The Jenny Turpish Slapped Me Humor Quiz

I love taking those online quizzes - here's a fun one Eva Whitley referenced in her blog today. If you want to take it, go to:

http://hokev.brinkster.net/quiz/default.asp

My results:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sunny/Dark: 4/10
drY/Gross: 3/10
Traditional/Offbeat: 2/10
Active/Passive: 1/10

[[Current Rankings: http://hokev.brinkster.net/quiz/default.asp?quiz=Better%2BHumor&page=7]]

You are a SYT--Sunny Dry Traditional. This makes you a Sophisticate.

You like conservative humor -- implied rather than explicit, and a well- timed eyebrow raise rather than a punchline. You're exactly the right kind of funny a well-bred hostess would want at her functions. You might be Jewish.

You're not afraid of a risque joke -- you just don't often make them. This means that people may keep it squeaky clean around you, and that when you do work blue it's super too so funny.

You're like Jon Stewart on that fake cover of the public domain Victorian erotica textbook in the back of America. You should get that book. You'll think it's funny as hell.

You might like The Daily Show, Remember Wenn and when Hamlet says, "Do you think I meant country matters?" You would snigger thyself all the way to the buttery bar.

Of the 7867 people who have taken this quiz, 26 % are this type.

Your Active humor score of 1/10 means you are too shy shy. Hush hush, hide-away. You could really unload a can of whoop-ass hilarity on anyone -- anyone receptive to humor at all -- but the sneaky thing here is you don't really care. You don't feel the need to be the center of attention, so you hold the big guns in reserve until the right moment. In a world full of people who think they're funnier than they are, you're exactly as funny as you want to be. Um, regardless of whether anybody else ever takes notice.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The results are reasonably close - I do like John Stewart and have been enjoying most of his textbook satire America. I don't tend to lead with jokes out of shyness, but because I don't tell jokes very well. When I start to be funny, it tends to be very contextual - with a group of people, just bullshitting.

The other quizzes are quite interesting, but I don't think I'd like to share the results here!

The Government According to Woody Allen

I've just seen Bananas (1971), written by Woody Allen and Mickey Rose, directed by and starring Woody Allen. The plot is basically irrelevent. Near the end of the flick, the Allen protagonist, Fielding Mellish, is on trial for treason.
A number of people were were questioned, including J. Edgar Hoover and Miss America:




Prosecuting Attorney: Tell the court why you think he is a traitor to this country.

Miss America: I think Mr. Mellish is a traitor to this country because his views are different from the views of the president and others of his kind. Differences of opinion should be tolerated, but not when they are too different. Then he becomes a subversive mother.

---

Does anyone else have the impression that Bush & buddies studied Bananas instead of political science when they were in college?

I hadn't seen the movie since I was about 14. It was Allen's second movie as a director, and it is wildly erratic. Parts of it are still quite funny particularly the last 20 minutes of so.

Prince Harry, Brad, Jen and the Death of Common Sense

During a time of economic weirdnesses, tsunamis, war and strange elections, you'd think people would have more to worry about than the state of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston's relationship and what Prince Harry chose to wear to a costume party. That these are two of the main stories of the day is a sure sign the people running media companies have contributed greatly to the death of common sense.

I do a fair amount of celebrity watching, probably more than the average reader. I've been a longtime watcher of Entertainment Tonight, but I shut it off in complete disgust over its Brad and Jen fixation this week. So what if a beautiful, busy, rich, distracted couple decides to get separated? We have such a fixation on looks, that somehow beautiful people must stay together - when they separate, it's somehow a tragedy. I'm not that surprised that Brad and Jen are taking some official time apart, after several long "working" separations. But it's not worth the kind of international frenzy this story has engendered. Despite the fact they're rich and famous, even they deserve a little peace and quiet to see if they can work things out, without all the endless speculation.

Likewise, the Prince Harry in Nazi dress feeding frenzy. Yes, choosing to wear a Nazi uniform to a costume party did show a remarkable lack of common sense. However, the people raving over an adolescent's adolescent behavior are even more guilty of not showing any common sense about the situation. If Prince Harry was sneaking off to neo-Nazi meetings, of course there should be ranting and raving. And it would be justified. But he was going to a costume party! He was not representing the royal family at an event - he was at a party!

If I go to a costume party dressed like Barbara Bush, it's not because I want to be Barbara Bush! It's because it might be funny!

On Jobs and Housewifery...

I can't say I was shocked, I'd been warned so I sort of saw it coming.

I got laid off on Wednesday. I have a job (I think) until January 28. But, nothing's in writing so who knows.

A few weeks back, I got into a long phone conversation with a jobless person who's been looking hard for months. This person is extremely bright but, like me, doesn't play political games very much. We also either tend to be honest and direct with our employers/co-workers, or spend a lot of time just biting our tongues in reaction to stuff around us. In the course of our discussion, we both came to the conclusion that there are certain classes of jobs that are kind of like "housewife" jobs. They aren't overly sexy, but no one notices all the work these people do until they're gone. Unfortunately, these are the kinds of jobs we tend to do best.

Money, while important, isn't a super-critical issue for me right now. Jim's job appears secure, and the house and the cars are paid off. Maybe a few weeks away from work entirely might help me get out of my long-term insomnia. I can go the the gym more regularly. I can work on the house (as much as I don't like housework). Maybe the changes will help push me out of my long-term writer's block.

I was working on a mundane novel about two years ago. I recently went back and read what I'd written. While I don't have a stunning writing style (my writing, like my Web site, is very Amish - in other words, plain!), I know some of it is pretty good. But, the whole thing isn't, and I've only written about 20,000 words or so. And I haven't written much in over a year (aside from the blog and keeping my Web sites up to date).

Anyway, if there is anyone out there looking for search engine optimization, hand-coded HTML or XML, or small bits of content or research, drop me a line. My rates are completely negotiable!

Suggestion for Observing Inauguration Day (Thursday, January 20, 2005)

I've been trying to think of a way to observe this year's inauspicious inauguration.

While political protest is certainly a good thing, I really don't like the idea of going to Washington to protest the event. Sometimes, protest just gets way out of hand.

I think a quiet protest is the most appropriate thing to do.

So I will wear black on Thursday, January 20.

Some Thoughts on Kinsey

As someone who got basic reproductive biology as a child from reading Dr. Spock's Guide to Baby and Child Care in the '60s (which was generally reassuring about things like masturbation without ever explaning what masturbation was!), I generally understood most of the basic mechanics about human sexuality even if I got the details wrong. My mother bought some books about sexuality aimed at children, so we had reasonably complete sex ed at home, at school and in church youth groups. By the time my class graduated from high school in 1975, there was only one generally known pregnancy in the whole class, even though many of the kids were already sexually active. Remember, this was the late '60s and early '70s, before the government decided to resume lying to children about sex again.

So, I've always been a fan of Dr. Kinsey. I haven't read his books, but I've read books sparked by his research, and I know I've benefitted by his insistence on teaching the biological information about sex.

Bill Condon, a director/writer who created the very insightful Gods and Monsters a few years ago has made another wonderful movie in Kinsey. It carefully recreates a time when people ranted about zippers leading to promiscuity and oral sex leading to infertility. It's a useful movie to see because we may be headed down that road again. Kinsey makes it clear that while sexual experimentation can be very messy, studying sex and describing it honestly is very important.

One thing that's fascinating about Dr. Kinsey is that Liam Neeson, with a spot-on Midwestern accent, plays him as if he had Asperger's Syndrome - he's very obsessed and just doesn't relate that well to people. He eventually marries one of his students played by Laura Linney. Their relationship is the heart of the first half of the movie, but as the focus of the movie shifts from studying wasps to studying human sexuality, she rather drifts out of much of the movie until closer to the end.

The pacing of the movie is leisurely at first, but speeds up rapidly over the last ten years or so of his life, which is a shame. I would like to have seen a little more of the controversy over Dr. Kinsey in the '50s. The movie is absolutely worth the trip, for its compelling acting and intelligent writing, but it's also, rather strongly, a cautionary tale.

Good News After Smofcon

After leaving Smofcon in DC today, we drove to Silver Spring to take my brother Jeff out to lunch. While eating lunch, I asked if he'd heard from our younger brother, Terry, whose wife Jess is due to have a baby any day now.

"Nope, not yet."

We continued eating, and then the phone went off. It was Terry. Jess had had her baby earlier in the day! Their son's name is Luke, and here's his first family photo at just a few hours old:



Grandparents Bill and Ruth, Aunt Carrie, Dad Terry, Mom Jess and Luke Trask, big sister Leah, and Grandparents Ed and Charlene Bradford

I had a good time at Smofcon, the annual convention runner's conference. Last year's Smofcon was stuck out in the Chicago suburbs - you had a 30 minute subway ride to get to downtown Chicago, after a 15 minute walk to the subway station. While downtown Chicago is a great place to be in December (the Christkindlemarket made me want to go to Germany for Christmas someday!), the distance to get to downtown Chicago was a major pain.

This year, we were at the Wyndham in DC, just off of Thomas Circle. We had fabulous meals at Gerard's Place (French), Malaysia Kopitam, and Taberna del Alabardero.

I always find Smofcon a good place just to go talk to people. At Worldcon, I'm always running around. At Smofcon, I can actually stay on one place for a while! Unfortunately, I was so tired I was in bed kind of early so I missed out on a little more of that than I'd like to!

Another Break from Reality - My Report from The Lord of the Rings Oscar Party, 2004

I have a bunch of started-not-finished projects at my Web site. Notably, I've been taking lots of digital photos over the last two years, and it's my intention to put a selection of them up at my Web site. Well, I should say that most of them are already at my Web site, but I haven't added any commentary to them.

Tonight, I finally finished writing about going to Hollywood last February for Return of the One Party, the Oscar watching party for Lord of the Rings fans. So that's one trip report down, and about another six to go!

A Break from Reality - Some Recent Movie-going

Between lots of travel and the election, I didn't really go to the movies very much this fall. I think the last movie I saw in a theater between summer and November 6 was Garden State, which I liked quite a lot. I've more than made up for that over the last week, having seen The Incredibles, I <Heart> Huckabees, Alfie, and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. And, over the next week (or whever they reach Pittsburgh), I plan to see Kinsey, Finding Neverland and Sideways. I might even drive across town to see Vera Drake as I'm a longtime fan of Imelda Staunton and Mike Leigh.

I have to admit that while all of the movies I've been to were watchable and diverting (probably necessary given life's recent stresses!), none were as good as they could have been, which was frustrating. All of the movies more style over substance, but they also lacked something in style.

The Incredibles was great to look at and had well-cast voices. I loved hearing Holly Hunter as an animated character-that was long overdue. But it wasn't nearly as sharp as, say Shrek, and devolved into a few too many chase sequences.

I <Heart> Huckabees sounded like a wonderful idea (I love weird movies), but it didn't hold up to the high standards of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. If you like Jude Law and Naomi Watts, it's worth seeing because both turn in excellent performances. But the lead, Jason Schwartzman, didn't give any evidence of actually acting in this movie - he just sort of schlepped on through. And both the script and the direction go in some curious directions.

Alfie, Alfie, Alfie...Jude Law was a great Alfie. But the movie just didn't work. The melancholy level felt much higher in the remake than in the original. The women were mostly cyphers.

The Bridget Jones sequel had reviews that were all over the place, edging more on the negative side. I liked it, though it wasn't quite as sharp as the first movie (which I'd liked quite a lot). The director general had an interesting visual sense (the skydiving sequence looked glorious, as did most of the Thai photography), but then lost her way (the skiing sequence) at times.

I was at the first-ever Pittsburgh Creative Nonfiction Literary Conference this weekend. I was reminded of how much I enjoy this particular genre and how much I enjoy talking with its proponents. I even got a book on working your way out of writer's block, which I plan to start reading soon.

When the Democrats Asked, I Answered!

Here's how I answered the Democratic post-election survey

1. How did you participate in this election?

I worked hard for John Kerry by volunteering in July, doing database work and helping out at several rallies. On election day, I was a poll watcher for MoveOn.org.

I gave several hundred dollars to Democratic candidates and progressive 527s this year.

I created a number of Web sites, including:

• http://www.getoutandvote.us


• http://www.thefactsdomatter.com


• http://www.thefactsdontmatter.com


• http://www.dpsinfo.com/blog

I voted and made sure my husband and daughter did, too (my husband always votes, but this was the first time our 24 year old daughter had voted in a federal election).

2. Is this the first time you participated in election activism?

No. I worked for a moderate Republican Congressional candidate in Massachusetts in 1974 (who was doing well until Nixon resigned) and for a Democratic state rep candidate in Pennsylvania in 1996 (who also lost).

I also worked some for Clinton in 1996. I would have worked for Clinton in 1992 and for Gore in 2000 if I'd had the time.

I've been giving money, almost always to Democratic candidates, since about 1984, but usually no more than $100 total over the course of the year. When I lived in Massachusetts I donated to Kerry's campaign so I've been on his mailing list for a very long time!

3. How would you like to continue to stay involved? (Volunteering, phonebanking, fundraising, local organizing, etc.)

I will keep up with Web sites. In the wee hours of November 4, I bought the domain http://www.dumprick.com, a Web site dedicated to seeing Rick Santorum be defeated in 2006. I'll also keep the "facts" Web sites updated.

I'm going to attend local meetings of Democracy for America in Pittsburgh.

I've volunteered to Americans United for Separation of Church and State to look into starting a Pittsburgh local chapter.

I'm willing to do work for the Democratic party. I'm a registered Independent, but am considering switching to the Democratic party given my general disgust at the behavior of the current Republican party.

I would like to try to get activist groups to rethink their use of databases. It's 2004 - we should be using databases much more smartly than I generally saw us using databases. I did like Bottled Lightning very much and thought it was an effective tool.

I would also like to work with people to make sure that elections are fairly run. There are still some outstanding issues that we should continue to publicize (not enough voting machines in some areas, voter intimidation, et.c.).

4. Did you feel the actions you took were effective?

Up to a point. My town, which usually goes Republican, voted for Kerry by 1,000 votes.

5. Was it a good experience for you?

Mostly, yes. I met some terrific activists working for Kerry and working for MoveOn. I'd work for Kristina Petronka, Jonathan Lyons and Lindsay Patross any time!

Of course, the outcome was a disappointment...

6. How would you make it better?

Use databases, telephone banking and mailings more intelligently.

7. Please share other thoughts and comments you have about the 2004 election and what Democrats and the Democratic Party should do going forward.

Resist the temptation to become Republicans. I always thought Clinton had a great vision of the party - responsible government and personal responsibility.

The Republicans used to always say that the Democrats were the "tax and spend" party. However the Republicans are, more dangerously, the "spend and spend" party. The Democrats have to resist the temptation to play the "we won't tax you either" game. Instead, Democrats should talk a lot more about responsible government and taxation.

Still promote progressive ideas - health care in the richest country in the world should be more available to the working poor. Discrimination against any group is evil. Science is more important than superstition - we can only continue to be the most advanced country in the world if we promote advanced ideas.

Reflecting on America's Choices

There was a lot of doom and gloom yesterday on many of the blogs I read regularly. While I am more pessimistic about the short-term future of the country, I hope Kerry's loss will energize progressives to organize. We've done a lot over the last two years, but clearly we need to do more.

There's also beyond sour grapes about Kerry's loss on the part by some. Yes, clearly elections are still somewhat screwed up in parts of the country. This is unfortunate and needs to be fixed. But I do not believe the extent of dirty tricks in this election erased enough Kerry votes to prevent Bush's popular and electoral victory.

Here's the problem - four years ago, Bush absolutely did not get the popular vote. Florida was kind of dicey. So we had every right to be pissed off, not just at Bush but at the process.

This time, in addition to the minority and majority election judge every poll gets, there were all kinds of independent observers, from groups like MoveOn, Election Protection and from foreign countries. So while there was probably some vote fraud, and some voter intimidation, the evidence that it was pervasive just isn't there. Sorry. I'd like to say it was there. I'd like to blame it on Diebold. But I need evidence, and it just isn't there. If Diebold was doing some sort of massive fraud, someone would have noticed.

We lost, plain and simple. It's painful, but it's true. And, speaking as a person who worked hard for Kerry on this campaign, I'm disappointed. But his concession speech was because he is a realist. When I got up at 4am on November 3 and did the math, it was clear Kerry's election wasn't going to happen.

I am offended by people on the left calling Kerry a coward for conceding. He is not a coward, but he is a realist. Waiting until all the provisional ballots were counted isn't going to matter.

It doesn't mean that we shouldn't be pissed off about the election results, but it means we need to avoid too much hang-wringing and assuming Bush only won the election because it was rigged.

But here's what we've got to watch for.

For one thing, the politics of fear clearly beat out the politics of reality. That's frightening, because history shows that countries often go down the authoritarian path when the government knows that works. As clear-thinkers, we need to deal with the facts.

An oddity of our electoral map that sort of plays into the fear thing - did you notice that the states that had the highest number of 9/11 deaths (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California and DC (and those blue-leaning northern counties of Virginia)) all went Democratic? As many people (including Jon Stewart) have observed, the folks with more direct experience with foreign terrorism on our soil did not vote for Bush!

For another thing, the social/culture war is doing more damage to this country than the Islamist terrorists have done so far. I don't accept that I am less moral than Dick Cheney because I approve of gay marriage and birth control - I haven't used a multinational corporation to rape and pillage my government. I will never accept that my beliefs that people must be true to themselves and responsible for themselves makes me less moral.

This event has the chance to energize progessives, and if Bush and buddies behave as badly as I expect they will, it'll piss off the right-leaning moderates, too.

We need to have our eye on the 2006 elections. There are now a couple of Senators actually to the right of Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania's awful (as opposed to kinda bad) senator. We need to help Americans understand that regressive politics are very dangerous for our country (as if the war in Iraq shouldn't be enough evidence of this fact).

I'm not optimistic over the near term, but I'm not heading for Canada. Yet, anyway.

Oh Well...

I had a bad (and temporary) case of irrational exuberance yesterday afternoon. Nothing like having the rest of the vote come in to really throw cold water on my hope that we'd have a new president today.

I guess the main bad news seems to be turn out. I kept hearing and seeing that turnout was really big, and might trend towards 120,000,000 nationally. It looks more like about 116,000,000 or so voted. And the youth vote was the same 17% this year as it was four years ago. It did seem like more young people got involved, but maybe they didn't wind up voting.

It looks like it's gonna be a long four years...

Before the Election Night (Hopefully VICTORY) Party!

I won't be blogging for a bit, as I'm going to a party.

Earlier today, I posted about possible problems in Allegheny County. The main problem seems to be about how provisional ballots are being handled. The rumor is each precinct only receiveced 12 provisional ballots. This in a year where many people's new registrations were lost or screwed up with. So that's the main screw-up - all else seems to be OK.

I went back to the polling place to pollwatch for a little longer. A new Republican showed up, she almost got hysterical with the MoveOn people ("You're not here legally!" she yelled, and was reminded by a Republican politician that we were!). She didn't last long. I think she knows they're on their way out. I HOPE!

Wow - Kerry in a Landslide?

I don't like to use the "l" word (landslide) but man oh man...

What prompts this is watching the voting in Western Pennsylvania, which is already exceeding 60% of the eligible voters voting (election officials predicted 60% total for the day, and it's not even 3:30 yet!).

I did some pollwatching for MoveOn.Org in Mt. Lebanon, a Republican suburb of Pittsburgh. There was a very steady stream of voters there all day. Only a few
glared at us (we were wearing Kerry/Edwards stickers) but most were very nice. Two Republican candidates greeted voters for nearly an hour.

However...

As soon as the candidates left, the Republican pollwatchers (except for one) left! So for most of the afternoon, there were 2-3 Democratic pollwaters, 2-3 MoveOn.org pollwatchers. Very interesting. We only had one person who complained about a voting irregularity (their son was in Japan, had requested an absentee ballot and never got one).

At one point, I called liberal friends around the country to find out how their voting was going. Leslie Turek was a pollwatcher in the Manchester, New Hampshire area. She reported unprecedented voter turn-out, high visibility of Kerry supporters and almost complete invisibility of Bush supporters. Peggy Thokar voted in suburban Massachusetts, and said she was voter #800(!!) at around 11:30. Marc Gordon said there were more voters than usual in northern Virginia, and John Pomeranz, also in northern Virginia, used that wonderful term "unprecented turn-out." My brother, who lives in southern Maryland, said it was quiet at 11am and they voted quickly.

I tried to reach Jim's uncle who lives in Florida, but it turned out I didn't have his number in my cell phone correctly.

It's interesting to check things on the Internet. I tried to check the blogs I always check - Talking Points isn't accessible. Taegan Goddard's Political Wire isn't accessible. Making Light isn't accessible. But the Kerry blog and daily kos were both going great guns. Hopefully they're just very busy and not having some sort of denial of service attack.

We have unplugged our phones after getting 7 recorded messages from Moveon.org and 2 from the local Democrats. Enough already! You can always E-mail me.

What Allegheny County Is Doing Right

As I've already voted, I want to write a bit about what was working right this morning. My earlier post was a reaction to County Executive Don Onorato's contention that very little was going wrong. While I take that with a grain of salt what he said about the newly registered, those of us who've been registered for a while shouldn't have a problem.

Jim, Leslie and I got in line at about 10 to 7 this morning. For our precinct, we were voters 5, 6, and 7. Two other precincts vote in the same location, and there were maybe about 25 people in line at 10 to 7.

The voter rolls looked easier to read, and the scanned signature of the voter from a previous vote was included. I think that's a very good idea and should help prevent fraud. Some of the records had a special text flag - either ABSENTEE or CHECK ID. I was relieved to see this, as that, too, should help prevent fraud.

We had finished voting by about 7:04. Three more votes for Kerry/Edwards!!! The line outside the voting place had grown to about 60.

Since we were so early, we didn't have to run any kind of gauntlet because none of the candidate's poll watchers were there yet!

It Looks Like New Voter Registration Is Screwed Up in Allegheny County

NBC has reported that people in Allegheny County have reported more problems voter registration problems than almost anyplace else in the country.

Map of Pennsylvania showing places reporting voter registration problems. (This map was working at about 5:30am, but died at about 5:50am - check back later because Allegheny, Westmorland and one of the Philly-area counties have many more voter registration complaints than anyplace else in the state (yes, I know they're also the highest in population).)

Our County Executive, Don Onorato, doesn't seem to think this is a real problem. He blames it on the intensity of the election.

Unfortunately, the facts will not bear this out (and I hate to say this, because Onorato is a Democrat and Allegheny County is quite Democratic).

I spent some of the summer doing volunteer work for Kerry. People were calling the office complaining that they hadn't received their voter registration receipts even though they had recently registered. We've also heard about some Republican dirty tricks (people thought they were signing a petition but their registrations were changed to Republican), and, to be fair, some Democratic dirty tricks in other parts of the state (older people being called and told that Bush would do away with Social Security).

I'm going to spend a few hours today as a MoveOn poll watcher today. I hope things will not be too screwed up, but, at least for the new voters, I'm not very optimistic. And it sounds like Onorato has his head in the sand just like Bush does with regards to problems on his watch.

If you've been registered to vote before this year, you're probably fine. If you registered to vote for the first time this year, you might not be able to vote, but please try to! If you have any receipt of any kind from when you registered, bring it with you just in case. And help the rest of us fight for a fairer, uniform voter registration system in the future. This is a complete embarrassment for a "modern" country like the US.

Viggo Mortensen Joined Michael Moore's Slacker Tour in Columbus Ohio on 10/30!

I am a huge fan of Viggo's, and a moderate fan of Michael's. I thought about seeing Michael when he was on tour in Pittsburgh a few weeks back, but he was in town during one of my trips out of town.

But here's a shot of Michael and Viggo in Columbus:



(*Sigh* and Columbus was only three hours away!)

After spending yesterday just hanging out, resting, and staying pretty glued to the Internet, today I was awake enough to rake my front yard and then go work for Kerry/Edwards. I leafleted a friendly Squirrel Hill neighborhood with Tracey, a woman who lives in DC but who's spending the next few days helping out in Pittsburgh. Then we walked from headquarters (with a third person, whose name was Cliff, I think) across town to Heinz field for a little visibility before the Steeler game. The weather was perfect for the walk, and we spent some time waving to the crowd.

Now, I'm home watching the Patriots playing the Steelers. Talk about your mixed feelings! I like the Steelers, but the Patriots are having a great year.

Don't Panic - Suicide Bombers, Anthrax and Other Fears of Modern Life

[[I wrote this in the fall of 2001, for obvious reasons, and want to republish it here because I think it's a useful essay to consider just before our upcoming election.]]

I haven't been fretting much more about life and death since September 11. Sure, I had a major anxiety attack after watching about 36 hours of TV news on the night of September 12. But that was to be expected. Since then, no. I've driven to New York, New England and Maryland without any more concern than usual. I've gone to work and opened my mail.

Perhaps it's because I'm naturally a little more cynical than most people. When the media spoke of September 11 as "the day we lost our innocence," I wanted to ask what alternate reality they had been a part of. Just in my lifetime (I'm 44 now), I've seen bigotry and terrorism and war and just plain bad accidents. I've experienced sexism and hate speech. America has had many bad days in my lifetime.

While I do not remember the exact date, that terrible day in November 1978 when nearly 900 American citizens murdered members of their own families then took their own lives on the command of "religious leader" Jim Jones particularly affected me. How can people follow the insane commands of any person? Very few people ran out of the jungle to the relative safety of a nearby town. Almost everyone who was told to poisoned their children and then, themselves. The ability for nearly 1,000 people to think for themselves was completely lacking.

Or the day of the Oklahoma City bombing. Initially, we all thought it was some sort of foreign terrorist. It was almost a worse thing to learn that it was a pair of Americans who murdered 168 other Americans in cold blood.

September 11 was a bad day, but much greater in scope.

I live in Pittsburgh, a city with more bridges than any other city in the world except for Venice. I've always been aware that bridges could collapse or tunnels could be blown up, yet I travel on them daily. I flew in early December, for the first time since July. I did fret a little more than during my last plane trip, but I expected the plane would not be hijacked and that I would get to my destination safely. And home again. And, I did. Statistics bore this out, even after this year.

My husband and I went to England, a country with a long history of living with small-scale terrorism. There are more video cameras about, but I did not notice many more police. Security in English airports was a little stricter than in American airports even before September 11. It was not a coincidence that none of the September 11 planes were international planes, despite the fact a plane flying to Europe would have had even more jet fuel than a plane flying to California.

I don't want to sound too much like a Pollyanna. I'm always aware of the terrible things that could happen, but I'll go along with living regardless. Life isn't about seeing how safe we can be, it's about having many different experiences, interacting with many different people and making contributions to society. Despite the horrible events of this year, statistically, we aren't that much less safe than we've ever been. Statistically, we aren't going to die from the acts of terrorists or from a war. We're way more likely to die in car accidents or from cancer or heart disease or AIDS.

These are the facts: Terrorists, whether they be foreign or domestic, do not have limitless resources. A number of their planned activities had been discovered and stopped before September 11 and continue to be discovered and stopped now. That doesn't mean they will never succeed again - it's likely that they will. It's unlikely that they will ever be able to hijack a plane and turn it into a flying bomb. But we might have small-scale suicide bombers like those in Israel. We may have more anthrax and other acts of bioterrorism. (Frankly, the anthrax letters and most of the threats look more like the acts of the American looney fringe than the Islamic looney fringe.) The looney fringe might even deploy "dirty bombs" (bombs made with nuclear by-products, but without enough enriched uranium to go critical), but getting a real nuclear weapon is unlikely (unless the government of Pakistan collapses).

Next fact: Lots of people get their kicks from making bomb (and now anthrax) threats. Bomb threats were very common in the '70s and early '80s and making threats have made massive comeback. None of the major terrorist incidents from the last few years had any real warnings. Frankly, I'm ignoring all threats as hot air.

Anthrax has people very upset, but I have to take the attitude of Dan Rather - if we let things like anthrax paralyze us, the terrorists, whether they be domestic or international, have won. Most of the people who got anthrax were mail handlers. Most of the people who died from anthrax had compromised immune systems. It's sad that anyone has gotten sick or died from bioterrorism, but, statistically, it's unlikely to happen to you, me or the vast majority of people alive today.

The level of fear is particularly troublesome when you consider how much the world has changed over the last hundred years. One hundred years ago, the life expectancy was not all that high; people died easily from TB, from childbirth, from viruses. Yet people still went out of their homes and went on with their lives. They explored all parts of the world without being guaranteed of their safety. We who have long lives and sanitary environments should not be so afraid of dying from a statistical unlikelihood like "murdered by terrorists."

I might be more fearful if I had lost a loved one on September 11. I heard the terrible news at work, and the Internet was so slow that virtually no news was available for an hour. Once I heard about the Pentagon, I thought of my brother who lives just down the street in Alexandria. It took nearly an hour to reach his answering machine, but even hearing his voice was reassuring. I was so shocked by the events of September 11 that it was literally days later that I remembered that, with all his business travel, he could have been on one of those planes.

I have many friends who live and work in Manhattan, but they work in publishing, within sight of the twin towers, but not in them. A handful of acquaintances have not been able to return to their apartments in lower Manhattan. Still, the closest call was an acquaintance from Massachusetts was due to fly out to California from Logan Airport to have a meeting that Tuesday morning. The man he was going to see called to postpone the meeting on Monday night. The flight he cancelled himself off of later crashed into the World Trade Center.

We felt extremely safe in Pittsburgh that September 11. No one would try to crash a plane in Pittsburgh, we all reasoned. But we had friends who called us to check in, having heard about the plane that crashed some 90 miles to the east.

I did panic briefly on September 11. I stayed at work but couldn't concentrate. My job was closed down at noon that day. I wanted to do something, but couldn't think of what to do. A friend sent around E-mail, urging people to go out and give blood. So that's what I did. Having something useful to do gave me a little better focus.

Short term panic in the midst of catastrophe is understandable. We're only human after all. But long-term panic isn't good, either for the individual or for the culture. We've got to do what we can to avoid cultural panic.

[[And, it probably goes without saying, that I think John Kerry can better help our country deal with societal panic than the Bush has.]]

"We Don't Know When the Explosives Were Removed"

On 10/28/2004, KSTP broadcast video that proved the explosives were at Al-Qaqaa and still under IAEA seal in early April 2003. Further, American soldiers were shown breaking the IAEA seal!!!! When confronted with these facts on the Today Show on 10/29/2004, former US ambassador to Iraq Paul Bremer stuck to the party line - "We don't know when the explosives were removed" and used his time on TV to attack John Kerry for daring to say that the American government botched this big time. Matt Lauer mentioned the original broadcast date at least three times, but Bremer completely ignored him and stayed in attack Kerry mode.

It's very ironic that this scandal is popping up at the same time as another scandal - the proof that Osama bin Laden is still very much alive. Yet another failure of the Bush administration.

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I had a lovely time at the Pittsbugh blogfest last night. I had to leave in a hurry, but it was fun to meet more of the local bloggers. Sorry I didn't start my post that way - I guess I'm just in "attack Bush" mode these days!

Maybe Lunar Eclipses Are Good for the Red Sox

I'm pretty cynical about sports, especially about the Red Sox. I remember well the debacles of '67, '75, '78 and especially '86. I thought they were dead nearly two weeks ago, and I was wrong. Of course, being a Massachusetts native, I'm delighted to be wrong about the Sox - it's the eighth inning of game 4 and it looks like, barring some sort of unlikely event, the Red Sox will finally win a World Series!

Lunar Eclipse from Mount Lebanon, PA October 28, 2004