Kitanzi's Colloquium

Yep, I voted - I got an absentee ballot and sent it in weeks ago.
Good fucking thing, too, because frankly the number of people on my friends list who are haranguing everyone to get out and vote is giving me a strong contrary urge not to.
Say you voted - say you think voting is a good thing, it is. It's vital, and that's exactly why I got an absentee ballot and made sure to get mine in, but enough already on the strident shove-it-down-your-throat approach. I really doubt I'm the only contrary person around right now resisting the urge to do just the opposite of what I think is reasonable and sane simply because I'm feeling nagged half to death.

I think half of the horror of Katrina's aftermath is that it's all in slow motion. Evacuations are slowed, even stopped, by people shooting at the rescuers. Looters have gone far beyond getting food and clothing and necessities of life (where the hell are they going to store a television set right now anyhow??) and are compounding the misery and horror tenfold. Resources are moving, but seemingly too little and too late for a lot of the people trapped in the nightmare, and from here how much better can I say I could have done it? What the hell can I do, besides give spare cash? It's a feeling of helplessness, even worse than 9/11. Imagine if the people trapped in the fires jumped from the buildings, and fell for four days, and we watched them fall, heard them screaming, and still couldn't do anything to save them...

No, I didn't sleep very well last night, why do you ask?

Anyhow, I'd like to recommend a filk Harold Feld wrote recently: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.filk/browse_frm/thread/149c9f1639209d1e/151132658d37ff51?hl=en#151132658d37ff51

Now I need to get ready for work, where I will sit on my hands and wait for someone to eventually find something for me to do (curse of being too efficient, apparently), read news on the net and feel utterly useless.

EDIT: For those who asked, we came through just fine. We got a fair amount of rain and some fairly brisk winds, but it never got scary in our part of GA. Tornado sirens went off once, briefly, but nothing seems to have come of that. Thank you for being concerned, though!

The news on the London bombing was only just starting to hit the net when I left for work this morning, and due to restrictions at work I only was able to look at CNN. Basically, just enough to make me worry and no way to make sure of the safety of my UK friends. I am so glad that all of you seem to be okay - and I love the overall attitude of "What, you think that's a bombing? We've been bombed by REAL bombers, that was just a bunch of pissant assholes who think they're something real!"

Even so, it was a horrible thing and I am so glad to get home and find out everyone I know seems to be okay and mostly just irked at the trouble getting to/from work.

This morning, defendant Brian Nicols apparently grabbed a gun from a deputy at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta and killed the judge and clerk of the court. He also shot two deputies, one of whom died at the hospital. He escaped from the courthouse, carjacked himself a ride, and is currently fleeing from a manhunt that's making national news. All of this has made for quite a lot of talk here at work, naturally. There's lots of speculation on how this happened, whether he'll survive to be arrested, and so on.

The too close to home part didn't come clear until a few hours later. Apparently one of the associates downstairs is the wife of one of the men who testified against Nicols. Since he's still at large and there seems to be a theory that he might try and take revenge on this man (pretty damn stupid, I'd think) she's been escorted out by the police to collect her kid from the child care center next door, and we have police cars sitting out in the parking lot. Email from the Director of Property Services asked us all to watch for "anything out of the usual" and attempted to reassure us by saying she would not be back until he's caught. General speculation has given way to increasingly dramatic what-ifs and people nervous about going out to get their cars. I honestly think its going to wind up being a whole lot of nothing, but this is still rather more excitement that anyone wanted for a Friday - especially the poor woman who the police walked out of our doors to try and explain this to her child.

ACat managed to find the words that a lot of people need right now, including me:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/autographedcat/131238.html

A month or so ago I got a summons to Jury Duty, the first I've ever gotten in any state. So I dutifully hauled myself out of bed and to the Atlanta court bright and early yesterday morning to do my Duty. It turned out to be a lot of hurryup-and-wait, but it had some very interesting aspects, too. Certainly Jury Duty makes for some fascinating people watching. By the nature of the thing you have a very wide cross-section of society, all up damn early to haul themselves down to the court by quarter past eight.
( Possibly more detail than you care to know about the Jury Duty process for the Superior Court of Georgia )

From many sources, and an idea I like:

I believe that the president's leadership in the actions taken in Iraq demonstrate an incompetence in terms of knowledge, judgment and experience in making the decisions that would have been necessary to truly accomplish the mission without the deaths to our troops and the cost to our taxpayers."
--House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

House Majority leader Tom DeLay, responded:
"Nancy Pelosi should apologize for her irresponsible, dangerous rhetoric. She apparently is so caught up in partisan hatred for President Bush that her words are putting American lives at risk."
(Source: CNN)

That's right, folks, it's now official: criticize our so-called President and you are endangering American lives.

But a better president than Dubya said this:

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." - Theodore Roosevelt (1918)

I suggest the following meme: Everyone who is so inclined, write down the Roosevelt quote on a postcard and send it to the dear House Majority Leader at either of the following addresses:

The Hon. Tom DeLay
242 Cannon HOB
Washington, DC 20515

The Hon. Tom DeLay
Office of the House Majority Leader
H-107 The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

Then post this info in your journal and see if we can generate a resounding reminder that dissent and criticism do not equal treason.

Well, another relationship ritual has been met and passed - and enjoyably, at that. ACat's mom has been meaning to come visit for the past several weekends but threatened snow kept making her reschedule - some of the trip is through a rather high mountain pass, plus it's a LONG car ride. She did make it down this weekend, though, and the funny thing is that I was less nervous about meeting his mom than I was about introducing him to mine - or my dad, for that matter. I think this actually says more about me and my family than it does anything else, but I digress.

She's a lot like her son - funny, intelligent, generous, perceptive, slightly acerbic, kind - and just like he described her, which is not surprising. I think I passed muster, though once again I'm running into the interesting phenomenon of being measured against his ex, and finding it's a REALLY SHORT YARDSTICK. *sigh*

Anyhow, we gave her her christmas present (a really neat fur pillow I had threatened to keep if she didn't make it this time), and took her to the Three Weird Sisters concert Friday night, which she seemed to like a lot. She must have enjoyed it, since she took home both their CD and Gwen's solo CD!

We also talked a lot, went out to eat a lot, and had quite a good time over all. I hoped I would get more funny ACat-as-a-kid stories out of it, but he seems to have already told them all on himself already! >:)It was fun hearing them from another perspective and a different story teller.

She took herself off to the mall Saturday morning, just before we found out about the Columbia disaster, and since I was finding singing to be some solace we kind took it back up and gave her a microconcert of a good variety of filk that afternoon. I never did get to feed her - she wasn't hungry when she got in Friday, and took us out to ever single meal thereafter before leaving after breakfast Sunday morning. Just as well that we'd already decided to relax the diet in anticipation of our trip to England.

So, I've done the ritual Meeting of the SO's Parents, and it went pretty well. I'm really glad - I like her! Next adventure - England the day after tomorrow?!?

I grieve for those who died a year ago, and for those who lost people they knew and loved. I did not lose anyone I directly knew, but my grief is no less sincere, nor does it require whipping up to a froth by people who seem to think that if they are not shouting in my face about what a tragedy this was I'll somehow forget.
A moment of silence (or more) feels appropriate - having that time appropriated for speeches of the above sort does not. Attempts to coerce people into attending such ceremonies do not. People loudly and ostentatiously proclaiming their anger, pain, grief and patriotism (as if they are all equivalent) from the street corners and the televisions and the front lawn of my office building impress me just about as much as televangelists do.
I understand that everyone copes with tragedy in different ways, and some may even sincerely grieve loudly and in herds, but to convince people that's the only valid way is, in my mind, a tragedy in itself.

You ride, I'll drive, by sunset we'll be there... tell me every dream you ever had...play your favorite song on the radio... someday you'll say, that's the best time I ever had.

Well, I DID have a very good time, in fact. Screen Door played at Eddie's Attic again last night. Why on a Thursday night? Damned if I know - Tom didn't even seem too sure himself, when I asked. The upside was that parking was much easier to find and the place was NOT jammed wall to wall, as it's been every other time we've seen them. So, we had a lovely treat on a Thursday night, and by the time we got home it felt like a weekend. Of course, that doesn't keep me from having to go into work today, but it's just one last day and then the real weekend, and then there will be lots more musical treats including 3 Weird Sisters at the celtic festival, and a housefilk! Happy ears....
(I also found out last night that after years of not drinking, it only takes two beers to put me to sleep these days?!? What, am I getting old or something?)