly that locals of the city/state/region are feverently devoted to. and look how few football teams with dedicated, passionate fan bases exist in places with vibrant social cultures, vibrant economies, big futures ahead of them (i.e., things to be hopeful about other than sports.)

this idea comes in part out of trying to explain why san diego just doesn't seem to much care about its major sports teams: the long suffering Padres, and the Chargers, who everyone is just shocked by how well they are doing this season.

of course, my analysis is highly subjective, based on which cities i think are least, and most, troubled/sad/run-down. if you don't agree, you can email me at the above address, and/or you can also post it in your own blog, and direct me to it. but this is my blog, so:

loogit: the "North" divisions of the AFC and NFC practically read like a list of redevelopment enterprise zones:

AFC North
Pittsburgh
Baltimore
Cleveland
Cincinnati

NFC North
Minnesota
Green Bay
Detroit
Chicago

of the lot, only Chicago and Minneapolis have hopes outside of football. (okay, this is arguable and debatable, but i'm trying to make a point here, okay?) now compare this to baseball: the only similar division in baseball is the AL Central:

Minnesota
Chicago (White Sox)
Cleveland
Detroit
Kansas City

again, there are Minnesota and Chicago (who finished one and two, respectively, in the division), and then Cleveland, a mediocre baseball team to compliment the mediocre football team; Detroit: where people were ecstatic that the team didn't lose 100 games again; and Kansas City: where the baseball team finished 34 games out of first place, to go with a football team that, at present, is tied with a couple of others for the third worst record in the AFC.

now look at other sad, run-down football cities: Buffalo. Jacksonville. Indianapolis. Houston. Nashville. Philadelphia. Charlotte. Tampa. of these, only three also have baseball teams: Houston, Philadelphia, and Tampa.

now i'll list all the baseball cities which i consider similarly sad and/or run-down, but which do not also have a football team: Milwaukee.
(Arlington, Texas, home of baseball's Rangers, gets an honorable mention, but if i listed it, then i would also have to list Dallas for football.)

now look at the exciting, good, and/or up and coming cities that have football teams:
Denver? San Diego? i've lived i both in the last four years, and they have plenty to sell them besides football. Seattle? Phoenix? San Francisco? all decent places, but they also all have baseball teams, and plenty else to make them nice places to live in.

alright, it's not a perfect scientific analysis, but i think ti underscores my basic point: football teams largely sprang up, and stayed, in northeastern, rustbelt cities that have little else to offer today.

much like the west Texas cities profiled in the outstanding book Friday Night Lights, recently made into a movie of the same name with Billy Bob Thornton that i haven't yet seen, these cities seem to rally around football in an unusually passionate way, i would argue because they have little else to be excited about. on the other hand, western cities have lots else to rally around, and arguably much less passionate, devoted fan bases: Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix, Denver, etc. i've lived in or near three of these places, and the freakish love for the football teams, as evidenced by people painting their near naked bodies to stand out in sub-freezing weather, just isn't the same. (okay, so it rarely gets to sub-freezing in Phoenix, but you don't see people standing out in the sun for hours on end, mostly naked, without sunblock, to cheer on the Arizona Cardinals or Diamondbacks.)

'nuff for now. gotta cut new carpet for Petunia, our beloved and soon to be given up for adoption, 1985 VW camper van. (she is going to a better home, where they will take her fr more field trips, which she desperately wants, and can't have from parents like us, who don't like the environmental consequences of driving, and so are going to go car-less.)

book review: Back Roads: A Novel
author: Tawni O'Dell
SPOILERS follow!

overall: a decent, easy enough read, well developed characters, twisted plot line and concept.

end opinion: pretty fucked up, and sad, and troubling, and not necessarily in a good, challenging way.

fitness for a book club book*: 5/10... it would stimulate a lot of discussion, and has lots of hard, interesting things to talk about, but it's really not a very good book, and i'm glad i didn't pay for it (it was a library book).
(*why i have this rating: these book reviews are for a good friend who runs the best little bookshop in the country, probably the world, and to whom i am endeavoring to send reviews of books i read.)

how much i liked the book, i.e., am i glad i read it: 3/10. (and most of the 3 out of 10 is because it's good to read recent novels that get a lot of good press, so i know what people are talking about.)

i checked it out because O'Dell has a new book that was on the new releases shelf at my local library. the new, second book is riding on the coattails of the huge commercial success of this book, so i decided to read the one that launched her into the book world limelight before reading the sophomore offering. i'm glad i did: i won't bother with the second book now.

i think the reviewers, including Oprah's book club people, who feted this book, did so because (1) it's a rookie offering that is better than some (though arguably not a majority of) rookie offerings, (2) it has numerous challenging themes (see below), and (3) it's pretty easy to read. sort of. but actually not: it's really quite disturbing, and not in a good, powerful, disturbing-but-powerful way. just disturbing, and often quite gross.

the challenging themes include, but are not limited to: patricide, sibling murder, homicide, child incest, prison life, child abuse, commitment to forensic mental health facilities, adolescent alcoholism, some sort of compulsive sexuality DO, and profound, disabling mental health disorders of all flavors, just to name a few. basically, it's just chock full of fucked up people living in a fucked up place and doing fucked up things to one another, and a few high minded liberals trying to do the "right" thing.

the narrator/main character/antagonist is called on the back cover "a wonderfully touching narrator", and while some reviewers make references to his Holden Caufield-esque qualities, i think he shows a young novelist trying hard to distinguish herself, yet unable to not act out some of her own apparent anger at her upbringing. not only is the 'antagonist' not likeable (even though we're supposed to feel for him, at least, and admire him, at best), he's actually totally despicable. he spends the entire book physically assaulting girls and women, and fantasizing about murdering and battering others, having fairly disgusting sexual fantasies which usually include battering the woman in addition to or instead of "fucking" her, feeling sorry for himself, drinking heavily, and wandering around.

it was an ugly read, actually, given all of the above. and there are numerous plot twists, each of them more audacious than the one before it, and after about the fourth or fifth plot twist, i'm left thinking that it's not surprising that it's a first novel: i feel like a more experienced novelist, and a novelist with an editor who is trying to not stomp on a promising new talent, would have cut out two, or maybe even three, of the zinging plot twists.

a pretty bad book, really. my advice: don't bother.

poker? i hardly even know 'er!
J asked me last night (while watching the World Series of Poker) why anyone would ever go all in. i tried to explain it, but could only find a few isolated scenarios where she agreed she would go all in (like a nut hand.) i finally said "it's hard to explain, but when you start playing, there are just some times when it makes sense to go all in..."

so today while playing at pokerroom, i went all in with a full boat, aces full of tens. i'm feeling pretty good about it, until i get my ass handed to me by the slowbie with four tens. guess J knows something i don't...

ConProt
damn! this ConProt (Consumer Protection) post would be so much cooler if i were smarter, and had taken a picture before doing the return:

last night, we were preparing a lovely dinner of deep fried tofu chunks, wrapped in organic basil leaves, and dipped in a delicious sauce made by J from soy sauce, hot sauce, onions, and spices...

while wrapping the abovementioned tofu chunks in the similarly abovementioned basil leaves, J noticed that one of the leaves had a tight pattern of small insect eggs laid on the front 1/3 of it. it was, in a word, repulsive. (see what i mean? wouldn't it be better if i had taken a picture to post here?)

so today i took the basil leaves (a little over half were left) back to Trader Bob's (name partially anonymized to protect the insect-egg dealers), and they took it back without question. in fact, the guy running the customer service desk didn't even care to see the problem: he just said: "return? no problem, i'm just gonna throw it away..."

i nevertheless showed him the eggs, and he was also somewhat grossed out by it, but then said "is it organic?" while gesturing at the basil. i said it was, and he said "yeah, that's just the risk you take when you buy organic." WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? you mean when i buy organic it's no longer quality checked to see if leaves are covered in alien-looking insect eggs?

nasty. just nasty.

go Mixed Up!
My team won our first intramural soccer game last night, 2-1. I was goalkeeper, and limped through the entire game, due to an open blister on my heel and a strained thigh muscle, but it was a delightful, drizzling night nonetheless.

The other team looked vastly more organized, with matching jerseys and attitude, but they couldn't deliver. Most of the game we directed play. My constant screaming fromt he goal got the amused attention of the sidelines refs, including when I asked for a penalty call against the other team for violating the clear intramural rule against using obscenities on the field.

my first [election] memory:
since i'm on something of a blogging roll today, and now that blogger.com has woken up from its long, dark winter, i thought i'd share a couple of stories:

first, the title track: my first election memory is actually a post election memory. i remember Reagan, the Great Dumbass who did more to ruin the Western Hemisphere than any President since Monroe, getting elected for the first time, and then bizarrely getting credit for "freeing" the hostages in Iran. i remember being confused by this, even as young as i was then.

and now, my second election memory: walking the streets with signs for Clinton-Gore '92 California, when i hadn't yet figured out that Clinton was a fucking conservative. (see, e.g., workfare; IIRAIRA; AEDPA; DOMA; NAFTA; GATT; telecommunications and financial services deregulation, etc.)
even the libertarian whackjobs at the Cato Institute say that Clinton was arguably more conservative than GWM: http://www.cato.org/dailys/07-31-03.html

and another not-so-fond election memory: in 1994, when i was in college, some people asked me, being from California, what the fuck was up with Prop 187. (footnote about San Diego's mayors: the alum ranks of the mayoralty include Pete Wilson, who was touted as a moderate when he was elected Mayor.) well, i laughed, and basically said to not worry about it, it would never pass, it was the nature of the citizen initiative process that sometimes fucked up nonsense got on the ballot. and then the good bigots of California passed the stupid thing with 59% in favor.

okay, memory lane is getting depressing.

Tha Supreme Schmort: Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.
i have to keep reminding myself, and others, of the tendency of the Supreme Schmort to engage in internal self-regulation to maintain a certain ideological equilibrium. basis: the court is the only branch of government without material power: the executive has the folks with the guns, the legislature has the money, the court only has its own legitimacy.

this is why i'm reasonably confident that, no matter what scumbags and ideological freaks GWM (George W. Motherfucker) can appoint to the Schmort, they won't, e.g., "overturn" Roe v. Wade. (notwithstanding that Roe has essentially been superseded by Casey v. Planned Parenthood, and arguably updated by Carhart.) but whatever: my point is that the Schmort is, by institutional psychology and design, fairly cautious, and we shouldn't be too freaked out: yet.

and here's my hot prediction for the day, as explained to Tha Good Senatuh: look for GWM's first nominee (probably to replace Rehnquist, who appears to be tottering medically to join his longtime mental and ideological tottering) to be a sacrifical Bork: a nominee who is obviously unacceptable, so the dems have to use a lot of political capital to defeat the nomination, and are weakened for a stealth freako as the next nominee. but we can be optimistic: of 132 names put forward as potential justices since the Supreme Court was established, 27 people have been rejected!

now, what will really be the test of whether the democraps are worth two shits in a bathtub is this: whether they filibuster the really horrendous pieces of garbage GWM nominates. i suspect they'll moan, and do a lot of hand wringing, and vaguely try. but all we can really hope for is that GWM fucks up like GHWM, his daddy did, and appoints another accidental moderate, ala Souter. cf. O'Connor's appointment by the Great Alzheimer.

see also, for ideologically accidental (mis)appointments, Ford's choice of Stevens, probably the most passionate liberal on the Schmort today, and for that matter consistently the msot liberal since William Brennan [an Eisenhower appointee, as was Earl Warren!] and Thurgood Marshall left

p.s. confidential to Tha Good Senatuh: who's the lazy bloggah now?

Check out this masterful example of pointing out silver-lined clouds, in my personal favorite of all of the corporate newspapers, the LA Times:

Democrats Trim GOP's National Lead
By Emma Schwartz, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON
Democrats wrestled half a dozen state legislative chambers away from Republicans in Tuesday's elections, including capturing both houses in Colorado.
The Colorado Legislature has generally been under GOP control for the last 30 years, and President Bush carried the state Tuesday with 53% of the vote.
The Democratic gains in the state and in a few others were one of the party's few bright spots in the election, showing they could still make some headway with voters on a grass-roots level.
...
Republicans now control 20 state Legislatures. Democrats have 19, and 10 are split, with Democrats holding one chamber and Republicans the other.
Before Tuesday's vote, the GOP held 21 and the Democrats 17, with 11 split. The Nebraska Legislature, which has only one chamber, is nonpartisan.

Alabama Slamma: there's no Comfort in the Southern today...
to balance things a bit, after my previously (somewhat) optimistic post about good things that happened on election day... in Alabama, voters appear to have defeated Amendment 2, the deceptively named "Schools and Poll Tax" amendment to the Alabama state constitution.

in short, Amendment 2 would have removed language from the Alabama constitution which demands that children of different races attend different schools. Amendment 2 would also have removed language from the Alabama constitution stating that Alabama's children have no right to a public education in the state. disgustingly, Amendment 2 appears to have FAILED:

http://www.al.com/election/coverage/?amendments
Amendment 2: Schools and Poll Tax
2,573 of 2,577 Precincts Reporting
Yes 687,747 49.91%
No 690,241 50.09%

the bigots who opposed the changes insisted that it was unnecessary: i.e., that it's okay to have such language in the state constitution, since it's moot, and not enforced, as a result of federal law, including Brown v. Board of Education. they primarily campaigned against it with the red herring argument that removing language stating that Alabama children have no right to a public education could be used by courts to order massive tax increases for education.

ummmm, yeah: the idea that the Alabama court system would order such a thing, when just in this election the Alabama Supreme Court was made a 9-0, exclusively republican body, is just silly. and get this: one new member of the state's high court is a bigot named Tom Parker, who won by about 55% to 44%. According to an article by an Alabama television station, on msnbc.com, the Southern Poverty Law Center, splc.org, has detailed Parker's sympathies for, and ties to, racist, modern-day confederates:
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=491

from the MSNBC article:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6332857/

"The [Southern Poverty Law C]enter is an organization that promotes racial equality, tolerance and is known for its legal victories against white supremacists and tracking of hate groups. They accuse Parker of praising slave traders and associating with hate group leaders; specifically the Council of Conservative Citizens and League of the South.

The G-O-P candidate was asked for his reaction to the website article. "Oh, it's not surprising. The Southern Poverty Law Center is one of the worst hate groups in the entire country. They hate any people of faith. They hate people who oppose abortion, homosexuality, gay marriage or pornography. They hate people who support the original intent and interpretation of the constitution. They hate anybody to the right of Ted Kennedy."

that quote from Parker is so unbelievably asinine that i won't even bother responding to it.

however, i will provide one more tidbit about Parker, from the same MSNBC article: "Tom Parker worked very closely with former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore as Moore's spokesman during the battle to keep Moore's Ten Commandments Monument in the State Judicial Building in Montgomery."

as i explained to a group of activist students at UCSD a few nights before the election, voting in San Diego County just isn't the same as voting in places like Alabama...

dangr-us thoughts election wrapup:
Okay, but it could be worse: a small handful of excellent things happened in my home state of California, and in San Diego specifically. My favorites, and the really big (and/or surprising) wins, are bolded below.

California:
Prop 59, Open Records in state government: passed by a landslide, 83% to 17%.
Prop 63, a 1% tax on incomes over $1,000,000, passed: 53% to 47%.
Prop 71, providing state funding for stem cell research, passed easily, 59% to 41%. (Take that, evangelicals!) Of course, the corporate monsters are going to profiteer from the patents on this, but better that it happen that way, than not at all.
State Assembly District 76: Lori Saldaña won by a virtual landslide, 55% to 41%! This after months of outrageously false mailers sent out by the republican corporate lobbying machine backing their patsy candidate, Corporate Lobbyist Tricia Hunter. They sent seemingly dozens of direct mailings, including such offensive nonsense as claiming that Saldaña, a longtime clean water activist and environmentalist, wanted people to drink toilet water. Confidential to Tricia Hunter: Crawl on back under your rock, oops, I mean to your corporate lobbying firm: maybe they need people on the Wal-Mart account.

San Diego, city and county:
Proposition D: Right of the people to have access to government information: passed by a landslide, 82% to 18%. While it might not mean much on paper, that it passed in conjuction with perhaps the single best thing to happen in this entire 2004 election in San Diego is notable:

Donna Frye, the only dem to run in the San Diego mayor's race, and who started her come-from-nowhere, write-in candidacy only about five weeks before the election, IS WINNING! She would essentially be the first progressive mayor in this notoriously corrupt and morally (and almost financially!) bankrupt city's history. (All y'all who want to talk about Golding being progressive can do in on your own blogs: we'd just disagree.)
Particularly ironic, even in Presumptive-Mayor-Elect Frye's own words, is that she is apparently going to win the race at at the same time as a "strong mayor" form of government change (from a City Manager form) passed:

Proposition F, the so-called "strong mayor" initiative, passed by about 51% to 49%. Ha, ha! Frye opposed the poorly and hastily drafted power grab, written by the business establishment that has long run San Diego's local politics, in order to regain some of their slipping power in local politics. Of course, they mostly backed incumbent mayor Dick Murphy (no play on words: he's really Dick!), and didn't in their worst Nightmares on C Street imagine that they would be empowering Donna Frye, long the only true voice on the side of the people on the City Council.

So, some really good things happened on what was otherwise a really dismal, disgusting, frightening day, November 2, 2004.

Well, hooo, ha. Welcome to another new morning in america. Or probably just another four years of waking up from Nightmare on Elm Street reruns.

Actually, it seems appropriate that Halloween, with its cable television reruns of mediocre horror movies, comes so close to Election Day: I think that it's designed to break down our resistance to horrible, awful, unspeakable things happening.

I mean, look: what's worse?
1) Another four years of president George W. Motherfucker.
2) Innocent, naïve teens being massacred at an otherwise picturesque camp.

Duh.

here's the latest consumer protection saga. i'll mostly be including emails and letters i have sent in the last 24 hours, since they speak for themselves. the super quick summary is this: i bought some over the counter antifungal medication from a (Waysafe) store that was expired. now, since this seemed to be to be highly sketchy, i was somewhat miffed. and unfortunately, i bought it in Colorado, but here in SunnySouthernCalifornia, we don't have Waysafe stores (we have their sister store, Novs, but i didn't feel like hassling with them, trying to get them to take a return just because they are owned by the same holding company.)

so, i decided to see what i could get the PTB (Powers That Be) to do about it: or at least to see if they care. i mean, isn't that the eseence of consumer protection?

results thus far: they don't care. yet.

Email 1: (really, it was a web page comment submission), to the FDA (which i have a distinct sense might have been more helpful before the a certain fascist corporate administration took office a little under four years ago...)

Comments: I write to enquire what regulation is done regarding retailers selling OTC drugs which are past their expiration date. (I purchased a container of DrugBrandname AF on September 26, 2004, at a Waysafe store, which I later realized was labelled with an expiration date of July 2004.)

I have searched through the FDA website, but have been unable to find specifically what I should do about this, and if/how it should be reported.

Thank you for your assistance.

here is the pitiful response this garnered:

From: "CDER DRUGINFO"
To: "'myemail@yahoo.com'"
Subject: RE: DrugInfo Comment Form FDA/CDER Site
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 11:25:56

Thank you for your message to the Division of Drug Information, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), one of the five centers within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The FDA regulates manufacturers, not pharmacies or retailers that sell drugs. This store should not have sold you an expired medication. You can report this to your State Board of Pharmacy. Here is a link with state contact information: http://www.nabp.net/whoweare/boards3.asp

I hope this information is helpful.

Sincerely,
Drug Information CY

Disclaimer: This communication is consistent with 21 CFR 10.85 (k) and constitutes an informal communication that represents our best judgment at this time but does not constitute an advisory opinion, does not necessarily represent the formal position of FDA, and does not bind or otherwise obligate or commit the agency to the views expressed.

actually, no: this information was NOT helpful. in fact, it was mostly misleading, and the Disclaimer in their signature was more substantive than the text of the email. nevertheless, being the good crusader for consumer i am, i trudged on, and proceeded to look up the Colorado State Board of Pharmacy. i wrote a similar message to them, with a little more detail:

Hello,

The FDA recommended I write to you with my inquiry. (Their response, from DRUGINFO@cder.fda.gov, is included below.)

On September 26, 2004, I purchased a container of DrugBrandname AF (drug chemical name) from a Waysafe store in Colorado Springs, at 123 Somewhere Street, 809**. It has not been particularly effective despite my using it consistent with the package directions, and I have since noticed that it is labelled with an expiration date of July 2004. I do still have the original packaging, drug container, and receipt.

To be clear, this was an over-the-counter drug, purchased off the shelf from an aisle in the Waysafe, not the pharmacy. However, it seems that the FDA believes it nevertheless falls under your purview.

I couldn't find anything in the Board of Pharmacy regulations which treats this. If it is the case that you do not regulate it, I would appreciate suggestions that you might have as to who would I should contact.

Thank you very much for any assistance you can offer.

Sincerely,

and received this almost-as-unhelpful response:

Mr. (me)

Since the product is OTC, the Colorado State Board of Pharmacy does not regulate it. You may wish to contact the Consumer Protection Division at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Their phone number is 303-***-****.

(signed, Jane Doe)

The Colorado State Board of Pharmacy
1560 Broadway, Ste. 1310
Denver, CO 80202-5146
303-***-****
jane.doe@dora.state.co.us

so i contacted the Consumer Protection Division at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). and i was getting a little tired of the run-around, so i decided to go legal on their ass:

27 October 2004

To: Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE)
Consumer Protection Division

To whom it may concern:

I write to you with a consumer protection complaint, regarding the holding and sale of over the counter (OTC) medications in retail stores. If this complaint/request for assistance must be submitted in writing, and/or directly to the Attorney General's Consumer Protection division, please so advise me, and I will be happy to do so.

On September 26, 2004, I purchased a container of DrugBrandname AF (drug chemical name), an over the counter (OTC) medication, from a Waysafe store in Colorado Springs: 123 Somewhere Street, Colorado Springs, Colorado 809**. I have since noticed that it is labeled with an expiration date of July 2004. I do still have the original packaging, drug container, and receipt, and would be happy to provide photocopies of these things if you desire them.

I hope that you will pardon me for the extensive legal language that appears below; in pursuing this issue, I have been bounced from the FDA, to the Colorado Board of Pharmacy, to the CDPHE. As a result, I thought I would provide my research on the topic, in an attempt to assist in resolution of my complaint/request for assistance.

It seems to be that Safeway's holding for sale of expired medications violates C.R.S. sec. 25-5-403, the Pure Food and Drug Law:

25-5-403(1) The following acts and the causing thereof within this state are prohibited:
(a) The manufacture, sale, or delivery or the HOLDING or offering for sale of any food, drug, device, or cosmetic that is adulterated or misbranded... (emphasis added)

I believe this product to be "adulterated" within the meaning of the Pure Food and Drug Act, specifically C.R.S. sec. 25-5-414(1)(c):

(c) If it is a drug and the methods used in, or the facilities or controls used for, its manufacture, processing, packing, or HOLDING do not conform to or are not operated or administered in conformity with current good manufacturing practice ... (emphasis added)

"current good manufacturing practice", as defined in the Code of Federal Regulations, regulating the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, specifies that "current good manufacturing practice" for finished pharmaceuticals includes expiration dating. (See 21 C.F.R. sec. 211.137). Thus, ipso facto, products beyond their expiration dates should not be sold to the public.

I am writing to you because authority for enforcement of the Pure Food and Drug Act is vested in the Department of Public Health and Environment, per C.R.S. sec. 25-5-420.

Thank you very much for any assistance you can offer. Please feel free to contact me by email, telephone, or letter.

Sincerely,
my*name*********

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
my*name*********, Attorney at Law
(***)...-.... * myemail@yahoo.com
1234 My Street
Sunny City, CA 99999
Member of the Bar:
Colorado Supreme Court
U.S. District Court, Colorado
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This electronic mail message may be protected by attorney-client
privilege, or other legal privileges. If you are not the intended
recipient, please inform ***************, Attorney at Law, and
delete the message without copying it. Thank you.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

no response yet. updates will follow.

good night!

HA! HA! HA! lots o' news on the consumer (self) protection front. first, Evil Airlines (aka Líneas Aéreas de Stalinista) actually did the right thing, approximately ten phone calls, two in-person vists, and eleven back and forth email messages later: they paid up!

we received checks totaling $1749.00, and a flight voucher for $450. (this voucher was for the amount I had to estimate replacement cost for, and so they wouldn't pay cash for it.)

it's "checks", plural, since they can't issue checks over $800, so it was two for $800 each, and one for $149. (this is interesting in and of itself, since, surely, they must semi-regularly do more than $800 worth of damage to people's baggage.) what it suggests to me is that they are usually more successful at screwing around with people in the settlement phase. HA!

now, this victory wasn't without turmoil, and wasn't complete:

turmoil: the dumbdumbdumbdummies SPELLED MY LAST NAME WRONG on the checks and voucher. this, after i know it's spelled correctly on the computerized claim account that was created when we first made the claim, and despite the fact that my name was all over this guy's email account. ahhhhh, well: it was only by one letter, so i took the checks to the Bank of the Soviet (name changed to protect other guilty parties), explained to Teller Comrade Beria about the one-letter misspelling, and she advised me to simply write my name AS SPELLED, i.e., incorrectly, on the back in the endorsement section, and then sign under that, WITH THE MISSPELLING. i expressed some concern about this, but then Teller's Supervisor, Comrade Voroshilov, confirmed this approach. fortunately, my signature contains few enough of the letters of my last name in any clear way that i didn't have to forge a signature.

now, it has (thankfully) been a while since i studied the law of commerical paper, so i had to go back and review the ol' UCC (Uniform Commerical Code) on this point:

U.C.C. - ARTICLE 3 - NEGOTIABLE INSTRUMENTS
§ 3-110. IDENTIFICATION OF PERSON TO WHOM INSTRUMENT IS PAYABLE.
(a) The person to whom an instrument is initially payable is determined by the
intent of the person, whether or not authorized, signing as, or in the name or
behalf of, the issuer of the instrument. The instrument is payable to the person
intended by the signer even if that person is identified in the instrument by a
name or other identification that is not that of the intended person.

but, it turns out that Comrade Beria's advice was probably correct:

§ 3-204. INDORSEMENT
(d) If an instrument is payable to a holder under a name that is not the name of
the holder, indorsement may be made by the holder in the name stated in the
instrument or in the holder's name or both, but signature in both names may be
required by a person paying or taking the instrument for value or collection.

yes: indorsement is with an i in the context of commerical paper. i'd forgotten that, too.

not complete: yesssss, well: theoretically, i still have to fly the nasty sunsabitches again, if i want to use that $450 voucher. sigh. well, a free flight is a free flight, as demonstrated by The Good Senator and i taking that miserable deathtrap flight on the aforementioned airline, which has resulted in back pain that still hasn't gone away.

so anyway. i deposited the checks, waited for them to clear, and have been quite pleased with the end result ever since. now, if my bathroom just didn't smell like jet fuel...

Large pizza and two draft beers: 10 pesos (USD$3.33)
Full dinner at a nice restaurant, with bread, two entrees, two desserts, and two bottles of wine: 70 pesos (USD$23.33)
Tia Maria coffee liquor, usually $25 or so in the States: 14 pesos (USD$4.66)
Anticipated return to a country where the rare nonsmoking sections aren´t entirely ignored: Priceless.

We´ve been in Buenos Aires for six days now, and are mostly eating and drinking the days away. The excessive smoking is relentless and repulsive, and this blogger is not interested in the nonsensical cultural relativism of those who will defend it as "the Argentine way." It´s merely a triumph of the tobacco death merchants.

The museums suck: as bad, and sometimes even worse, than Balboa Park´s terrible museums. The only decent one is the Museum of Fine Arts, which has some second and third tier Renoir, Picasso, Monet, and other similar paintings. The National Historical Museum is truly an embarassment: it is the most myopic and blindly nationalistic house of propaganda either of us have ever seen.

The one room between the late 1800s and the present is dedicated to the 1982 Falkland Islands war, or, as the Argentines prefer to call it, the war of the Islas Malvinas. To look at the proud displays, photos, and flight suit, you wouldn´t ever guess that the Brits handed the Argentines their asses on a plate in about 72 days, after the Argentines invaded what most other countries agreed was British territory. Unluckily for them, Maggiepoo was having a tough political spell in GB at the time, and the Falklands provided a lovely opportunity for her to flick away a fly with a batallion of fighter jets, and gain some cheap political capital.

The Museo do Arte Moderna de Buenos Aires was pitiful. The main exhibit was a large room of photography from half a dozen or so charlatans, whose only unifying themes seemed to be that badly composed German scenes and poor focus. It did give me good hope for exhibiting my own photography, though, since it was of the quality I was taking with a 120 disc camera in the mid 1980s before I ever took a photography class.

Perhaps the best done museum was the one of architecture and money, though the subject matter was exceptionally boring.

Our hotel is on one of the largest streets in downtown Buenos Aires, Avenida 25 de Mayo, and just a block from what the book correctly calls a "pedestrian nightmare", Avenida 9 de Julio: eight lanes of traffic in both directions, and two fonrtages of three more lanes (sometimes four, when the angry and erratic drivers feel like it, or six when taxis are present.) It´s a but dingy and amazingly loud, but has consistent hot water and a small balcony for storing our empty fuzzy water and red wine bottles.

We are planning a soccer (futbol) game for Sunday of two teams in Argentina´s First Division, River Plate vs. Estudiantes La Plata. Should be interesting. I proposed to the Good Senator at lunch yesterday that the real reason that soccer hasn´t caught on in the U.S. is that it lacks sufficient corporate propaganda (oops, commerical) breaks.

¡Más pronto!

Today´s final note is the absolute fashion train wreck that is Argentine men, especially when they purport to be dressing in business attire. Neither dangr nor the Good Senator have ever witnessed such a shamockery of fashion as these baboons put on every day: sweater vests rule the day; jackets don´t even seem aware that they perhaps should match pants; a single outfit will regularly employ pinstripes, plaid, checkers, and polka dots; pink and baby blue are both in, big.

What makes the male fashion crisis so amazing is how obsessively well dressed Argentine women are, which is inextricably linked to pandemic eating disorders. A quick google search confirmed the clear visual indicators of repulsively and unnaturally skinny women:
http://www.something-fishy.org/cultural/roles.php
and
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/1456/16292
both note that "In Argentina the incidence rate of Anorexia and Bulimia ... based on population is almost three times greater than that of the United States."

Salon.com indicates indicates a link between the disgusting and obsessive smoking and eating disorders:
http://www.salon.com/news/news970124.html
"Ironically, in the land of beef and "papas fritas," eating disorders are rampant. Argentina has a higher incidence of anorexia and bulimia per capita than either the United States or Europe. I asked one young woman how the populace remained so thin in a land awash in rich foods. "Young women just don't eat," she said. "They smoke.""

It´s gross.

So I talked to the ltitle prick at Evil Airlines yesterday: he told me to fax him the sheet showing everything we bought, and replacement cost (which I've only been able to do for about 75% of the items since, contrary to popular belief, the worldwidesuperinformationinfbahn does NOT have as good of a selection as your average Guatemalan town.)

I asked if he didn't want me to tell him first what the totals are (more than $2000 for replacement cost). He said no, just fax it. I asked if he was SURE he didn't want me to just tell him. He grudgingly did me the honor of explaining what's ont he sheet. He then mumbled, cleared his throat, and sort of, kind of, vaguely, and in a rather unpleasant tone, said, "Well, I guess if there is nothing else we can do but to replace them, then that's what we might have to do."

Wanna equivocate a little more, jerk?

Sigh. On this happy note, I'm off to my conference in Idyllwild (which as some readers may know, is a long ago worksite). Then I get back with maybe, just maybe, just enough time to catch a final Padres game of the season, before heading off to Buenos Aires. Ahhh, life is rough.

More soon, faithful readers. More soon.

Mr. (oops!) Lastname did not call back. I called at ~2pm, asked for him, was told he’s gone for the day. I asked to speak to a manager or supervisor, and was told, to my surprise, that Mr. Lastname is, indeed, a supervisor. She said the other “senior agent” was busy. I asked for this person to call me back, left my name, phone, and record locater. It’s now 2:40pm, and I have not heard from this person. The woman, however, assured me that I would receive a return call from the “senior agent.”

It is now 3:40pm, and still no return call.
I just called again, and spoke to the same woman who, earlier, had taken my name, telephone, and record locater, and had assured me that a “supervisor” would call me back. She said that the reason, she guessed, why Mr. Lastname had not called me back, was that he must not have spoken to the gentleman who he needed to speak to about my claim; she repeated twice that he would need to speak to “the gentleman” before he could call me back. I asked her who this gentleman is, and she said, “Well, actually, sir I don’t know who it is that he needs to speak to.” I am left with the distinct impression, then, that she was blowing smoke up my ass with her reasoning.

I again left my name and phone number, and found out from her that my home phone number, which we’d given to Mr. Lastname yesterday at the airport, was not in the computer. She assured me that she did put it in the computer. I asked when Mr. Negrete works, and she said from 5:30am to 2:00pm, Monday through Friday. I asked her if I can count on receiving a call from him tomorrow, and she assured me that I can.

I am beginning to wonder if Mr. Lastname, and the Baggage Services at SAN in general, just thinks that I might go away if they ignore me. If so, this is a mistaken impression: last night, as I said I would, I came home and totaled, as best as I can, the amount we spent on the items that Evil Airlines destroyed: approximate purchase price is at least $906, and approximate replacement cost, for the items that I can find for sale online, is at least $1569, which does not count half a dozen items that I have not yet found any similar replacement items for sale online.

I will add to this letter tomorrow, I assume, since I have the distinct impression that I will not be hearing from Evil Airlines, at least with any good news.

(End of letter from Wednesday, September 1, 2004.)

I'm so damned mad at Evil Airlines right now. Below is pasted in a real letter, with identifying information changed (for now). If they don't give me some satisfaction quick, it'll include real names soon.


August 31, 2004
and: ____________

Evil Airlines
Customer Relations
1-888-888-8888 (fax)

Damage record locater: ABCDEF

To whom it may concern:

I am a very, very unhappy customer. I’ll summarize what led to this unhappiness: Evil Airlines apparently submerged three of our four bags in turpentine, or some similar smelling chemical (your Evil Airlines Baggage Service representative in Sacramento hazarded a guess of jet fuel, if not turpentine.) This managed to impregnate the bags, and most of the contents therein, with a fierce, noxious stench.

Unfortunately, we’d spent the summer living and traveling in Central America, primarily Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Belize, and our bags were packed full, as we checked only two for each of us for nearly three months abroad. The further difficulty is that they were primarily packed full of difficult to replace weavings, tapestries, rugs, blankets, and other handmade textiles.

First, I should note that as it was an international flight, we claimed our baggage before Customs at BigIntlAirport, and smelled nothing of the damage at that point. Nor do I think that Customs, or BigIntlAirport personnel, would have so gladly passed and re-checked the baggage with the extraordinary stench it would later exude. Indeed, it was your Evil Airlines Baggage Service employee at SMF who pointed this out, shortly before her supervisor determined that sending two of the three damaged bags to BigCity for attempted cleaning would be futile, since there was no way, in their opinion, that they would clear security to be flown to BigIntlAirport. So strong was this stench that within thirty seconds of her arrival into the Baggage Service office at SMF, your employee needed little verification. Thus, it seems certain that your destruction of our baggage and its contents occurred domestically, between the BigIntlAirport and SMF airports.

I note that two bags were to be cleaned if possible: we voluntarily agreed that the third bag, a relatively inexpensive duffel bag, need not be cleaned or replaced, as it was of little concern to us. However, I think it is important to note that we are discussing the contents of three pieces of luggage, not two, even if only the replacement of two bags.

We noticed the smell upon leaving SMF, but thought it might just be something the bags had been dragged through on their way out from the plane, and would be of little consequence. Upon arriving at my parents’ house, we placed the bags into the guest bedroom, since they mostly did not need to be unpacked until our return to San Diego, where we live. When the entire guest bedroom smelled like a paint removal factory, it became clear that something was very wrong, and I called the Evil SMF Baggage Service office, this being the day after our arrival, well within 24 hours of our arrival. I was advised to bring the bags in by Bob, who was polite and helpful, and sounded concerned about the problem.

We drove to the Sacramento airport, approximately twenty minutes from my parents’ house. By the time we arrived, our minivan also smelled like a paint removal factory. (Incidentally, the guest bedroom at my parents’ house continued to smell, and still smelled by the time we return from an hour or so at the airport, despite the damaged items not having been in it, the door being open, and both windows being wide opne.)

When we arrived at the SMF airport, Bob had apparently just left for the day, and we spoke with a very nice, helpful, polite, pleasant woman, whose name I believe was “Raybeam” or something similar. She was perhaps even more upset than we were with the obvious damage that had been done to our bags. It was here that we noticed for the first time that there were visible lines on the bags where they had apparently been SUBMERGED in whatever noxious chemical did that damage. Raybeam also acknowledged these lines, and quickly ventured her opinion that, while they would send them to BigCity to attempt cleaning, they were almost certainly destroyed, and would need to be replaced.

Raybeam, fortunately, made extensive notes in the computer about the extensive damage done to the items, and the difficulty in assessing value and replacement cost: these amount to approximately 50 damaged items, almost all of them hand-weaved or otherwise hand constructed, which we purchased individually from the craftswomen and craftsmen that created them, and their families. While not unique, they will be difficult to replace without returning to Central America, or quite expensive to purchase from importers. We had a hand-woven blanket that took more than two months of constant labor to create. We had blanket length weavings that were dyed naturally using dyes derived form plants, roots, fruits, and other natural sources. We had scarves which poor, desperate, illiterate women have weaved with skill passed down through literally dozens of generations, and which now provide their families’ only support and income. We have no receipts, as each was purchased from individual artisans, usually within miles or blocks of the place it was weaved; more than one trip was made explicitly and solely to purchase regionally specific designs and color patterns; replacing them will prove difficult short of a return trip to Guatemala and Nicaragua.

At this point, I feel it necessary to provide more praise for Raybeam and the Sacramento Baggage Service office of Evil: her friendliness, competence, and sympathy made us think, for a while, that Evil might actually try to make this right. She was fantastic, and I truly regret that we don’t live in Sacramento, so that we could continue dealing with her. Unfortunately, our file had to be transferred to San Diego, where we do live, and this begins today’s irritation, or more accurately, last week’s irritation.

You see, Raybeam had told us to take the tapestries and weavings to be dry-cleaned, and that Evil would reimburse us for this, in the hope that it would remedy the damage. (The two bags were considered a complete loss by SMF Baggage Service, since they couldn’t be flown to BigIntlAirport safely to have cleaning attempted.) Fortunately, we were driving to return to San Diego, so we could bring the damaged items back with us without worrying about clearing security. Unfortunately, we were driving to return to San Diego, and so go to drive with the chemical stench only partially mitigated by keeping our windows open on the ~500 mile journey.

On arrival in San Diego, we moved in to a new apartment, and had to keep the plastic bags containing the damaged items on the floor in the bathroom, since the rest of the apartment is carpeted, and we didn’t want to ruin our new apartment’s carpet with the unspecified smelly chemical. As a result, we’ve had the privilege of smelling these disgusting bags for the entirety of the last two and a half weeks, first thing in the morning, and practically the last thing at night before going to sleep.

My first irritation last week began with calling the 800 number for EA Baggage Customer Service (800-***-****), as Raybeam had told us to, to provide a physical address for the record. (When we first created the file, we didn’t know our physical address, and could only provide a PO Box.) I provided this to the representative, then made the mistake of thinking that the person who answered the phone at Evil Airlines Baggage Customer Service might actually know something about the damaged baggage process. I asked her a fairly basic question, and she, after only grudgingly taking my new address information, quite curtly informed me that she had no idea about the specifics of the claim, and couldn’t answer a thing about it, and I needed to deal with the airport directly. Silly me. First point of irritation.

After going about the other basic necessities of moving in to a new dwelling (such banalities as phone, electricity, gas, and cable service), I began looking for a dry cleaner. The first dry cleaner I spoke to wouldn’t even touch the job. The second listened at length to our situation, and then estimated that cleaning, which may or may not be successful, would cost $2.50 per square foot. We did the math: the estimate was $637.40. We decided it was probably best to talk to you at Evil before we spent $637.40 of your money for a solution which may or may not work.

I tried to call Evil Airlines Baggage Service at San Diego International Airport (SAN) last Friday, August 27, 2004. I first looked for the phone number in the phone book, a pointless exercise. I then looked for it on evilairlines.com, also fruitless. I finally went to the San Diego International Airport website, and found it several pages in. I called the number (619-123-4567) at around 1:45pm on Friday afternoon, and got an answering machine. I left a message with my record locater, name, phone number, basic case description, and requested a return call, as I had an important question about the claim. (Namely, whether Evil really wanted me to spend $637.40 on dry cleaning which may or may not be successful.) I never received a return call. Second point of irritation.

Today, Tuesday, August 31, 2004, we went to the airport in person. Your Evil Airlines representative in the Baggage Services office at SAN, Firstname Lastname, greeted us by telling us he was supposed to be off shift at 2:00pm. It was, at that time, approximately 1:55pm. We would have been fine with someone else handling our questions, but he chose to do it himself. He proceeded to mostly ignore us every time we opened our mouths. Among the things he told us:

1) There was probably no way we’d be able to get more than a few hundred dollars to settle the claim. He’d have to talk to his “superior,” but he was pretty sure it couldn’t be much. When I explained that this was inconsistent with the Warsaw Convention, if this was treated as an international flight, he backed down on this point, saying something like, “Well, don’t listen to me. I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to my superior. But I just don’t know.”

2) He told us he didn’t think weavings and tapestries would be covered: that usually they only pay for clothes, shirts, pants, and those sorts of things. He really didn’t think they’d pay for tapestries. He really doubted it. Nope, it really probably wasn’t possible, he didn’t think. We, very nicely, told him that we didn’t think this is really the case. He then mostly dropped the subject, but made at least two more comments expressing doubt about whether the non-clothing items could be paid for.

3) He pressed up repeatedly to tell him what we’d paid for all of the items. As I explained above in this letter, and as I explained to him, we are talking about approximately fifty items, acquired over three months. I don’t know an amount off the top of my head, and we explained that in any case, the amount paid did not resemble replacement cost, since to truly replace the items would require a return trip to Central America. I don’t know if this is how he’s trained, or if he does it of his own initiative, but he basically interrogated us, despite both of us saying repeatedly that we didn’t know. I finally explained that a rough estimate was somewhere between $500 and $1000, which he quickly wrote down, but we both reiterated that this didn’t indicate replacement cost. He then began saying that this was way too much, that there was no way we’d get this paid back, etc. Somewhere towards the end of the interrogation, he reminded us that he was supposed to have been off at 2.

4) He indicated repeatedly that this matter could be resolved at the San Diego office, and that it would not need to be referred to Evil Airlines Customer Relations, and said more than once that there was no need to contact Customer Relations. This confused us, since in Sacramento they’d be clear that their discretion for paying for damaged baggage was limited to approximately one hundred dollars, and since Mr. Lastname himself had said that they could only approve payment of a few hundred dollars locally, maybe $300-$400. So problem one is that either there are different procedures in place in Sacramento and San Diego as to what amount can be approved locally, which seems unlikely, or one of the two of them was lying, which seems unfortunate. Given that Mr. Lastname had already mislead us about the nature of the cost of settling the claim, and whether they could cover non-clothing items, and had been fairly sketchy and pushy about forcing a number out of us as to cost when we repeatedly said we didn’t know off the tops of our heads, we were inclined to think that if anyone was deceiving us, it probably wasn’t Raybeam.

He assured us that after he spoke with his “superior” he would call us tomorrow, and tell us how much we would be paid. We both left the airport feeling distinctly like we’d been scammed, or at least, like Mr. Lastname had tried to scam us. Thus, when I got home, I decided to write this all down while it is fresh in my mind. Regardless of how Evil’s destruction of our possessions is ultimately resolved, I will not soon be able to understand Mr. Lastname’s actions and demeanor as acceptable. You can probably guess this, but this is point of irritation number three.

I hope that when I send this letter, it can end with an more acceptable relaying of events. We’ll see what happens when Mr. Lastname calls tomorrow.

(End of letter from Tuesday, August 31, 2004.)

Proving that our Idiot In Chief isn't the only quasi-illiterate Republican, the state chairman of the Maine delegation to the GOP convention, in his nominating speech, just said of President Stupid that "...he embodies our state motto, Italian, err, Latin, for 'I go, Dirigo'..."

Now, is it that he can't read his pre-printed speech, which he was visibly holding right in front of him and regularly referring to, or that he doesn't know the difference between Italian and Latin?

Listening to NPR, who are having a blast interviewing conservatives (who, after all, spend an enormous amount of money "underwriting", read, advertising, on their affiliates.) Among the usual prattle from BigotFest 2004, they interviewed a "conservative comic" (which seems redundant to me):

Brad Stine is a conservative Christian comedian, who performed last night at a party hosted by Jenna and Barbara Bush.

To follow the Queen's lead in Wonderland, which any political convention can resemble, let's begin at the beginning, so that we can end at the end:
1. "conservative Christian comedian": what a stupid, stupid, stupid description. I mean, does it imply that comics as a whole are non-religious? By way of comparison, I guess I'm a "leftist atheist blogger."
2. "conservative Christian comedian... performed": again, a redundancy?
3. The party was hosted by the Cokehead In Chief's daughters -- should this be a surprise?

But I'm not entirely cynical: the real reason I decided to blog about this was something said by the stupid comedian (who, no, is not really very funny at all, objectively or subjectively: it was pretty painful to listen to him talk, actually.) He mentioned that he went to NYC planning to be angry with the protestors. He then said (paraphrased) that he was surprised to instead feel like he was watching democracy in action, and in fact, he sort of paraphrased a chant popular in the anti-imperialist movement: "this is what democracy looks like!"

Weird.

p.s. the People have been heard: more nastygrams will follow!

I just talked to my sister on the phone for three hours and fifty-one minutes. Two thoughts: (1) she's a genuis, and (2) Love those free nights and weekends! Now back to our regularly scheduled program, Zuma.

i was a legal observer today for an anti-war, anti-imperialism, anti-bush protest today (i know, they are basically all the same). the crowd was impressive for this military town, 400+ at its peak (though the program dragged on for WAY too long, and people who would've marched started to leave).

also present was the usual cadre of bigoted, stupid, trashy counter protestors. interestingly, their leader was unusually restrained, while they have a new idiot, a young kid, maybe 23, who prattles on a megaphone about how those who seek a peaceful world and less imperialist behavior from america "hate america."

Olympic Sports That Absolutely May Or May Not Really Be Sports:

• synchronized swimming
  
• flatwater canoeing, because the craft is so narrow and stupid: it's really more of a low-function kayak. you couldn't actually get anywhere in it, except to do a sprint, since you can't sit down. dumb.
  
• figure skating
  
• speaking of winter sports, curling is, at best, highly questionable
  
• freestyle wrestling
  
• the random dancing pieces of the floor exercise in women's gymnastics
  
• beach volleyball, just because it's so offensive what the women wear, compared to what the men wear, that it's more like watching the shooting of the SI swimsuit edition than an olympic sport. (i mean, shit -- this is an event where you get SAND all over you. what they hell are they thinking?)
  
• women's track is clearly a sport, but gets an honorable mention on this list for the same offensive clothing discrepancy as beach volleyball.
  
• table tennis: an entertaining pasttime, perhaps, but most decidedly not a sport.
  

My Argentina Budget
by Danny-Danny

• $35.10: roundtrip ticket on Evil Airlines from San Diego to Buenos Aires(!), resulting from the Shameless Mileage Run detailed in the previous post.
  
• $0.00: travel insurance, because I'm not a Responsible Person
  
• $6.25: wine in HPDE nalgene bottles, for, uhhh, airports (Concha y Toro Frontera Merlot)
  
• ~$25 lunch, with beer, in San Diego, since Evil Airlines won't be feeding us for many hours, and the food at DFW, inarguably the Worst Airport In America, is about as good as the main beer in airports these days: Spam Adams, and Spam sLight, (I tried to deduce a direct link to their page for sLight, but their Flash webpage is as disgusting as their beer, and makes it impossible) allegedly the best tasting light beer in America (which is, really, a bit like a determination of "The Best Tasting Raw Sewage In America"). But I digress: since Spam Adams has sort of taken over the airport beer world, good beer is almost impossible to find in most airports, and DFW, the showcase airport for Big Shitty Chain Restaurants that it is, of course, is no exception.
  
• <$1: transport to the SAN airport (gas for Petunia!):
  
• $0.00: food at DFW, since it's all inedible.
  
• $5.00: approximate cost of peanuts and Clif Bars for the approximately 12 hour flight from Dallas to Buenos Aires, since Evil Airlines will surely screw me ont he non-dairy vegetarian meal I just requested.
  
• $7.00: return flight food, since it's less predictable what vegan food will cost in Argentina to come back.
  
• $100: eleven nights of lodging in and around Buenos Aires, and Montevideo. The Good Senator seems to think it'll be cheapest in a hostel, but since hostels have never yet been cheaper for two people anywhere else I've ever gone, I suspect we'll be looking for cheap hotels. I LOVES me some local wildlife in my room!
  
• $100: approximate food budget. Yeah, we're gonna eat well, but since restaurants in Latin america seem to think vegetarian shouldn't include any protein besdies beans, it doesn't cost too much.
  
• $150: miscellaneous expenses, including transportation and border "taxes" between Argentina and Uruguay, and the ~$28 exit tax from Argentina, which makes me want to cry for them.
  

I get too much flak from The Good Senator for not updating my blog, so... here's the first update in many moons.

In those moons, I've been a little busy; trips have included:

• Colorado Springs (January 2004, work)
  
• Detroit (January 2004, "pleasure," as much as such a notion can exist in Michigan in January)
  
• San Diego->New York (JFK)->New York (LaGuardia)->Miami->Key West->Miami->New York (LaGuardia)->New York (JFK)->San Diego (January 2004, this ridiculous trip was the most shameless kind of mileage run, leading to a free ticket anywhere Evil Airlines (which shall remain unnamed, but is sometimes abbreviated as AA) flies, resulting in the next major trip, to Argentina, this September 2004!
  
• various and regular trips to Los Angeles, mostly for work and work related things
  
• El Salvador (March 2004, I acted as an elections observer for the presidential elections, then travelled)
  
• Sacramento (May 2004, for my own wedding!)
  
• Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, Guatemala (May-August 2004)
  

Pictures of the summer's galavanting in Central America are being processed (by me) as we speak (windows are open in the background), but it'll eb a while before any are really ready to display: I took a little over 1,2000 pictures, thanks to the seven 256mb compact flash cards I took with me.

Planned travel for this fall includes:

• September: Idyllwild for a NLG-LA conference
  
• September: Buenos Aires, Argentina; probably also Montevideo, Uruguay, with The Good Senator
  
• September: Colorado Springs: to see Olive Margaret, and happy parents
  
• September-October: Boston, to see A.'.C, DD, &c., and possibly meander up towards Vermont
  
• October: Birmingham: for the NLG National Convention
  
• November: Sacramento, for B&S party celebrating their marriage!
  
• November: Sacramento (yes, again), for a holiday to remember how privileged and lucky we all are, and one whose backs we stole this country.
  
• December-January: Boston, then Vermont, then Boston again

You might wonder, when will I find time to work in all of this? Well, I sort of wonder myself. Fortunately, I'm able to do a lot of my work via email, and much of my work energies this fall will be dedicated to photography and writing.