I must have spent 12 of the past 24 hours struggling determinedly to make some changes on my weblog. I really don’t know how to code, so I had to keep going back to pages that were already set up and trying to figure out what I needed to copy into my new pieces to make them work. Lots of trial and error, saving and rebuilding. I guess I’m still not too old to learn new things, but boy is remembering each little < and > really taxing on my aging brain (to say nothing of my eyes!)
I also added an “About Me” page — something I started a long time ago and just never had the energy to really tackle until now. Next I want to revamp and update my blogroll.
I was so groggy when my cat woke me up this morning to feed her that I accidentally put my honey roasted sesame snacks in her bowl instead of her cat food. I store both in glass jars, but they don’t look anything alike. I don’t funtion well after only 3 hours sleep.
When I finally did get up, I noticed that my cat kept going over to her bowl and looking up at me expectantly. I also noticed that there were sesame snacks in her bowl instead of her food — and that she had eaten some of them. I replaced what was left with her own food, but she’s been looking a little green around the gills all day. Poor thing.

The following is verbatim from a new website that asks you to sign a petition that will be sent to the Democratic National Committee asking that Howard Dean be selected as the new chairman of the DNC. Links to the petition and other relevant information appear at the end of this article:
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GIVE DR. DEAN THE DNC
Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
In the aftermath of three successive failures — the 2000 presidential election, the 2002 midterm election, and the 2004 presidential election — now is the time for the Democratic Party to abandon its strategy of concession and capitulation.
Refining a failed strategy is not the answer. Our party must reinvent itself in ways appropriate to the inevitably-dire circumstances of President Bush’s second term.
During the 2004 presidential primary campaign, Howard Dean brought an authentic sense of urgency to the Democratic Party, and through a distributed and networked organization laid the foundation for turning a newly-energized grassroots into ground troops ready to fight the good fight.
That approach to organization, and that level of energy, is what the Democratic Party needs as it prepares to engage in fierce opposition to the Bush Administration’s falsely-claimed mandate.
Therefore, we Democrats — both long-time and newly-arrived — urge the Democratic Party to select Howard Dean as the new Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and further urge Dr. Dean to bring to bear the sense of urgency exhibited during his presidential campaign upon the very machine of the Democratic Party, from the inside.
IMPORTANT NOTE
It is expected that current DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe will be stepping down from that post early next year. Many of the Democrats rumored to be under consideration are either examples of the failed strategies of the past or members considered by the insulated party elite to be “up and comers”.
We have set a deadline for this petition of December 31, 2004, based upon McAuliffe’s “early next year” departure. However, it is important to obtain as many signatures as possible, as quickly as possible, in the event things move quickly and it looks like the party is going to announce a replacement well before McAuliffe leaves.
Sign The Petition (External Link)
Read The Original ‘Give Dr. Dean The DNC’ Article
Frequently Asked Questions
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Of course, I’ve already signed. I was an early Dean supporter, and I still dream of what inspiring path America might be on today had he not been the target of evil conservative information manipulation. I’m a registered Independent, but with Dean at the helm of the party, I would switch to give the Democrats all the support that I can.

Now that the Vote or Die campaign has died, theonetrueb!X has launched a new enterprise: “The One True Agitshop.” I’m sure that this is just the start of something big.

In New York yesterday, former President Bill Clinton said it would be “a mistake for our party to sit around and … whine about this and that or the other thing.”
Mr. Clinton said Mr. Kerry was particularly weak on connecting with voters on moral issues.
“If we let people believe that our party doesn’t believe in faith and family, doesn’t believe in work and freedom, that’s our fault,” he said in a speech to the Urban Land Institute.
He added that Democrats “need a clear national message and they have to do this without one big advantage the Republicans have, which is they won’t have a theological message that basically paints the other guy as evil.”
While President Clinton might have personally succumbed to the weakness of the flesh, Dumbya beats it all in his succumbing to the devilish temptation of ego and global self-importance. To compare the moral devastation of their two sins is absurd.
The neocons (who actually have an impressive roster of fleshily sinful members) have portrayed us liberals as godless and immoral and enemies of faith, family, work, and freedom. Clinton is right. We need to push hard to reveal that part of the truth of who we are — which is much more moral than those hypocritical neocons. We need to push hard, push harder.
Truth is a virus. Talk hard.

Several years ago, two musicians, one from Seattle and one from Los Angeles started writing music together, using the mail to send each other the pieces of the bits of music each had created. After several months, they had jointly composed an album. They decided to call themselves “Postal Service” after their method of working together.
Then they heard from the real Postal Service with a cease-and-desist letter.
The outcome was as unusual as the band itself. This week the real U.S. Postal Service signed an agreement with the band’s label granting a free license to use the name in exchange for working to promote using the mail. Future copies of of the album will have a notice about copyright, while the federal Postal Poster Service will sell the band CDs on its website.
According to an article about this win/win compromise in the NY Times:
Gary Thuro, a manager of communications for the United States Postal Service who handles licensing and promotion, said the publicity would be valuable.
“We’re always looking for ways to extend our brand and reach into areas we don’t typically reach,” he said, “like teens and people in their 20’s, who are typically doing business online and are not familiar with the Postal Service.”
When my kids were little, I used to cut my neighbor’s kids’ and husband’s hair in return for fresh vegetables from her garden. I bartered my friend’s hand-made jewelry and batik for Barbie clothes that I knitted for her daughters.
I predict that rough economic times are coming for us have-lesses under Bush’s delusionary “mandate.” Maybe we can do some creative bartering to keep our personal costs down. Hell, if the federal Post Office can do it to avoid spending money and time on litigation, why can’t we barter to keep our own expenses down.
Hair cut, anyone?

On a black screen Michael Moore gives us 17 reasons not to give up. My favorites are the last two:
16. There are nearly 300 million Americans — 200 million of them of voting age. We only lost by three and a half million! That’s not a landslide — it means we’re almost there. Imagine losing by 20 million. If you had 58 yards to go before you reached the goal line and then you barreled down 55 of those yards, would you stop on the three yard line, pick up the ball and go home crying — especially when you get to start the next down on the three yard line? Of course not! Buck up! Have hope! More sports analogies are coming!!!
17. Finally and most importantly, over 55 million Americans voted for the candidate dubbed “The #1 Liberal in the Senate.” That’s more than the total number of voters who voted for either Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Gore. Again, more people voted for Kerry than Reagan. If the media are looking for a trend it should be this — that so many Americans were, for the first time since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has always been filled with evangelicals — that is not news. What IS news is that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal. In fact, that’s BIG news. Which means, don’t expect the mainstream media, the ones who brought you the Iraq War, to ever report the real truth about November 2, 2004. In fact, it’s better that they don’t. We’ll need the element of surprise in 2008.
And my other favority is Paul Krugman, who begins his Op Ed piece with:
President Bush isn’t a conservative. He’s a radical – the leader of a coalition that deeply dislikes America as it is. Part of that coalition wants to tear down the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt, eviscerating Social Security and, eventually, Medicare. Another part wants to break down the barriers between church and state. And thanks to a heavy turnout by evangelical Christians, Mr. Bush has four more years to advance that radical agenda
and then he says what I, too, believe:
So what should the Democrats do?
One faction of the party is already calling for the Democrats to blur the differences between themselves and the Republicans. Or at least that’s what I think Al From of the Democratic Leadership Council means when he says, “We’ve got to close the cultural gap.” But that’s a losing proposition.
Yes, Democrats need to make it clear that they support personal virtue, that they value fidelity, responsibility, honesty and faith. This shouldn’t be a hard case to make: Democrats are as likely as Republicans to be faithful spouses and good parents, and Republicans are as likely as Democrats to be adulterers, gamblers or drug abusers. Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country; blue states, on average, have lower rates of out-of-wedlock births than red states.
But Democrats are not going to get the support of people whose votes are motivated, above all, by their opposition to abortion and gay rights (and, in the background, opposition to minority rights). All they will do if they try to cater to intolerance is alienate their own base.
Does this mean that the Democrats are condemned to permanent minority status? No. The religious right – not to be confused with religious Americans in general – isn’t a majority, or even a dominant minority. It’s just one bloc of voters, whom the Republican Party has learned to mobilize with wedge issues like this year’s polarizing debate over gay marriage.
Rather than catering to voters who will never support them, the Democrats – who are doing pretty well at getting the votes of moderates and independents – need to become equally effective at mobilizing their own base.
In fact, they have made good strides, showing much more unity and intensity than anyone thought possible a year ago. But for the lingering aura of 9/11, they would have won.
What they need to do now is develop a political program aimed at maintaining and increasing the intensity. That means setting some realistic but critical goals for the next year.
Democrats shouldn’t cave in to Mr. Bush when he tries to appoint highly partisan judges – even when the effort to block a bad appointment fails, it will show supporters that the party stands for something. They should gear up for a bid to retake the Senate or at least make a major dent in the Republican lead. They should keep the pressure on Mr. Bush when he makes terrible policy decisions, which he will.
C’mon Democrats! Push hard or get out of my way.
And make Dr. Dean head of the Democrative National Committee

A Day in the Life of Joe Republican made the email rounds a while ago. But if you haven’t read it, now’s the time.

I am so sorry you feel this way. If you actually had a clue as to what made this nation great, you would quit trying to suck the life out of it. America was founded on great conservative christian values (the Ten Commandments). You are free in this country to think and for the most part do what ever you want. But you do not have the right to hijack this country with your socialist values that undermine our national identity and security. We will continue to fight you and the terrorist with every fiber in our bodies. Because it is you who invited the terrorist into our country to kill our family members

The quote above is a comment left on my Radical Rosie post by someone calling him/herself “Righteous.”

Well, I say that those who don’t know our country’s history are bound to keep screwing it up.
Perhaps “Righteous” is referring to those “Christians” who fled from Europe to seek religious freedom, freedom from persecution. Oddly enough,
Although they were victims of religious persecution in Europe, the Puritans supported the Old World theory that sanctioned it, the need for uniformity of religion in the state. Once in control in New England, they sought to break “the very neck of Schism and vile opinions.” The “business” of the first settlers, a Puritan minister recalled in 1681, “was not Toleration, but [they] were professed enemies of it.”

Puritans expelled dissenters from their colonies, a fate that in 1636 befell Roger Williams and in 1638 Anne Hutchinson, America’s first major female religious leader. Those who defied the Puritans by persistently returning to their jurisdictions risked capital punishment, a penalty imposed on four Quakers between 1659 and 1661.

In other words, those righteous Christians became the kind of persecutors they were running away from. We all know what they did to those poor old women they decided were witches, right? But that’s another long and horrible story that needs truth telling about.

And let’s not forget all those Native Americans that were displaced and persecuted and executed by all of those righteous Christian members of our military: