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THE WRATH OF KHAN!
2004-02-11 4:44 p.m.

9:30 p.m.YES! O'REILLY EATS IT ON NATIONAL TV! Couldn't resist updating when I found out that ultra-conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly followed through with his skeptical promise that he'd "publicly apologize" should we ever find out that our gov't has been wrong all along. Humbly appearing this morning on ABC, O'Reilly apologized for his adamant support of the admin's claims about WMD. Oh oh oh oh and and and...pointedly announced his newfound skepticism and disdain for the Bush administration. Stick that in yer pipe and smoke it. Bah-ring it, W. It's going to be a messy one come Nov (...she added with glee!).

4:44 p.m.

KHAAAAAAAAN!!!!

Thought I’d get that one out there before it becomes too over done. I thought governator was funny once too. To his credit, my Steven thought of it first, being the Star Trek NERD that he is, and then we saw it again on the daily show, Jon Stewart proudly proclaiming he'd been waiting a very, very long time to be able to do that. I think we'd be friends if we knew each other, Jon and us. Hey, why not? Steven Colbert goes to our gym - and is always looking for a spotter.

So wow! Real live WMD! Only oops, we looked in the wrong places, implicating the wrong people! I've always been more scared of Kim Jong's crazy little brain than I have been of Romance novelist and playwright Saddam Hussein.

With this misled/misleading Iraq Coalition/National Security team fiasco, federal "marriage amendments" that infringe upon civil rights, an atrocious Environmental & Educational Policy record that include numerous failed programs and empty promises, difficulties separating fundamentalist, conservative Christian ideas from public policy making and just the lies, lies, lies, I cannot conceive of an election in which a new administration isn't put into power. However, I fear that will happen, and this time the weight behind my insistence that I just don't know what will become of us is actually meaningful rather than cliché. "Oh Shit" really just doesn't quite capture the meaning of our political climate right now, does it?

I'm not going to play told ya so with Nader voters - repentant or not, nor am I going to depress myself by discussing how frightened I was in learning that while Iran, Libya, and North Korea bought nuclear weapons technology from Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, Iraq didn't because they either couldn't afford to or believed it was some sort of trick.

So when we start having more problems with Kim Jong, the real nightmare, are we going to start a new war that will supposedly be good for the economy? Will our government admit to its mistakes when N. Korea's nuclear weapons are aimed at Japan?

Oh, heh, I said I wouldn't do this.

Besides, it's been a hap hap happy week. Thanks to a little aggressive self-marketing, I secured another course for the RU summer session. It's always nice to have some extra money, but what's even better is that I get to decide certain specifications and designations for the course. In essence, I'm getting to make administrative decisions, which makes me feel good and reminds me that no matter how I might fear otherwise, I am actually seen as a competent and successful teacher. Sometimes we have to take recognition of our successes in small forms; for me, this is one of them.

Thanks to some more and more lengthy aggressive self-marketing, I have had two travel pieces published, and one is forthcoming. Though I'm not exactly reeling in the profits with my attempt at a free-lance writing career, the experience and publication credit always helps in getting published again, and the confidence that comes from hearing an editor tell you they want your piece in their collection or that your piece is one of their top selections of the week is inexplicably wonderful. Also, let's not forget: these editors are usually the people who put together travel-writing anthologies (a la Don George of salon.com's Wanderlust), and they always take from their sites or online journals to do so.

Yaay!

See the British (hence the extra "l" in traveler) online journal Travellers' Impressions for my article on Naxos' Temple of Apollo, and the Independent Traveler's site I-Go-U-Go for my article on Naxos' Mt. Zeus and Temple of Demeter, which I didn't think was a big huge thing until the editor wrote and told me it was going to be an "editor's choice" selection, which means it will be in a featured place where many people will see it.

Yay! and yay for one of my bist-est friends lady-brett, since she has a West Coast publisher VERY interested in her first novel/memoir. I'm prayin for ya, sweetheart.

xoxox