Watching my dogs play is like watching WWF SMACKDOWN! Lots of noise and even a chair toss, but no bite.

They body slam each other, wrestle each other to the ground and up and back down again, all the while Sydney is growling and barking all ferociously and not one peep out of Smokey. Not one peep.

Smokey is some 20 lbs heavier then Sydney, and all muscle, but she THOROUGHLY pounces his woosy butt all over the back yard. And he loves it! He keeps comin' back for more - can't get enough of it, in fact. Total bottom, that boy, although every now and then he thinks he could top her. That's when she really kicks his ass.

And then they come inside and flop together, as though they've always been best friends, always taken naps together, and held each other's paws while crossing streets.

conversations in zippy's world . . .


me: your nipples are getting hairy.

him: so are yours.

me: I've been meaning to talk to you about your mustache, too.

him: likewise.

me: and the nose hairs.

him: . . . this chicken is pretty good -- where'd you get it?

me: what makes you think I bought it?

him: . . .

me: the grocery store.

This evening I went for coffee w/ friend Minka and her roommate (and roommate's in-law pooch, Mo) and instead ended up w/ chardonnay and laughter at Apres Diem, a swell if artsy-fartsy restaurant here in hotlanta. It was a LOT of fun. Couldn't say the last time my cheeks actually ached from smiling so much.

Minka is a new friend and certainly exciting to me. I think I fell a little in love with her when she performed a monologue I'd written - the first of three scenes completing a one-act play. She'd so completely captured what I'd written - and that experience (of having such a perceptive actor) was totally foreign to me - that I immediately began gushing over her in my head. What I recognized after was how [i]everyone[/i] gushes over Minka. the girls' got talent. no shit.

this friday I get the pleasure of seeing her sing a cappella, jazz and arias. opera is her first love. should that take off for her, the acting world will sorely miss her.

the rest of the day was spent pulling weeds at the theater w/ friend Michael who'd come prepared to re-glaze certain windows only to have the caulk pretty much melt in the heat. either that or the man's simply inept.

of course, this sort of weeding /feeding at the theater meant a bit of a tiff w/ mr. zippy. I did, after all, take all his lawn equipment for the day. poor boy.

now I'm listening to Dinah Washington and wondering how much navel-gazing I'm going to do for this gig in May. Hopefully, just enough to make people cry but not wince for the painfully obvious reasons.

No Place for a Poet at a Banquet of Shame
by Sharon Olds


Laura Bush
First Lady
The White House

Dear Mrs. Bush,

I am writing to let you know why I am not able to accept your kind
invitation to give a presentation at the National Book Festival on
September 24, or to attend your dinner at the Library of Congress or the
breakfast at the White House.

In one way, it's a very appealing invitation. The idea of speaking at a
festival attended by 85,000 people is inspiring! The possibility of
finding new readers is exciting for a poet in personal terms, and in
terms of the desire that poetry serve its constituents--all of us who
need the pleasure, and the inner and outer news, it delivers.

And the concept of a community of readers and writers has long been dear
to my heart. As a professor of creative writing in the graduate school
of a major university, I have had the chance to be a part of some
magnificent outreach writing workshops in which our students have become
teachers. Over the years, they have taught in a variety of settings: a
women's prison, several New York City public high schools, an oncology
ward for children. Our initial program, at a 900-bed state hospital for
the severely physically challenged, has been running now for twenty
years, creating along the way lasting friendships between young MFA
candidates and their students--long-term residents at the hospital who,
in their humor, courage and wisdom, become our teachers.

When you have witnessed someone nonspeaking and almost nonmoving spell
out, with a toe, on a big plastic alphabet chart, letter by letter, his
new poem, you have experienced, close up, the passion and essentialness
of writing. When you have held up a small cardboard alphabet card for a
writer who is completely nonspeaking and nonmoving (except for the
eyes), and pointed first to the A, then the B, then C, then D, until you
get to the first letter of the first word of the first line of the poem
she has been composing in her head all week, and she lifts her eyes when
that letter is touched to say yes, you feel with a fresh immediacy the
human drive for creation, self-expression, accuracy, honesty and
wit--and the importance of writing, which celebrates the value of each
person's unique story and song.

So the prospect of a festival of books seemed wonderful to me. I thought
of the opportunity to talk about how to start up an outreach program. I
thought of the chance to sell some books, sign some books and meet some
of the citizens of Washington, DC. I thought that I could try to find a
way, even as your guest, with respect, to speak about my deep feeling
that we should not have invaded Iraq, and to declare my belief that the
wish to invade another culture and another country--with the resultant
loss of life and limb for our brave soldiers, and for the noncombatants
in their home terrain--did not come out of our democracy but was instead
a decision made "at the top" and forced on the people by distorted
language, and by untruths. I hoped to express the fear that we have
begun to live in the shadows of tyranny and religious chauvinism--the
opposites of the liberty, tolerance and diversity our nation aspires to.

I tried to see my way clear to attend the festival in order to bear
witness--as an American who loves her country and its principles and its
writing--against this undeclared and devastating war.

But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I knew that if
I sat down to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning
what I see to be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush
Administration.

What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be taking food
from the hand of the First Lady who represents the Administration that
unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the extent
of permitting "extraordinary rendition": flying people to other
countries where they will be tortured for us.

So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and
shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought of
the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the
candles, and I could not stomach it.

Sincerely,

SHARON OLDS



This article can be found on the web at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051010/olds

MAN!!!

I went to a new doc this morning, spent about four hours there. the first half hour waiting, the next half hour filling out paperwork. Family history. After so many lines of that I was completely dour.

2 suicides, 5 alcoholics, 3 crazies, 3 breast cancers, 1 lung cancer, and me. that we know of. and that's just since my grandparents' time.

no WONDER I'm depressed.

It's about absence. Of being in one place and not seen. It's about depending on yourself and no one else because you never were able to, not really. From the get-go, those around you failed you. Somehow. to the point that when you were finally able to depend on somone else, you didn't recognize it, and you let them go. But then you graduated from therapy and let someone else into your heart, close, closer still than anyone ever before, possibly ever again. So when they let you down, you return immediately to the feeling of absence, as though you were never there. Because why would you be there in the first place?

ok, so I'm still figuring out this new blogger stuff. I just went through three different log in names and passwords, a bit of sweating on my brow and flutterbies in my tummy before i AT LAST managed to get into my own blog.

sheesh.

but LOOK at the cuuuuute dress I just ordered!



This will be my HAPPY DRESS! I shall wear it with GLEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

HOORAH! HOORAH! I FIGURED OUT HOW TO UPLOAD SNAPS! OH WHAT A GLORIOUS DAY!

So, what's more embarrassing?

A president who can't keep his dick in his pants?

OR

A president who allows apathy to dictate his response to the greatest natural disaster this nation has ever experienced?

AND THEN

hires the president who couldn't keep his dick in his pants, whom he bashed along w/ every other person in this voting republic who was somehow offended by one man's wavering morality (POT MEET KETTLE), to head up a morality driven fund raising enterprise not once - but twice.

. . .

hmmmmmm....

We are still glued to the disaster coverage. I now get the sense that not even this will topple Dubya. it's a disgracefully slow response to a national devestation and I can tell you I've never before truly wanted to leave my country, in spite of my growing disdain since the stolen election of 2000, but here I am seeing Dubya on the cusp of shaping the supreme court for generations to come in the wake of allowing so many to needlessly die because of their lack of economic power or perhaps the color of their skin. in this case, the two are largely synonymous. it makes me sick to my stomach and embarrassed to be an American. I've never ever felt this way before. chagrined, yes, but not wholly ashamed.

Nancy Giles commenting on CBS Sunday Morning said quite frankly that the war on poverty has been lost. She recanted Jesse Jackson's weak attempt at quoting those who would quickly admonish this administration for its lack of response as being racially based. He said "I'm not saying that, but ..." then Nancy (WHO ROCKS!) got all outraged with "THEN I'M SAYING IT."

Personally, I'm saying Jess Jackson is no longer a civil activist. He has become the career politician he started his career out ranting against. He's no more a man of God than George W. Bush or Pat Robertson.

now in the wake of this phenomenal disaster to American citizens, the boy king who could give a shit won't even do that. Isn't that clear when his concern for Trent Lott's lost Pascagoola, Mississippi mansion and how he looks forward to partying on the patio of the new mansion when it's built takes even a moment of his limited press coverage? even a single moment. even Trent Lott didn't do that (yet). isn't it clear when his initial speech to the American public amounted to nothing more than a pep rally for junior high cheer leaders?

Lance Armstrong donated $500,000 to disaster relief. How much did you give, Mr. President?

the director of FEMA got his job because a chronie of Dubya was his good friend. You know what this guy did before he got the FEMA job? he'd been in charge of organizing judges for equestrian competitions. You know why he left that job? Because he'd been forced to resign due to incompetence. at least he didn't kill any horses - or jockeys, or trainers, or barn dogs - as a result, that we know of. now he's murdered hundreds if not thousands of American citizens.

and he'll be rewarded for it, just as all of Dubya's flunkies have been rewarded when they've publically screwed up.

the only ones who've not been rewarded by this administration are the ones who've done their jobs to their utmost capacity, only to be downsized because they did not tow the party line. COLIN POWELL, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU????

and was it as gaulling to anyone else to see Condoleeza Rice in her crisp white suit pretending to do a public service by putting food in a truck meant for victims of Katrina? FIVE FULL DAYS AFTER HELP WAS FIRST NEEDED.

but she cares about her peeps. she proves it by being the upwardly mobile uber-conservative think tanker that she is. watch that manicure, Condi -- you wouldn't want to have to get another just for putting a box of MREs in the back of a Jeep well located away from any disaster areas.

way to go Condi. give us another round of your conservative compassion and we may just die a day sooner.

The only problem with this op-ed is that it isn't in a conservative newspaper. How proud are you today for voting for this incompetent fuck?

As one friend hopes... " I think rage and disgust will outweigh party lines. This can't be spun."

A Failure of Leadership
New York Times

By BOB HERBERT
Published: September 5, 2005

"Bush to New Orleans: Drop Dead"

Neither the death of the chief justice nor the frantic efforts of panicked
White House political advisers can conceal the magnitude of the president's
failure of leadership last week. The catastrophe in New Orleans billowed up
like the howling winds of hell and was carried live and in color on
television screens across the U.S. and around the world.

The Big Easy had turned into the Big Hurt, and the colossal failure of
George W. Bush to intervene powerfully and immediately to rescue tens of
thousands of American citizens who were suffering horribly and dying in
agony was there for all the world to see.

Hospitals with deathly ill patients were left without power, with
ventilators that didn't work, with floodwaters rising on the lower floors
and with corpses rotting in the corridors and stairwells. People unable to
breathe on their own, or with cancer or heart disease or kidney failure,
slipped into comas and sank into their final sleep in front of helpless
doctors and relatives. These were Americans in desperate trouble.

The president didn't seem to notice.

Death and the stink of decay were all over the city. Corpses were propped up
in wheelchairs and on lawn furniture, or left to decompose on sunbaked
sidewalks. Some floated by in water fouled by human feces.

Degenerates roamed the city, shooting at rescue workers, beating and robbing
distraught residents and tourists, raping women and girls. The president of
the richest, most powerful country in the history of the world didn't seem
to notice.

Viewers could watch diabetics go into insulin shock on national television,
and you could see babies with the pale, vacant look of hunger that we're
more used to seeing in dispatches from the third world. You could see their
mothers, dirty and hungry themselves, weeping.

Old, critically ill people were left to soil themselves and in some cases
die like stray animals on the floor of an airport triage center. For days
the president of the United States didn't seem to notice.

He would have noticed if the majority of these stricken folks had been white
and prosperous. But they weren't. Most were black and poor, and thus, to the
George W. Bush administration, still invisible.

After days of withering criticism from white and black Americans, from
conservatives as well as liberals, from Republicans and Democrats, the
president finally felt compelled to act, however feebly. (The chorus of
criticism from nearly all quarters demanding that the president do something
tells me that the nation as a whole is so much better than this
administration.)

Mr. Bush flew south on Friday and proved (as if more proof were needed) that
he didn't get it. Instead of urgently focusing on the people who were
stranded, hungry, sick and dying, he engaged in small talk, reminiscing at
one point about the days when he used to party in New Orleans, and
mentioning that Trent Lott had lost one of his houses but that it would be
replaced with "a fantastic house - and I'm looking forward to sitting on the
porch."

Mr. Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever by a
president during a dire national emergency. What we witnessed, as clearly as
the overwhelming agony of the city of New Orleans, was the dangerous
incompetence and the staggering indifference to human suffering of the
president and his administration.

And it is this incompetence and indifference to suffering (yes, the carnage
continues to mount in Iraq) that makes it so hard to be optimistic about the
prospects for the United States over the next few years. At a time when
effective, innovative leadership is desperately needed to cope with matters
of war and peace, terrorism and domestic security, the economic imperatives
of globalization and the rising competition for oil, the United States is
being led by a man who seems oblivious to the reality of his awesome
responsibilities.

Like a boy being prepped for a second crack at a failed exam, Mr. Bush has
been meeting with his handlers to see what steps can be taken to minimize
the political fallout from this latest demonstration of his ineptitude. But
this is not about politics. It's about competence. And when the president is
so obviously clueless about matters so obviously important, it means that
the rest of us, like the people left stranded in New Orleans, are in deep,
deep trouble.

E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com

Friday, September 2nd, 2005

Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.MichaelMoore.com

P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.

---