Conservative Bias of PBS

I almost always catch The New Hour - Public Television News. Mark Sheilds and David Brooks appear most Fridays - Mark representing the left and David flacking for the right. The Conservative bias results from Brooks being vastly more intelligent and compelling than Sheilds. David Brooks is really clever, and makes very rational and compelling arguments. Shields is preachy, whiny, goobery, and unconvincing. Hard to believe producers of Public Television wouldn't want these two chairs more equally filled. Brooks should be paired with someone whose clock he can't so easily clean.

Hallelujah! Maher is Back!

REAL TIME with BILL MAHER is BACK! Does anyone know why Christopher Hitchens was wearing an Indian flag on his lapel? The handsome Vali Nasr and a guffawing Max Cleland complete an excellent panel.

Whence I Blog

You Say Polygny, I Say... - FAST FACTS: Polygyny is one man married to several women. Polyandry is one woman married to several men. Polygamy refers to either arrangement. The Utah Mormon church practiced polygyny. Several of today's Mormon faiths practice both polygyny and polyandry, which is consistent with the practices of Joseph Smith the faith's founder. Plural marriage is a a synonym for any of the above and is often used as a euphanism in place of polygamy. Bigamy is usually thought of as having a second spouse without telling the first one that you are already married. As such bigamy is highly frowned upon by the mormon people. Plural marriage, on the other hand, where everyone is aware of the situation, and all concerned give consent is more acceptable. About 70% of Utah is Mormon. About 60,000 (5% of Utah Mormons) are practicing polygamists. A recent (1998) poll by the Salt Lake tribune found that 35% of Utah's population think that polygamists should not be prosecuted. Many of the folks in Utah are descendants of polygamists, and don't care to heap the same type of intolerant abuse on their neighbors that the early Mormon people were subjected to. In addition, the laws that were written against polygamy are basically laws against consensual sensuality, which cannot be prosecuted in today's legal climate. Mormon doctrine states that in order to enter the highest heaven that those who enter must be living in polygamy. When was the last anti-polygamy prosecution? About 1953, the state of Arizona National Guard raided a polygamist colony called Short Creek on the Utah/Arizona border, and separated the kids from their mothers, and threw the men in jail. The people of the nation were so outraged by it, that there have not been polygamy prosecutions since. (Unless one considers Waco an anti-polygamist raid.) So while polygamy is not legal, the laws against it are not enforced.

The Best Of The Best

Here's a fanfuckingtastic collection of links to some of the best of CHARLIE ROSE. If you have high speed internet, pop some popcorn, clear your schedule... and hang on to your frontal lobe... these are mind-blowing: Katharine Graham, Justice Stephen Breyer, Warren Buffett (2 & 3), Tom Friedman (2), George Soros, Sandra Day O'Connor, Angelina Jolie, Frank Gehry, Henry Kissinger, Anne Bancroft, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Milton Friedman, Anthony Hopkins, Frank Gehry & Renzo Piano, Jane Fonda, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, Diane Keaton, Elaine Stritch, Jimmy Carter, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Lance Armstrong (2), Michael Moore, CEO of Wal-Mart, CEO of Exxon, CEO of General Electric, CEO of General Motors, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Karl Lagerfeld, King Abdullah, King Hussein, Brad Pitt, Maureen Dowd (2), Bill Clinton, William F. Buckley Jr., Miuccia Prada, Eric Kandel, Paul Bremer, Mike Nichols, Bruce Wasserstein, Gordon Moore, Martin Scorsese, Tony Kushner, Eisner: Travolta/Diller, BILL BUFORD, Clint Eastwood, Arthur Sulzberger Jr.... FREE YOUR MIND.

Happy Birthday Madonna

This is the only day of the year I wish I was superstitious - so I could ascribe some special meaning to being born on Madonna's birthday. But the odds aren't that astounding - 1:365. OH!, but perhaps strangely coincidental - it was one year ago today that Madonna set out for a brisk birthday canter and fell off her horse - seriously injuring her back. Hmmmmmm. One year later she's back on the stage crooning her way up a mirrored cross. You can bet I'll be doing something equally obscene one year from today... stay tuned...

Comment If You Love Yourself

I'm mystified by the sad souls so twisted and backwards that they think self-love is a vice rather than a virtue. There are few compliments as high as "you love yourself" and it takes a disturbingly self-loathing creature to characterize same as an indictment. I feel sorry for people with terrible diseases, people with no arms and no legs, people tortured and tormented by all kinds of physical disorders, but I don't in general pity them. I pity people who don't love themselves. Can anyone who doesn't love him/herself actually love anyone else? Is there anything more grotesque and inhumane than people devoid of self-love? I'm not sure who I love more... myself, or all my friends who love themselves. IF YOU LOVE YOURSELF, SHOUT IT OUT BELOW!!!

Stacy & Janet

My dear friend Stacy Bridges had the recent pleasure of a palaver with Janet. My broken back kept me away from this juicy chinwag, but I couldn't help but share a pic with everyone. I'll catch you later in bungalow 7A Janet! Love you Stacy (Miss Bridges if you're nasty).

Symphony of Pain

I still haven't found the right words to describe this kind of pain. I can sleep in two positions - fetal on my left side and fetal on my right side, and a nurse taught me this 'log roll' technique for turning from one side to the other. I pull my knees up at a right angle to my spine, and turn my body keeping my shoulders square with my hips. It's all just so fucking excruciating. Imagine a red-glazed shark fashioned of brimstone with 262 teeth of blue-green flames— each filled with mace— biting directly into your neural matrix mainline— this kind of pain creates a humiliating feeling of helplessness. When I remove the body brace to shower my entire form becomes a hypersensitive gelatinous mass of awkwardness— nothing should touch me— anywhere— lest I fear the entire precarious stack will crumble. How freaky and bizarre and bordering on insane. The brace has a psychological importance perhaps equal to its physical functionality. I wouldn’t dare try to walk without it. Wear your seatbelts girls. That seatbelt is the only reason I'm alive to blog.

Megalink Reminder

My new readers may want to bookmark my MEGALINK page. It's a pretty comprehensive collection of links. Enjoy!

Hello Opera!

Uh, okay, this is going to sound so strange coming from a diehard champion of Mozilla and Firefox. There is one website I've recently been having trouble logging onto, so I decided to see if it was my browser's fault. I searched for a list of good browsers, and arbitrarily decided to install Opera. The site I was having trouble with loaded immediately. Then, the unexpected: the more I used Opera, the more impressed I was. My gmail screen looks much better in the Opera browser. So I started visiting all my favorite websites, and I kinda hate to admit (as a loyal Firefoxer) that Opera appears to be MUCH BETTER. It's not a huge program, so I would LOVE to hear some other people's opinions! If you have a minute, go to OPERA and download and install the browser and take a look at your five favorite websites. If you're not BLOWN AWAY, i'll be shocked. Now I'm using Opera for almost everything. Is this possible? If someone would have told me to use anything but Firefox I would have laughed in their face. I would have been a fool. Try it out! You may find your current browser starting to collect dust. WOW OPERA! [Additionally: see Miss Ann Thrope's comments below, she closes the case] I only have one complaint so far, and maybe it's a setting - my gmail IMs don't work. Miss Ann will my gmail IMs work in Opera?

Intensity

I've carved out my nest in a huge pile of beddings and books. I struggle to find comfortable positions - there's a precarious geometry to pain avoidance, I'm starting to learn which leg where causes what kind of pain, and which arm in which direction with x, y, or z hip positions will render me unable to walk. It's so fucking annoying. I'm reading a great deal though. I'm glad to be reading. And I'm halfway finished writing the next show, which will premiere December First. Yes, I'll be doing two more runs of Correctional Fluids, then, this Winter I'll debut in Baltimore Bad Boy It's going to be great... HOLY FUCK MY BACK hurts.