I had a pretty good day, all told, it was long and tiring and we ran the show twice, but it opens tommorrow so I guess that can be forgiven.



These people had a better day.

When 5 million people simultaneously have the best day of their lives, I bet it sends so many good karmaic vibes out into the universe people up on the International Space Station can see them flaring out into space, big multicolored waves of sheer human elation.

I was going to use this entry to make some big point, but I think the point is made pretty nicely by itself.

One thing though...If we would have given the inspectors more time, the statue would still stand. There would still be manacles on the wrists of 100 kids. Oil-for-food dollars would still be going to keep rapists and torture artists on the payroll.

I'm not saying if you're anti-war, you're Hitler, or that you hate kids. There are many well-intentioned people with objections to the actions we've taken. I just want you to realize what condition several million people would be in had we taken your advice.

There would be no cheering in Baghdad. Maybe it would sound like cheering, from several blocks away, but only because it would originating from basements, underground. And it wouldn't becoming from crowds, but from individuals. Individuals who had questioned the will of a mustachioed man who would still be very much in power.

Now he's the one quite likely underground, and everybody else is up on the street, hollering their lungs out into air that's free for the first time in decades.

And if that doesn't make you happy in the least, I'm afraid I don't want anything to do with you.


Thanks to Sheila of Redheaded Ramblings for one of the best and most thoroughly complimentary plugs HFT's ever gotten, and thanks to Tony for leading her here

UPDATE: More of this type of stuff. Absolutely wonderful.

Strained Metaphor Time, Grapes Of Wrath Edition

The prarie wind blew through the squeaky, clattering screen door, rustling the pages of a gas station calendar fastened to the wall with a tack. He couldn't believe it. Coming up on a year, 365 days. 365 squares on the gas station calendar. 365 times the sun had shown brightly through a clear sky and hit the wall of his one-room sharecropper's shack, then traced a path along the plywood walls and the dirt floor. And if one day it didn't shine quite so glaringly, he'd know the wait was over. Rain would fall. Things would grow. But that square of light had made that mocking journey 365 times without a cloud or a curtain to obstruct its path. The old radio played swing tunes only half-received from an AM station counties away as he stared out the window, eyes stinging with silt.

Funny thing, as his hunger got sharper his memories got better. The more defined his ribs, the more defined his mental snapshots of the glory days. Of long hours hoeing dirt so rich he barely had to plant any seeds. Of grey thunderheads looming like the chassises of old Fords over the windswept valley, nearly bursting with lifegiving rain. Of the way, with a good harvest behind him, life seemed full of prosperity and peace of mind.

He got so wrapped up in the memories, staring out that one square window, for a moment he was back there. He inhaled deeply, like a man for whom breathing was a joy and not a chore, and instead of the expected scent of glorious damp life sweeping in off of his majestic fields, all he got was a couple lungfuls of dust.

The song on the radio finished up, and the announcer came on with the long-term forecast. "Clear and breezy on through tommorrow," the announcer said, "and you'll be darn lucky to see a drop of rain the rest of this week." In the middle of his coughing fit, he could've sworn he heard "for the rest of your life." But his ears were dusty too.

He was starting to forget what he promised himself, that he'd only plant on land that he'd loved and tendered and cared for. Now he was about willing to throw down seeds wherever the rain would fall.

Congressman Hayworth says, Come! Learn about me, and through me, the entire legislative process! Document the committees I have served on! Find out when my newsletter is published! This and other factoids are at your fingertips! Then, when you're done, be sure to do the same for my Arizonal congressional associates, Jon Kyl and John McCain, and then turn all of these facts in for a one hundred point project in your government class!

And I wave my college acceptance letter in his face and say, Uhhm....no.

And he gets pissed.

But fuck 'im.


Let me hear you say 2003 Awwwhellyes.