Fiat Lux

According to this NY Daily News article, not only is retired General Wesley Clark not a registered Democrat, but he's not abiding by the rules of the Federal Elections Commission:

Wesley Clark was registered as a lobbyist when he jumped into the presidential race, but he has yet to actually register as a presidential candidate - or even enroll as a Democrat.

Clark announced his candidacy Sept. 17 - exactly 15 days ago - and his aides say they've already raised more than $2 million.

Maybe it's just an oversight, but IMHO not good news for the Clark campaign. And it's extremely stupid of them to not change Clark's registration before he launched his campaign. It makes the "carpetbagger' label seem all that much more plausible.

The Post is a Murdoch publication, with all that implies about their political leanings, but still, it looks like they've gotten their facts right on this one.

It's funny the wandering lines of thought you follow while driving. I had one today that started with my idly trying to remember the chorus of a pop song playing on the CD at work. Eventually it brought me to the realization that a show tune I've loved for about 25 years is about many things, and one of them is my husband Scott, whom I've been with for almost a decade. And yet it took me this long to put it together.

Something Wonderful
"The King And I"
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein

This is a man who thinks with his heart,
His heart is not always wise.
This is a man who stumbles and falls,
But this is a man who tries.
This is a man you'll forgive and forgive,
And help protect, as long as you live...
He will not always say
What you would have him say,
But now and then he'll say
Something Wonderful.
The thoughtless things he'll do
Will hurt and worry you
But now and then he'll do
Something Wonderful.
He has a thousand dreams
That won't come true,
You know that he believes in them
And that's enough for you.
You'll always go along,
Defend him where he's wrong
And tell him when he's strong
He is wonderful
He'll always need your love,
And so he'll get your love.
A man who needs your love
Can be
Wonderful.

In reading this over, I wonder, does this sound like a back-handed compliment? I don't see it that way.

This Yom Kippur, I am not, as I should be, in synagogue. One of the things that makes me miss New York is the lack of a significant Jewish community here in the Bay Area. Of the 3 or 4 non-Orthodox synagogues here in San Francisco, there's none that we feel comfortable with, so we haven't joined one. I know there's other options in the East Bay and Marin, but I just don't like having to drive to shul.

I did read an interesting op-ed in the New York Times about the Yom Kippur War (which began 30 years ago today). I was 7 at the time, and I remember the shock of finding out that Israel was at war, the scared faces of my parents and their friends at synagogue that night, and the angry words. I think if they'd known that at the time, Moshe Dayan was seriously considering using nuclear weapons against the Egyptians, they'd have been even more worried. Golda Meir was right to turn him down flat.

At any rate, I feel guilty using the computer today, so I'd better post this and get offline.

Election Days always remind me of the famous paradox of physics, Schroedinger's cat. The election results are already out there, we just don't know what they will be until we open the ballot boxes and find out.

And yes, I voted. No on the Recall, Yes on Camejo.

I know he won't win but he's the only one I feel OK about voting for. The actual act of voting was somewhat surreal. The volume of names on the ballot was a little overwhelming and it wasn't easy to find the candidate I wanted on the list. And actually holding that long list of names in my hand, after all the hue and cry in the press, was a strange feeling. Almost dizzying. A part of me still doesn't accept that this recall is an actual event, even though I've now voted in it. Hopefully tonight after the polls close it will all be just a bad dream.

Hubby & I are going over to Berkeley tonight to see some old friends and watch the election results. I hope it's not too depressing.

Best line on election after-shock come from Tim Goodman, the TV critic of the San Francisco Chronicle:

This can-you-believe-it-happened moment coalesced with Jay Leno, host of "The Tonight Show" -- where Schwarzenegger announced he was running -- introducing the governor-elect for his acceptance speech in a move that was simultaneously ludicrous and embarrassing, a shill-fest that gave the rest of the country and political reporters in Sacramento a taste of life ahead.

All I can say is, Ugh.

I hope for California's sake that Governor Schwarzenegger does a good job. But I fear the growing pains as he adjusts to the realities of politics are going to be ugly.

Oh, and Orrin Hatch has introduced a resolution to amend the Constitution's ban on non-American-born presidents by allowing people who have been U.S. citizens for at least 20 years to be elected to the White House.

Joy.

For the second time in 2 weeks I've had to fight off a rather high fever (IOW, over 102 degrees F). That's generally not a lot of fun, but what's worse is that despite my having a job with benefits that include paid sick time, acutally using said sick time is not as easy as it sounds.

My company has several hundred, maybe even a thousand, employees. However, only a few of them work in my particular location, so if I wake up sick and have to open the store that day, I suck it up and shamble into work until my relief arrives. My employer doesn't get the best sales performance out of me, and I worry about infecting the customers, but it's just not feasible to have "floater" employees for the Bay Area who can cover for people in situations like that.

It would be nice if there were though.....

Iraq Coalition Casualty Count

According to Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, "Jews rule the world by proxy" and that Jews "invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy" to avoid persecution and gain control of the most powerful countries.

Wow. If we're so powerful, why I am so broke?

Although my heart belongs to the New York Mets, I'm quite happy to also root for the Yankees as long as they're not playing against the Mets. So last night's game, which I caught starting in the 7th inning, was quite a thrill.

Derek Jeter has been quoted as saying "I believe we've got some ghosts in this Stadium that help us out. There's some magic in this place." Maybe he's right and maybe he's not. Maybe all it takes is believing that when the s**t hits the fan, you will be able to pull something out of the hat and turn a bad game around. Ultimately it doesn't matter if it's the ghost of Babe Ruth or not that helps you win the game. The Red Sox have gone down to defeat again and their World Series drought - whether it's the "curse of the Bambino" or not - continues another year.

I hope the Yanks have enough time to rest up before game 1 against the Marlins. My call: Yankees in 6.

Thanks to the ever-so-generous people at AlphaSmart, a fabulous new PDA landed on my desk today - the Dana Wireless. Now I can blog from anywhere in the house, untethered to my PC.

The only problem is that the DanaWeb browser, which takes advantage of the Dana's widescreen capability, is quite buggy. The two problems that I find most annoying are it has issues with scrolling and the forms handler doesn't like extended text entry (a big minus for bloggers!). Eudora's PalmOS web browser, although not widescreen enabled, seems to handle forms a bit better and is thus more suited for WiFi blogging, although it doesn't take advantage of the Dana's ample screen real estate.

Other PalmOS Internet apps I've tested seem to work fine too. Verichat and upIRC, my two favorite messaging apps, both work flawlessly with the Dana, although neither had widescreen capability. And SnapperMail, an awesome email app, IS widescreen enhanced and works quite well.

The Dana keyboard is full sized and handles nicely, although some of the keys tend to be a bit sticky. I'm not sure if that's an issue with my Dana or if I'm pounding the keys too hard (a bad habit). At any rate, I've long wanted a simple laptop or laptop alternative that was wifi enabled so I could do some basic online tasks without having to leave the bedroom or living room.

Now I can.

Go Dana go!

Taken from his NY Times column today:

It's time for the Bush team to admit it made a grievous error in disbanding Iraq's Army — which didn't even fight us — and declare: "We thank all the nations who offered troops, but we think the Iraqi people can and must secure their own country. So we're inviting all former Iraqi Army soldiers (not Republican Guards) to report back to duty. For every two Iraqi battalions that return to duty (they can weed out their own bad apples), we will withdraw an American one. So Iraqis can liberate themselves. Our motto is Iraq for the Iraqis."

I think it's a very interesting idea. Of course, if we were to do it, depending on the sympathies of the soldiers who re-up, the door is open for a religious takeover of Iraq. That isn't what our soldiers died for. But better ideas are few and far between right now.

In a way it's comforting to know that according to this article in USA Today, I'm not alone in what's happened to my career. To make a long story short, about a year ago I started wortking for Aerosoles, a fairly well-known women's shoe company, in an entry level management position. Today, as I prepare to begin work as a store manager at one of the company's 80+ stores, I find that "survival jobs" are, well, the latest trend.

In a lot of ways, I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm on salary, have health benefits for myself and my husband, and have been promoted into management in this job. I have developed strong sales skills - something I never thought I was good at - and I like what I sell. And with this promotion, I have control over my own schedule, which is a good feeling. I still won't be able to take Saturdays off except on special occasions, but at least I can decide when my days off are.

That said, I'm still a Vassar graduate with a 15 year career in marketing who's taken almost a $50,000 pay cut to sell shoes for a living. And this is definitely not what I moved to the Bay Area for. The day a former co-worker wandered into my store (I hadn't seen her since getting laid off from Critical Path a couple years ago) and I found out she'd just gotten back from 18 months in France and was running her own consulting company was not a happy day for me.

That's the door to door length of my daily commute now. 56 miles each way. I've just this week been promoted at work; given a salary bump, a better title, and more responsibility. All of this is good but the catch is ... the long commute.

Fortunately, it's a reverse commute. I live in San Francisco and the job is over the Golden Gate Bridge, up Highway 101, in the fringes of wine country - a town called Santa Rosa. Unless you live in the North Bay you probably never heard of it. If there's no traffic on the road,and I break the speed limits on the smoother stretches of 101 (Southern Marin is pretty curvy and you can't really drive it too fast), I can go door to door in an hour, more or less. On a recent Sunday afternoon, though, the trip took 2 hours thanks to a few backup-causing accidents and heavy traffic coming back to the city from wine country.

To help manage the drive time, I've signed up for a monthly subscription from Audible.com. Each month, I can download one audio book from their website and burn it to CD. This month I'm listening to Al Franken's great rebuttal to the Republican media machine, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them". Even in the unabridged version, it will only last me about 2 weeks, so I'll have to rely on the radio and my CD collection to fend off boredom the rest of the month.

I'm seriously considering buying an iPod and an FM broadcast kit so that I can listen to the 6 GB or so of MP3s sitting on my hard drive through my car stereo system. Doing so would also allow me to download my Audible.com books to the iPod instead of having to burn them to CD.

So if you have suggestions for things I can safely do in my car to while away the time, let me know!

In the last 48 hours, the temperature has dropped about 30 degrees, the winds have picked up, and the first rain in months is forecast to arrive tomorrow. In short, welcome to the rainy season. The weather won't be this nice again for several months.

The other infalliable sign that the warm weather has taken a hike? My nails are breaking, my lips are chapping like crazy and I have to apply hand lotion several times a day to keep my cuticles from drying out and cracking all over the place.