McCain aide Mark Soohoo made this extraordinary statement today while fielding questions during the Personal Democracy Forum in New York:

"You don't actually have to use a computer to understand how it shapes the country"
"John McCain is aware of the Internet," says Soohoo. "This is a man who has a very long history of understanding on a range of issues."

When contacted, The Internet said that he was aware of John McCain....but had dismissed him years ago.

Update: I received an email from someone claiming to be Michael Wolff pointing out that I use 'Richard' several times in this essay. Ooops! He got me! Chalk it up to a bad pain day. Most of you know I'm usually vigilant when it comes to details like this - but sometimes, when the pain gets really bad, the back of my brain takes over. I was thinking about the TV pundit Richard Wolff (the Wolff I know best). It just came out - and for that I am sorry. If I'm eviscerating the man - I should at the very least get his name right! So thank you MICHAEL Wolff for the correction. That took courage.

A few weeks ago I read an article in Vanity Fair that really scorched my shorts.  I was so pissed off, I had to think about it a while - let it simmer, so to speak - see if the pot came to full boil.  Well it did.  I'd say I'm well and truly `boiled' now.  In fact - the more I think about it the `prime-ier' I get.  Why this particular diatribe?  Out of the encyclopedia of `I Hate Hillary's' littered like smashed walnuts on the side of the road - why did this pop my kettle?  The complete and utter denigration and dismissal of women in general.  Call it the final straw - the last nail in the coffin - one insult too far.  You see - Michael Wolff has declared us over 50 types unfuckable - and you know what that means: invisibility to the point of shunning (he even uses that word!).  Guess we can all go home now girls - at least those of us in what the opposite gender sees as peri-(pathetic) menopause.  We are now officially invisible - except for Hillary, of course.  She's still out there - plugging away - but it's only a matter of time.  She's fading - shrinking towards germ status (with any male handy the prescribed antibiotic).  The estimable and oh so quip worthy Mr. Wolff has pronounced her persona non grata, so - behold the unfuckable woman!

Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Tuesday's Child is Full of Grace

Yesterday was my birthday.  There was no real celebration, I'm sad to say.  Not much gets celebrated these days.  I am in my 5th decade - and with age comes wisdom - or so I am told.  So here are my reflections on what it meant to officially enter `middle-age' - that purgatory of between times, when no one seems to give a damn any more who you are, or what you have to say.  

Life certainly comes with a boatload of caveats.

Remembering what my life was.....

On the eve of my 24th birthday I sat alone in my apartment and took stock of my life up until that point.  Assisting me in that endeavor was a ½ gallon jug of wine, and a carton of Benson & Hedges menthol cigarettes.  I remember I wept - for all I had lost, for all that never came and against a future that seemed rather bleak indeed.  I stared at and through that bottle, each sip as sour as my mood, chain-smoking myself into a nicotine high - wondering if I should take arms against my sea of troubles and by opposing end them.  At the time, it did indeed seem a consummation devoutly to be wished.  I was entering my 25th year; I was living in a one bedroom apartment surrounded by a single bean bag chair and an old wire spool table. Unable to keep my pets while in the homeless shelter, I had stupidly trusted them to my mother who promptly had my brother kill them; `for my own good', she said.  My acting career, such as it was, had come to a screeching halt about the same time I said no to auditioning for Playboy (the casting couch just wasn't for me).  So it didn't seem likely I would be accepting that Academy Award any time soon.  In vino veritas - the time had come, the walrus said to speak of many things.  I had a choice to make that night.  Did I give up the ghost as had my sister, aunt and cousin?  Or did I soldier on; changing all those things in my life that brought me to that pivotal moment.  Did I really wish to end the heartache and thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to?

It has been quite some time since I posted a diary here.  This is not about politics - it is personal.  I hope there's room for something a bit different.  

Well, that's not exactly true.  It's more the concept of a mother that I miss - not that I really have a handle on what that is, exactly; never having had a functioning model to pull from.  Yesterday I watched a program featuring teasing exchanges between adult siblings.  I realized I had no idea how that felt - to speak to a family member without rancor; no underlying hatreds or agenda - no hysteria, violence or tears.  It was strange.  Of all the relatable human experiences - family life should be a constant.  That's why silent movies were so universal.  The language of pattern and form: smiles, tears, warmth, laughter.  A woman appears; next to her stands a child.  The image resonates, we all know what that is, what it signifies - only I don't.  There is no warm rush of emotion, no opening of the heart.  I am lost - at sea: alien.

Can we please - please, please, please - start a substantive conversation on race in America?  There are ground rules though - no kicking, screaming, eye-gouging or biting allowed.  All participants have to agree not to put on silly hats or funky bandanas and march around with crosses or guns.  Think I'm being facetious?  OK - try having this discussion without the accompanying folderol.  Someone always has to start the button pushing - and immediately the ears close, the mouths open and for all intents and purposes we might as well be at a Jerry Springer taping.  

You all want an idea on how to stop the war?  Ladies and gentlemen - I give you Lysistrata, by Aristophanes.  Of course, in addition to refusing sexual favors, the women had the good sense to take possession of the national treasury.  So you see, they got them both coming and going, as it were - no nookie, no money - what's a guy to do?

I just heard Andrea Mitchell say, in essence, that the roots of the whole Italian forged document Niger/nuclear connection can be directly traced to one of the shadowy Iran /Contra figures of administrations past.  This `Italian government official' not only provided the document, but vouched for its authenticity, despite the obvious third-grade, hand drawn attempts at replicating Niger's official seal.  Uh-huh.  That means the entire 'we be war and other shit' cabal relied on someone connected to a FAILED and ILLEGAL policy to promote another FAILED and ILLEGAL policy.  Talk about your confederacy of dunces!