Well, hello there. I haven't forgotten about you. I've been busy. Christmas, etc.

I could quibble with Naomi Klein about the "you break it, you own it" phrase, but that would be a exercise in silliness, especially since I agree with her larger point. We should get out of Iraq and pay for what we broke rather than staying and continuing the destruction.

Of the recent rash of tv news retirees, the one I will miss is Bill Moyers. He gave his farewell on last Friday's edition of NOW on PBS. Oh Bill....just when I needed you most.

Katha Pollitt says: Stop Crying, Start Working and gives some good suggestions about how to start a fund for neighborhood and storefront clinics that provides abortions. Speaking of which, Planned Parenthood has a great web site called SaveRoe.com where you can keep track of what's going on w/r/t reproductive rights. There's a lot to keep track of right now. I particularly like the wording of their letter protesting the Federal Refusal Clause that was snuck into the recently passed appropriations bill without discussion or debate.

We have a monsterous library, but just as you enter there are shelves of new books and the "browsing collection". Since it's so close to my office I often go over and just browse those shelves. It takes too long to get to the stacks. I can't do it on a 15 minute break. This afternoon I picked up "Worse Than Watergate" by John Dean. I read it on my break, at the bus stop, on the bus. When I got home I parked my butt on my bed and read some more. I even read while I ate dinner (carne asada burrito, mmmmmm). I only have about 50 more pages to go. It's scathingly critical of the shroud of secrecy that surrounds the Bush Administration in everything from the the silence surrounding Cheney's health to the mass deception justifying the invasion of Iraq. Scary stuff. He make an excellent case for how their obsession with secrecy both damage democracy, and places us in harm's way. The tainted 9/11 Commission is a vile example of the latter. IMO.

There are a bunch of political books in the browsing section right now. I'll probably pick up something equally depressing tomorrow. I'll let you know.

"Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little." -- Edmund Burke

I'll tell you what really has my attention at the moment....campaign finance reform. Specifically, I like the California Clean Money Campaign. Of course, Big Money Big Business doesn't like it one bit.

Today my friend Princess Di and I joined a little group photo op with a couple professors and several students so we could submit a photo to sorryeverybody.com because we agreed that it cheered us in our days of darkest despair! Plus it was a good way for some of us liked minded people to band together. I think that's one of the interesting things I've seen over the last year. The way progressives/liberals/Democrats/orwhateverweare have started coalescing into little (and not so little) groups. I don't think we can afford to wait until the next election is ramping up and I think a lot of people are starting to realize that.