Gaga for Lady Gaga

My guilty pleasure lately--Lady Gaga.  Ha! I admit it.  She's a life-saver when I go out into the world to conduct the daily regimen called "living" (or perhaps surviving).   Slip on the ear buds, blot out the screaming infants and cell phone users, Fox TV, whatever, and get on with the boring necessities of life like buying groceries, keeping various appointments, etc.  Bill Maher said recently on Larry King that he just doesn't get her appeal.  He needs to chill and light up one of his "teacher-approved" doobies, kick back and soak up the good beat (and irony) of Lady Gaga and he'd understand.

Divine Healing Power of "Religulous" Revealed

I've been so depressed after our court date with our former tenants, the crazy "Christians." It's mind-boggling how she lied over and over again, under oath, about everything. She topped off the lies by assassinating my husband's character with horrid implications. I felt as if I needed a shower after being in the same courtroom with her. Judging by the nearly constant smirk on her face, she seems to be getting some sort of perverse enjoyment out of this. To make matters worse, their attorney played out the clock on this and left us with no time to present our case. Now the case is continued on November 21st. Needless to say, it's been hard to do much of anything except wonder WTF and try not to think about (ha!) how we've been handled. After our experience with the psychopaths, I figured now would be a good time to see Religulous, Bill Maher's great new movie about organized religion. He came across as surprisingly idealistic and, like me, holds Jesus up to a higher standard than the purveyors of Christianity© who use his name for their own gain. He asks all the questions I've asked my whole life about God and Christianity. The end totally blew me away. I can't remember when I've ever applauded at the end of a movie (although perhaps for Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911--not sure--short-term memory loss), but I did for this one and pretty soon the whole theater followed suit. I don't always agree with everything he says--he's a libertarian?--but this movie gave me a whole new outlook on Bill Maher and the world's various religions. It's a must see for anyone open-minded enough to critically examine the dangers of the forces seeking to transform our government from a democracy into a theocracy.

Up the river without a paddle (and heading for a fall)

Heading for a fall, acrylic painting, 22" x 29"

Today was certainly one for the history books with the DOW dropping 777 points. I just hope it's not deja vu all over again and we're heading for another depression, but it looks grim. I can't help but get the feeling that we're being held hostage by Wall Street and being shaken down for the few remaining dollars we have left. Let's see, the defense industry and big oil has made a killing under the Bush regime, and so has the financial industry for that matter. But it's apparently never enough and they're going to grab as much as they can before the door hits them in the ass with a new administration. I can't say the Dems have handled this very well and I'm disappointed that they were willing to give Bush, once again, just about everything he asked for with a few minor changes. The Republicans are expert at playing them for fools and it happened again with them turning the tables on the Dems and defeating the bailout bill in the House and making it look as if they saved the country from the fiscal irresponsibility of Pelosi and Co. Brilliant move on Rove's part (I'm sure he had a hand in this), and, oh by the way, there's got to be some serious money being made on this meltdown for those in the know. Apparently, this administration will stoop to anything to hold onto power and enrich themselves. I'm fed up with both parties and for the first time in my life I switched parties, from Democrat to Independent. Now, if we only had a viable Independent party, perhaps we could put an end to the rampant corruption that seems to infect both sides. It would have been interesting to see how Ralph Nader would have changed the tenor of the last "debate" (such as it was). He was on Bill Maher last Friday and when he could get a word in edgewise he totally nailed our problems. Something has to change and soon. I hope it's not going to require a Depression to do it.