beating peta

You probably don't know,
but if you do know,
or if you don't know but would like to know,
and you still believe in BLOGROLLS,
if you wouldn't mind blogrolling this new blog,
well then I'd like to introduce you to The Pet Timez,
brainchild of two blogging offspring
from two of your favorite mommy bloggers: thee and madame levy.

Our daughters, Maeve (from france) and Jenna (from amerika) have started a blog about pets, animals, and all things hairy. It's like realtime blog penpals writing about the stuff they care about--generally with four legs.

Enjoy. Support. Giggle.

---

good blog reads

Kent has some great lists he's gathering in what he calls swivel feeds. I missed the bus on giving him five recommendations, so i did it in his comments. Picked the top five the wind blew through my skull. And it's 90 degrees and there's no wind, so I guess those are pretty much stuck.

and so i said:

Tony Pierce - http://www.tonypierce.com/blog/bloggy.htm

Daughter of Opinion - http://daughterofopinion.blogspot.com/

Brian Moffatt - http://www.brian-moffatt.com/repurpussing/

George Kelly - http://www.allaboutgeorge.com/

Madame Levy - http://lavachequilit.typepad.com/il

#posted by Jeneane Sessum : 8/27/2007 10:50 PM

oops you already have Madame Levy, so I'll say Badhostess - http://badhostess.com/

thx!

#posted by Jeneane Sessum : 8/27/2007 10:52 PM

---

you get what you need

There's a beautiful post over at AKMA's place about dreams delayed, dreams-yet-to-be-realized and dreams that don't seem like dreams-come-true, but must be just that, because without them, life would be no dream at all.

I keep a fortune-cookie slip in my wallet. It reads, “Your dream will come true when you least expect it.” Let’s bracket, for the moment, the question of whether there’s any sane reason to take fortune-cookie slips seriously; we know there isn’t, and we know that we do anyway.

read on.

happy birthday marek

for you, the poem i wrote for your birthday way back when ...

1:30 a.m. Birthday Poem for Marek

Pick up the bat,
chipped wood offering slivers,
feel them break the skin
cut my palm and the
creases where my fingers bend.
Little bit of blood never hurt
me.

Walk the streets, hungry for
something to make sense,
Find myself there
without knowing when or how,
See the red convertible
parked to perfection, six inches
from the curb, outside
the overdone estate
that son of a bitch CEO
calls home.

The glare off the hood
screams at me from
across the street
alarms going off
in my head
RUN you stupid
shit.

With my bat I have
only wishes and dreams
no one and everyone knows.
I cross the street slowly, take in
the chrome wheels and
flawless finish, glaring,
mocking me.

Before I lift it
high above my head
I don't think: and then what?
I bring it down with the force
of fire, speed of wind,
feel the connection
the windshield give way,
and then
shatter into snow
that rains
on the pavement in
a rainbow tapestry
of joy.

---

Tags: poetry, blogging, web 2.0, marek, kominat, marekj, gonzo marketing, gonzo engaged, the solution is poetry

Powered by Qumana

Can anyone tell me if this is legit?

Got an(other) email last night that tugged at my worthy cause heartstrings. But I don't know if this is legitimate because it came to me through an unsolicited email--some might call it spam it sounds too real to be spam--and I'm hoping it's just one blogger asking some others for help. Minnich sounds for real and the blog is not sploggy, but there aren't any pictures or ways to get to know those involved. So I thought I'd put this out there to see if anyone I know knows whether or not its the real deal. And so that if you'd like to find our or help Minnich, you have the info. And if it is for real, what a perfect social marketing opportunity for Stormhoek!

anywhoo Thanks!

---

Hi,

Wait! Please don't delete. Read on and if there is still nothing you can do about it, then at least you will have entertained yourself.

This is not a Spam, and it is not a Nigerian Con letter. I don't need your money to pay for an American Passport or to transfer money from some war torn country or help set off credit card debts or… well, you know how they go.

This is a humble request to help make a change. I have gone through your blogs, all of you (sorry I had to Bcc your Email address as this letter goes to 30 different people) and they are all intriguing, interesting, entertaining, soulful, mindful… all of it.

I am Minnieh, A Girl From Africa, I may have posted comments on some of your blogs or already send you an E-mail earlier. I am 28yrs and in a programme that educates girls from East Africa. I have so far put three girls through secondary school, two are in their final year and one has one more year to go. Requests from my country folk have been coming in and the need is overwhelming. I can only stretch myself so far, and we all know I ain't no Oprah (bless her) so won't be coming up with a Leadership Academy any time soon, not without some outside help (Nothing is impossible). So, I have decided to seek your help to assist me carry on putting them through school, one by one, two by two, whatever we shall manage to do. I do not have a website but the girls and myself have been blogging, trying to do up some short stories and African folklore and sell through a Read-For-A-Dollar initiative at www.girlfromafrica.blogspot.com. I wouldn't mind doing up a website but I thought about it… $36 (cost of a web?) is enough to put one girl through school for a term, …$36 is enough to feed a family of 5 for a month, …$36 is enough to put a dressing on a painful wound, …$36 is enough to… by the time I finish with the list of what $36 can do, I'm not sure I will still be thinking of a web site any more.

So, to all of you fellow bloggers, the young mummies, the super mummies, the mummy fighting the world to save her son, the mommy-to-be who is on a countdown to her delivery date (I am one), the chap trying to translate English for an African girl in a Chinese shop in Germany, the Australian babe making a life in Europe, the Norwegian girl married to a gorgeous guy, the momma of 5 trying to get organised, the chaps whose blogs are raining men, Susan who runs for her life, Kelly whose blog rains men, pet mommies, the Iraqi raising his/her voice for fellow country men, children writing to keep a parents candle burning – a parent killed in the Iraq war, Crystal, a purpose driven wife… all of you, all of us.

All I ask… beg of you is to donate 1 Dollar/Pound/Euro (one will do, 5 will be good, 10 might be too much to ask for but, thanks anyway) through a PayPal account under the email girlfromafrica@gmail.com and, if you could be kind enough, pass this message to a couple of friends kind enough to also make a donation.

If you are not in a position to, thanks anyway for taking the time to read this far, but please do not hurl insults at me, or get too negative about my initiative. It's just an idea I have come up with, and it's my small way to make a small change in someone's life.

Be part of a positive change. Please help put a girl through school.

Kind regards,

Minnieh.

A Girl From Africa

www.girlfromafrica.blogspot.com

girlfromafrica@gmail.com

this could BE something.

Was looking over the folks involved with the Freelancer's Union. I mean, what if we U.S. bloggers really decided that we were going to do this thing. We're going to join and get involved and help power this union. Am I crazy? One of us is writing their blog. They've set up a wiki. They're even trying to get gig info out there. I'm not saying that this makes them legit, but it shows someone is tending the garden.

We've got the dispersed, miscellaneous voice thing covered here on the net. But when it comes to counting in the wasteland of non-affordable healthcare in this country, we lack a centralized voice.

Affordable Health Care is now nothing more than a mantra. It's not going to happen. And if WE (you know who WE are) lose the next election, some of us are going to have to leave or die. It's that simple.

If you worry about healthcare once a week and are an indie worker, think about this union thing. What about disability? How often do you independents -- solo or with families -- fear having to take 8 weeks off to have surgery? (my hand's up!) Life insurance? At my last job I paid $2.50 per month for a policy that would have bequeathed my family $200K. Now I pay $150/month for something that would give them half of that.

Dental? not. Vision? not.

I don't know the answers for any of this stuff, but I wonder, could this union thing actually work? Would it hurt to put our shoulder to the wheel and see if we can make it work?

---

Freelancers Union?

I have a secret. The last few weeks I have been thinking about getting a 'real' job again. It's been five years since I left the confines of corporate life to go out on my own. Not one second have I missed any part of the agency life. When I have a full roster of clients, I get enough socialization. At my age, in my chosen profession, 'best friend' potential in the office isn't all that likely as I'm at the old end of the age spectrum. Moms w/o Happy Hour--that would be my company shirt.

But after my recent surgery, I find myself wanting a safety net--a corporate daddy to make sure I'm taken care of when times are tough. This rolls around my head bashing into the realization that when times were MOST tough and I nearly died 9 years ago, my employer thanked me with a layoff and then tanked. So yeah, I know, there is no such thing as security. But for wo years running we have gone over our two thousand dollar a year deductible because of medical bills. Jenna's tonsils last year (still owe several thousand on that), and no my recent medical woes (add on another few thou). AND WE PAY each month as much as our mortgage for the privilege of owing thousands more. Our current BCBS plan has a 2K per year deductible, and after that, they only pay 70 percent. Five hundred per person per year pharmacy deductible.

Add to that the 150 per month i'm supposed to pay for life insurance policies (sometimes have it, sometimes don't), the no dental, the no 401K, and the government with its hand out too, and it's a wonder anyone with a family and their own business can afford to stay in the game.

And then the net steps in.

I was on linkedin today and connected through another former Ketchum colleague who connected with me to yet another colleague who exchanged emails with me. She pointed me this article on the re-emergence of unions as a way for independent workers to organize and have access to benefits we don't have access to on our own.

I had no idea this was going on, had never heard about the Freelancer's Union, but I'm off to investigate. If anyone else has information, or is a member, or knows what's going on currently around the organizing of independent workers to have access first and foremost to affordable healthcare, I would love to know.

I will tell you that George belongs to the AFM, and I've already reviewed the benefits there. They suck. The insurance is not the kind that doctors take, and the so called drug benefits are a joke. You can go to walmart and get $4 generics without having to pay $50 for a plastic card that health providers shake their heads at when you show it.

I hope the Freelancer's Union does better. We deserve more than scams and afterthoughts when it comes to benefits if we pay to join these unions. What's the real story? I'm all ears.

More soon.

---

update: The Freelancer's Union has a blog.

---

unstrung by a commute

good writing good man that BMO good thoughts good truth: what do you do with the ordinary? numb out or see through it? who might take you down for telling what you see? anyone or no one? the whole internet or just some someone? blogging your way through things is extreme sports in pixel play. you can break a bone. sometimes it is simply beautiful. it's not so real that it has to hurt. but you never know.

i like this:

Being in traffic, is like being in a meeting. You are stuck. You’d rather be
dead.

We’ve pulled alonside a GO train. Double decker. With the entire side of one car covered in a Clinique ad. Painted on there. Little thought or art direction. Still better than the green and white. Me? I’d paint them a banana yellow.

We’re through The Green Belt now. Farms between two towns. Hay.

A beer and a bag of cashews while loading and unloading passengers at
Oshawa.

Then it’s through the Darlingtin Nuclear plant. Thing is the grounds
around the facility are beautiful.

I think I’ve decided that this is where we enter yet another country.

Farms, radio towers, power lines.

I’ve decided that when I get home I am going to weed the garden. The train is flying
over the countryside now. I’ve decided I want to live in Europe.

Most of my ideas are romantic.

Damn it.

to blog is to write the ordinary unordinary.

-->

some little bird

so a 'little bird' (what people tell me when i ask them wtf) told of my laptop mac-switching plight and my upcoming birthday (my dad didn't wanna name me Nina June for nothin) and SUDDENLY my paypal account is FLUSH with FUNDS that are going toward a MAC book as soon as I can patch in the rest of the dough, and I cannot COMMUNICATE in mere pixels how overwhelmed I am at the support from more than a dozen of you--each of whom I would like to name, but I know some of you are funny about that, so it puts me in a predicament, how dare you--OMG!

I am not sure how to say thank you to the nth degree, but thank you to the nth degree.

NONE of you had to do this, some of you can't afford to have done this, and many of you did anyway. I don't know what to say.

I really have had trouble lately about what I'm doing here. Not a new story. Many of us are struggling with why. I had lost a lot of faith in the net over the whole KS afffflair, and a lot of faith in what I'm doing here, how much I should be here, where HERE is anymore, and what any of us are doing here.

No big secret that.

It's not the Generous Contributions that have restored something in me. It is the show of support from all of you--some of whom I didn't think even knew I was still around, or whom I assumed had writ me up as being some kind of Really Mean Kid unworthy of further time, love, or readership. Or maybe that was me doing that. Either way.

I'm turning 45 Saturday and this thing--this being here--there is still something to it.

Thank you more than I can say for showing me that even with all the noise, our hearts can still cut through.

----

I'm going Mac. Ain't no going back.

I'm saving up to make the switch. That's it.

So many PCs have croaked the last two weeks I don't know what's going on, but I don't see any harm in insinuating the proliferation of Vista and recent MS updates miiiight have something to do with it. Or some kind of harmonic convergence. Yeah.

I started out in business on a Mac in 1984. The first one I worked on was a 512K, singed on the inside, which we upgraded to a 512KE and thought we'd died and gone to heaven at our little startup publishing business. Added a 20 MB (that's MB not GB) hard drive in 1985 and had the power of the world in our hands.

I stayed with Mac at home and in business until 1991, going through a Mac Plus, a Mac SE, and others, including my first Apple laser printer which cost $1600 back in the day, until I joined the Big Co machinary of Eastman Kodak Company, when being able to work from home pushed me to a PC and then Windows.

Well guess what. I'm going back to my roots. What do I do? I write. What have I always done? Write and make books. What should I be doing that on? A Mac. Plain and simple.

I'm writing this on a borrowed computer--THANK YOU HONEY--who has been 'driving miss crazy' around for the last two weeks during my convalescence. One made a little more stressful without a link to the rest of you. I am thankful I have George's computer to work on. Believe me. But I need an axe. I can't be without my axe.

I want to go home. I want to buy a mac book. I'm going to.

It's over Microsoft. It's over Windows.

---

Razer Sharp on Blog Sisters

Helen Razer has been on Blog Sisters as long as I can remember. Like a lot of the posting members there--yours truly included--she doesn't post there all that often, but when she does, woooohooo it's ALWAYS wonderful and cool and day-changing. It's what blogging used to be before it was coopted by U.S.ian Web2.o zealots with few chops and even fewer clues.

Wonderful writing case-in-point -- today's Blank Paris, in which Ms. Razer explores the Meaning of Life and Love in a pixel-driven collage of absurd current day rating mechanisms--from Paris Hilton to trans fatty acids.

I give you the start here. You'll have to go read the rest.

In every life, about a handful of Truly Significant moments are collected. These, unless you’re easily given to joy upon opening stationery catalogues eating spaghetti, polishing brassware et al, are wrung from events broadly agreed to be drenched in emotion. Births, deaths, marriages and all their variants and relatives from illness to ignited love provide the stuff of big moments.

You will recognise these moments for their potency. Within these instants, some sort of emotional coin is dropped. A new mechanism is activated and, slowly then suddenly, your insides creak and you’re changed for good.

When you care to peruse your album of rare and remarkable moments, you will almost certainly find these were built in the immediate company of life, death and affection. You may also find that this record is slim. This, truly, is the way it should be. A life too well-punctuated by high drama and joy is a life drained of meaning. Unless, of course, you’re Namoi Campbell.

I suspect that I’m quite fortunate to have collected a few such moments for display and ready reference. My internal emotional directory contains a select hit list at the top of which is an “I Love You” closely followed by an “It’s completely operable”.

Occasionally, however, I find myself eager for the inclusion of new moments.
Like a brooding tween hepped up on a dissatisfying diet of Emo and trans fats, I find myself idly hoping for bad-ass, life changing emotional action.

...

Managed Speech?

"We are not responsible for the comments of any poster, and when discussions get heated, crude language, insults and other ‘off color’ comments may be encountered. Participate in this site at your own risk."

RISK? RISK? What are we doing out here, performing brain surgery? Operating heavy machinery? Dodging great white sharks? Re-engineering the enterprise?

Meanwhile some genuine positive dialogue is taking place on the internets around managed speech.

And it's only Thursday!

Bonus: Ronni Bennett

And if that badge idea takes hold, then are those who, like me, stand as First Amendment absolutists against imposed standards of speech to have their blogs labeled – as Tim O’Reilly suggests - “dangerous territory”? One person’s insult is another’s satire. What constitutes foul language is highly individual, as is what is nasty.

Censorship is a trecherous undertaking. Once imposed, it doesn’t take much to go from banning individual words to opinion, books and soon, ideas. And then it has arrived at groupthink.

...

awake

mornings have always been the worst. tying back the strings, behind my back like handcuffs, i find all the reasons why terror makes sense. i wonder what the precise time of my father's death was--if i can find out--because i think my cells already know, scream awake, tell morning: no! or it's something else, the morning after the night before, violated, jerked awake decades later.: help! or it's something else, waking up into silence broken by the day, already broken before my eyes open by old wounds erupting.

it's amazing we function, any of us. pretending to move through days that pretend to matter. encouraged by moments when it all makes sense. and then back again.

that's all really. just a morning story. remembering forward. hard.


...

As long as everyone's able to leave their yard now...

[[This post has helpful insertions to provide context and avoid misunderstandings -- in other words, I would hate for the blogworld to have to think too hard.]]

Well, I'm over the 11,000 mark for Google search results on my name and death threats.

And, this evening we have a goodly and rising tally of 448 for my name and hate speech.

[[fact and references added as hyperlinks]]

Isn't that interesting. Seems like something that might just piss you off if you weren't such the politically savvy marketing blogger and chariman of women's good will that I am proported to be...

[[insert tongue-in-cheek tag]]

Say, if you had been on the receiving end of hate speech online and didn't call a committee to lay blame and shoot the band before they could fire their first drummer.

[[uncomfortable rim shot]]

Try being a race mixer in the south, 21 years of marriage and a beige baby. Then talk to me about yards and safety and hate speech.

[[note self-empowerment through use of race-mixer term]]

And tell me if it would make you a little perturbed, if, say you never even mentioned somebody outside of your own blog, and there they were in the press saying you been doing bad things on another blog you didn't care much about, hardly read, only laughed once inappropriately about that Oprah thing, be4 the nasty words.

[[sad emoticon, chuckling emoticon, confused emoticon]]

You know what Johnny Carson used to say: "Women, they don't forget. Memories as long as Google. Boys, you can count on it." Or maybe that was me.

[[intentionally profound]]

What card is that again? I'm losing count. Race card, illness card, woman card, victim card... Doctor, lawyer, justice of the goddam peace, where are you? Gag me, hang me, shoot me. I still come knockin' on the front door of your cult to say "HI! Do you love me yet?"

[[metaphorically speaking]]

Do you want to talk about mean?

Would someone like to talk to me about mean?

[[rhetorical questions]]

About women silencing woman? About PTSD triggers, about who it's convenient to hang our hangups on? Sucks to have to go back to the source. Hurts back there. Baby, don't I know it. But we gotta go. Pull that barb out at the root--that's the only way to get through it.

[[trauma psychology -- look it up]]

Might make you think there's more to the story. Makes me think. Makes me think about being bullied into cliques I'm not hip to. Makes me make you, and you are made, understand, I never signed on to your story, but I'm there now.

[[so to speak]]

You coulda hired somebody else.

[[I mean, really.]]
...

women's best friend

There is no faster way to silence a man than to publicly put into question the genuineness of his respect for women. At some level, the unspoken threat of voice castration makes the men who continue to write personally about women online braver and more vulnerable than the subjects of their words.

The tragedy is that many men opt for silence rather than risk the de-balling. I can't blame them. The treasure is that some of them keep writing anyway.

In comments I was reminded about one treasure who continues writing, whose words touch women in nearly every post. Thanks, Shakespierce.

From Tony Pierce...

....its hard to be intimidated by a waitress chick at dennys in LA, but i noticed that there were two types of girls who id end up asking out more than once. one were the girls who made me feel super cool and handsome.

but unfortunately the ones i ended up liking the most were the ones who made me nervous and made me feel ugly and disgusting. maybe its because i know im pretty damn disgusting.

also, i like being nice, and the girls who made me feel gross usually ended up on the nicer dates. whereas the sweet librarian types usually got their hair pulled harder and far more kinkier things ending up in their mouth and asshole than the other girls.

ive also been known to whisper some pretty foul things in the ears of shocked lass. but theyre always creative. and some are even possible.

the other night i had this girl tied up real good, face down because she was bad, i forget what she had done. oh yes, she had forgotten her plaid skirt. whore. and everything was going fine and she was still tied up and i was all is everything ok over there, and i lit a cigarette for her and she said yea and i put the cigarrette in her mouth because her arms were still tied to the bedpost you see.

and i said what do you wanna do next and she said tony i will do anything with you.

and if that doesnt make you feel like a handsome devil with a footlong cock then youre in deep trouble.

so i blew out the torch and got her worked up and she was a loud one which usually distracts me but ive been working on it. and i was whispering some shit and she was saying yes to everything and moaning and yelling and i whispered im gonna call your sister and let her hear you moan and she said please dont but she moaned it confusing me, which isnt to say i wasnt a bit worked up too, and we had drunken all that straight rum and something was smoked

and i was all, ok does she really not want me to dip into her purse and grab the phone and... or what? and i said im gonna put this phone in a very bad place and then call it with my phone and she said mmmmm and i said then im gonna sell it on ebay and she said mmmmm and i said and im gonna sell the video ive been making of this whole thing and she said mmmmm and i wondered if she heard me so i said and i will sell the dvd of what we just did for an hour and she said mmmmm and i realized that her phone had been on vibrate the whole time

and youd never guess when youre little who you wouldnt call back when youre older.

....

ire

Alphonse "Tootie" Dimino
December 16, 1930 - March 17, 1969


the school of the dead

As I waver between life and death in my own hospital bed, 30 years after his death, on his birthday in fact, I am somehow not surprised. Terrified, yes. Facing death is not something I'm prepared for. My new baby is just 9 weeks old. How did I get here?

When you lose a parent early in life, you wonder if you'll make it past the age they were when they left you. Every child of death wonders this. That's why I'm not surprised to be near death myself at 36, the same age he was when the luck of the Irish eluded him.

In my hospital bed, hemorrhaging uncontrollably, I am violently enrolled in what Cixous calls, "The School of Dreams." Because I don't die; I live. But in walking the line between here and there, I dream. Images as vibrant as those five-year-old memories, scenes that will carry me through the next half of my life.

Bleeding to near death. Watching helplessly as my lifeforce leaves my body, playing tricks with my mind and taking small pieces of my soul with it, my sanity too. The emptiness is unfathomable. As a new mother, instincts of self-protection battle with the responsibility of caring for this new life. I don't want to see her; don't want her to see me, not like this. My one gift to her: protect her from images of her dying parent--I know how they haunt.

But she comes to visit just before surgery. My sister carries her down the elevator toward the operating room, this small life that has almost cost me mine.

Anxiety gives way to resolve. Once again, I cannot control. I cannot fix myself, I cannot fix my family. I let go, I go to sleep. And I dream.

Dreams of pain. Dreams of loss--where is my baby? My husband is gone--no, there he is. And I hear talking, outside of myself. Again.

I am a dream within a dream. A death within a death.

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

the school of the dead 2

Cixous writes: "For a long time I lived through my father's death with the feeling of immense loss and childlike regret, as in an inverted fairy tale: Ah, if my father had lived! I naively fabricated other magnificent stories, until the day things changed color and I began to see other scenes--including everything I could imagine that was less consoling--without overinvesting."


I tell all my friends growing up that my father died of a gallbladder operation. Because no one tells me otherwise, even though he lived another six months after that operation. My fourth grade teacher tells me it is very unusual for someone to die of a gallbladder operation. She says, "Are you sure?" And I wonder if I'm hiding something.

I'm 21 before I ask.

My mother tells me the truth then, about the day he had his operation and the doctors took her in a room, there by herself, to tell her that her husband's gallbladder is fine, but his pancreas isn't. The diagnosis is pancreatic cancer. The prognosis, much as it is today, omonous. Six months maybe. My mother tells me the news rips her apart, and her first and strongest instinct is to wail for her own father. "Bring my daddy here. He'll know what to do. I need him." But there is no comforting to be done for this family.

There will never be comfort again.

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

voicelessness

because, there is no bypass for loss.

....

Unprotected and vulnerable, there are no words to clothe you, to make you beautiful. You are raw, revealing yourself by the clumsiness in your covering. we live naked, a rack of peacock feathers can't cover your scars.

I see every one of them in the space between your words.

.

fine fine finslippy on four and a half

It's just too good.

Hey, can Four and a half have that cookie? That one you thought Four and a half wouldn’t notice, all wrapped up in the pantry? No, you say? That’s cool. See? Four and a half wants you to know he can wait—he’s got all the time in the world. Or maybe that cookie isn’t for him and never will be. No matter. Some other cookie will come by, some other time. And when that time comes, Four and a half will be there. For that cookie.

Sweet, sweet love,
Four and a half

put that in your twitter and follow it.