Author Archives: Tata

Lost In the Dangling Conversation

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Arrrrrgh.

Looters broke into the Egyptian Museum during anti-government protests late on Friday and destroyed two Pharaonic mummies, Egypt’s top archaeologist told state television.

The museum in central Cairo, which has the world’s biggest collection of Pharaonic antiquities, is adjacent to the headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party that protesters had earlier set ablaze. Flames were seen still pouring out of the party headquarters early on Saturday.

“I felt deeply sorry today when I came this morning to the Egyptian Museum and found that some had tried to raid the museum by force last night,” Zahi Hawass, chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said on Saturday.

“Egyptian citizens tried to prevent them and were joined by the tourism police, but some (looters) managed to enter from above and they destroyed two of the mummies,” he said.

You know, I’m smaller than a speck of dust in the flow of history, but about that stream, I really do care. I care that we preserve the things about ourselves that teach us where we’ve been, what we did, why and how. It’s not the business of royalty that matters, but the history of a monarchic civilization cannot be written without regard for its monarchs. We can go forward as we choose, but we must know who we have been.

Yeah. I know. Not everyone cares. Events in Egypt are hard to read about and tough to imagine. It’s heartening to see the courage of Egyptians protecting the museum while they stand up to the corrupt government.

You Can Swim the Sea

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This week was nothing but struggle. Driving, sliding and skidding through frozen slush gives one a fresh appreciation for the safety of the couch/jammies combo. People went kind of crazy. Thursday, I was talking to a suddenly gimpy co-worker standing in his cubicle when another co-worker buzzed past me holding a bag of ice and somehow the first guy was sitting down with his pants off. This morning, I asked the second co-worker if I had imagined this and she said, “Nope, his pants came off in a flash. Nyuk nyuk.”

The Water Where You Came From

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1. People ask me a lot of the same crazy questions over and over at the family store, but my favorite is, “Do you think this will look good in my living room?”

2. She rang the doorbell an hour ago in tonight’s snow storm. Apparently, the Sierra Club works rain or shine. I let her in so she could thaw for a minute and I would have made her a cup of tea if we hadn’t just lost water. Snow in pots and bowls was melting on radiators and knitted squares Darla had left for me were piled everywhere. I’d reached a miserable crossroads in trying to join them for cat blankets when the girl said, “I’m interning at this shelter for orphaned wild animals in Blairstown, where the woman uses pockets like those for the baby possums.” She wrote down the name of the shelter and its phone number. I stared at the squares, then I looked back at her. “Are you allergic to chocolate?” She said no. I brought her a plastic container from the kitchen. “It’s homemade cocoa granola,” I said. “I’m not joining the Sierra Club, but you’ve really helped me. Please take it.”

Only One Only One Only One

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This is no time to cut arts funding.

Daria’s daughter Fifi is a delicate little pink and purple princess with the ferocious heart of a budding Jersey chick, though that may be understating things. Fifi is a terrifying force of nature in striped tights and mismatched shoes. She’s ignored me since she was born, which is just as well because who wants the adorable Eye of Sauron blinking their way? No one, that’s who.

Fifi started kindergarten in September and spent an afternoon in the principal’s office in the first week. I was so proud. Her teacher says, “Fifi, if you don’t do your work you’ll have to sit in the corner.” Fifi says, “Yeah, for how long?” She’s a prodigy. Thus, I was frigging overjoyed when Daria called me up to tell me Fifi had put down her crayons and uttered my name.

Daria: You should see this picture. It’s pink, pink, pink and pink. Pink dress, pink cake, no hair. Fifi says, “This is Auntie Ta at her wedding.”
Tata: I have never worn pink to a wedding.
Daria: You made us wear pink dresses to your first wedding.
Tata: …Proof that I spent 1987 and 1988 tragically underdrunk. That’s your fault, somehow. Had you tossed me in a bathtub and poured Blue Hawaiians down my gullet you might still be drycleaning recycled rice bag shifts with plunging necklines.
Daria: You’ll be pleased to know Fifi gave the original picture to her teacher as a gift because it’s so pretty.
Tata …But you’ll send this to my current husband if I don’t hand over a dozen stuffed artichokes by 5 p.m. tomorrow?
Daria: A pleasure doing business with you.

No Warning, No Pension, Nobody’s Tears

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The more I listen to our brethren on the Right blather, the more clearly I hear Oingo Boingo. Note to conservative and Libertarians: Elfman is not singing your praises.

Via Jill, Blue Girl’s got your hot response to selfish talk and dangerous fixation on the deficit.

The fact of the matter is, Social Security is not only not responsible for our deficit woes, it is independent of the deficit and it is solvent for decades. Period. Full stop.

That CBO report finds that the Social Security trustfund, without changing a thing, will be able to make full payouts through 2039 – it should also be noted that the full payout projections have been pushed downward by the economic downturn of the last couple of years, and those numbers should start moving the other way as the economy recovers. And if that isn’t the case, we have a lot bigger problems than Social Security coming down the pike.

And even if the trust fund were to run out, Social Security would still be in pretty good shape. First of all, the trust fund is a relatively recent creation. It was establisned in 1983, three years before the baby boomers started turning forty, to deal with the demographic bulge headed Social Security’s way in 2011. That last boomers will retire in 2029, ten years before the trust fund is currently projected to be depleted. Essentially, when the trust fund runs dry, it will coincide with the fact that it’s mission will be, for the most part, complete. It will have eased the strain caused by the retirement of the baby boom.

The depletion of the Social Security trust fund is not a pending disaster, it’s by design. The fact of the matter is, in case you are one of the people in this country to whom facts matter, Social Security is a self funding entity, independent of the general fund. It funds itself entirely through payroll taxes, and so long as payroll taxes are collected, retirees will get their checks. The only way that changes is if Congress acts to stop collecting payroll taxes or to outright abolish the program.

Faced with that reality, those who oppose Social Security tend to go into “yeah, but…” mode and clutch at their pearls while they try in vain not to hyperventilate over a projected $4.5 trillion-with-a-t hole in Social Securities budget seventy five years down the road.

But this, too, is a faulty argument because a very modest increase – 1% or less – in the amount of payroll tax withheld from workers wages would not only fill that hole, it would put the program on a sound footing “indefinitely.”

They really stick their fingers in their ears and sing “la la la la la! I can’t hear you!” when it is pointed out to them that $4.5 trillion is about the same cost, over the same period of time, of permanently extending the Bush tax cuts to the top 2% of earners.

There’s more. And you really should care.

There’s No Reason Why I Heard That

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This is a fucking execution.

See it. Know it. The little kick after the poor guy drops dead is a nice touch. It’s done in our names.

In related news, the motherfucker who gave us the Department of Homeland Security and paramilitary cops finally answers for his perfidious perfidy.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman will announce on Wednesday that he will not seek a fifth term, according to a person he told of his decision. Mr. Lieberman, whose term is up in 2012, chose to retire rather than risk being defeated, said the person, who spoke to the senator on Tuesday.

“I don’t think he wanted to go out feet first,” the person said.

And speaking of feet first, the King of Doctor-Killers just keeps coming back.

Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, will announce Thursday that he will challenge President Barack Obama in the 2012 Democratic primaries.

Terry is perhaps best known to Floridians for his role as the spokesman for Terri Schiavo’s parents and for his challenge of state Sen. Jim King in the Republican primary in 2006.

“My constituency is the millions of pro-life[sic – and I mean that./Ed.] advocates who want to make child-killing illegal from conception until birth,” said Terry on Tuesday. “My base is those who know that we must show Americans the victims of abortion, in order to restore the full protection of law to unborn babies.”

Terry, who has backed graphic ads of abortion procedures before, hopes to run ads during the 2012 NFL playoff games, including the Super Bowl.

“America has never truly debated child-killing, because America has never truly seen child-killing,” insisted Terry. “We will use FEC and FCC laws for federal candidates to bring America face-to-face with this massacre of the innocents.”

I am exhausted by the effort of everyday living and this authoritarian, misogynistic, blindly zealous douche bounces back year after year like a particularly dickish superball. Meanwhile, my sister, surrounded by family members who have had abortions, squawks, “Roe v. Wade will never be overturned” and votes Republican. Frankly, I’ve had enough of the stupid and determined.

Dear Furry Overlords,

I do not belong on this planet, and your fur is boss.

Hugs,
Tata

Fun Laughs Good Time

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Physical therapy is every goddamn thing you remember.

This morning, Pete’s cell rang just after 8. It was the sports medicine place. They’d taken attendance and marked me absent. We agreed that I was stooopid and would show up at 10:30 to prostrate myself before the substitute therapist, since mine is on vacation this week. Thus, I could hardly object when the substitute therapist asked if I’d mind letting a student practice on my stiff and creaky hip: I was late, and it was for Science.

So it was that a sulky student assistant wrapped my hip in something that created heat, a therapy instructor hovered nearby, the substitute therapist offered instruction and a tiny, smiling student named Ellen pushed and tugged and gently pressed my hip in a pattern to test flexibility and restriction. Sensations ranged between annoying and agonizing and my favorite teacher to student instruction was, “This shouldn’t hurt. Be sure to ask if it hurts.” Of course it hurt. Ellen was unsure of herself. If you’ve been through PT, you should know better than to tell your therapist something they’re doing hurts. They’re sadistic bastards and you’ll only encourage them. I made jokes and a break for the exercise bicycle at the earliest opportunity. Being on the bicycle feels like home. I crank up the resistance and watch the airplanes out of Newark and JFK fly south until the timer bleats urgently. This morning, that sad bleating meant Ellen sat next to the table I was on and critiqued my exercise technique. Any doubts I may have had about her when she cackled and squeaked, “Slower!” Over and over. Cackled. “Slower!” Ellen has real talent.