"Barack says nothing better than anybody in a long time. He's just messianic. He's saying nothing, but people are in tears listening to it. He could say anything. It really doesn't matter."

-- Rush Limbaugh

... is currently playing: Beneath The Surface from the album Chiaroscuro by Mike Marshall and Darol Anger.

Like last Saturday, for instance, when I saw this headline on the Washington Post web site:

"Catholics Rethink Quinceanera Craze."

I stupidly assumed that it meant that poor Hispanics were rethinking the notion of spending tens of thousands of dollars (and frequently ending up deep in debt) to celebrate their daughters' fifteenth birthdays. Ah, I thought, they are finally starting to get their priorities straight.

But no. The "rethinking" has nothing to do with the issue of whether or not to have a party they cannot afford. The Church has just convinced these parents to use this "opportunity" to push a "pro-chastity message" on their girls.

Now this might be a noble goal -- particularly when dealing with a demographic in which:

... 51 percent of Hispanic girls get pregnant before age 20, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

But couldn't that message be pushed without spending upwards of twenty grand per kid??

Party or college education? Party or college education? Hmmm.... Is it really that hard to see which will ultimately benefit a girl more in the long run?

According to Luz Reyes, the mother profiled in this article, the party is "a prize for them being good."

Remember when "being good" was what parents expected of their kids? You didn't get a prize for doing it, you just got something unpleasant if you didn't. At the risk of sounding like my mother, it was, in many ways, a better world back then.

... is currently playing: Dress You Up from the album Like a Virgin by Madonna.

A friend of mine named Gay Courter is a best-selling author of both fiction and non-fiction. (You can read about her and her books at gaycourter.com.) In addition to her writing career, Gay has spent many years working as a guardian ad litem (child advocate) in the Florida foster care system.

Ten years ago Gay and her husband, Phil, adopted a 12 year old girl who had spent 9 years in the foster care system. During those 9 years, Ashley lived in 14 different foster homes and, sadly, was subjected to physical and emotional abuse by people who were being paid by the state to care for her.

In spite of how she suffered in foster care, Ashley thrived with her new family. She was an honor student and attended college on a full scholarship. During her college years she received many awards and devoted much of her time to being an advocate for kids in foster care. Currently, she travels the country, speaking to groups about her experiences in foster care.

Ashley has written a book called Three Little Words: A Memoir which was published this month by Simon & Schuster and she is currently making the rounds on talk shows. Tomorrow (1/15/08) she will be on Good Morning America and this weekend she will be interviewed by Nancy Grace.

Kudos to Ashley for all that she has accomplished in her short life (especially considering what she was subjected to during her early years). And congrats to Gay and Phil, who saw the potential in Ashley and made her a part of their loving family.

And check this out: Ashley gets top billing over Diane Keaton!



... is currently playing: Haven't Got Time For The Pain from the album The Best of Carly Simon by Carly Simon.

... but even so ... after a few months of depressing grey days ... I NEED SUN!


Downtown Toms River, NJ - Mid-January, ~ 5:00 p.m.

... is currently playing: Another Grey Morning from the album JT by James Taylor.

... and now I know why!


... is currently playing: Past The Point Of Rescue from the album The Hits by Hal Ketchum.

... is still a friggin' tax!!

From the L.A. Times:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will propose hiking the cost of insurance for millions of California homes and businesses in the budget he unveils Thursday, with the money to be used for firefighting efforts.

The proposal, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, calls for new charges to be tacked onto the insurance bill for every residential and commercial property in the state. Administration officials call the charges fees and defend them as consistent with the governor's pledge, repeated in his State of the State address Tuesday, to not raise taxes. The plan, which the insurance industry has agreed to support, would cost California property owners and renters $12.50 for every $1,000 in insurance premiums, for a projected $125 million.

"I don't know how you avoid calling it a tax," Lew Uhler, president of the National Tax Limitation Committee, said of the assessment. "The ability of government officials to figure out new ways to tax us is limitless, no matter what their nomenclature."

The levy [emphasis mine] is the latest to be championed by the governor. Last fall, Schwarzenegger signed a bill that raised California drivers' registration payments by as much as $11 to pay for research on alternative fuels. And his healthcare plan relies on new taxes on tobacco users, hospitals and employers.

Administration officials acknowledged that some of the money raised could be used to balance the budget. They declined to be precise about how much.

The charge would be added to an existing 2.35% premium tax on property insurance policies. That tax, which is not earmarked for any particular program, generated $216 million for the state budget in 2006, according to the Department of Insurance.

... is currently playing: Dig Down Deep from the album Marc Cohn by Marc Cohn.

From Ben Widdicombe's Gatecrasher column in the NY Daily News:

Will Smith has joined the ranks of Hollywood power players actively recruiting for the Church of Scientology.

Big stars traditionally distribute "wrap presents" to crew members after completing a film. His recent gift after wrapping next summer's comedy "Hancock" was a card good for a personality test at your local Scientology center.

Never mind that such tests are given free by the church anyway. The quiz is designed to convert people to the religion by identifying personality flaws that - surprise! - Scientology can fix right up for you. For a fee, of course.

... is currently playing: Priceless from the album Giving You the Best That I Got by Anita Baker.

I have been trying out lots of new computer products of late and I want to recommend a few things that I have found particulary useful.

The first is an online back-up system that everybody should sign up for ASAP. Yes, everybody! It doesn't matter if you are a Mac user like me or saddled with an inferior operating system like Windows. You should get yourself over to Mozy.com and sign up for their free account, which gives you two gigs of storage along with some nifty software to get your files from your computer to the Mozy site. (And did I mention that it is totally free?)

Mozy has a software client for both Windows and Mac OS X. The Mac client is still in beta, and although it is a bit quirky, it is very usable. And super easy! With either version, you can let the software make suggestions about what should be backed up OR select files and folders yourself.

If, like me, you have way more than two gigs worth of data files to back-up (I have already uploaded almost ten gigs), you can get upgrade to an account with UNLIMITED storage for $4.95 a month. And even if, like me, you have an external backup drive connected to your computer, you should still have your files stored at another location for an extra layer of protection. (If your house burns down, that external drive won't be much help, will it?)

(NOTE: If you have more than two gigs of data files to back up and some of them are images, make sure you sign up for a free Flickr account and use that to store your images. Then you can just use Mozy for the rest of your stuff.)

To set up either a free 2 gig account OR an unlimited paid account, click the Mozy banner to the right of this message. You WILL thank me! :)


... is currently playing: Save It for a Rainy Day from the album 20th Century Masters: Millennium Collection ( Stephen Bishop ) by Stephen Bishop.

Technorati Tags: backup, Mac, Flickr, software, Windows

On John Edwards:

" ... we can't have a president who spent two minutes on YouTube staring in a mirror and poofing his hair. Really, we just can't."


... is currently playing: I Feel Pretty from the album West Side Story by Carol Lawrence and Marilyn Cooper.

Apple, one of my two favorite companies, hits $200 a share, a new high. (Yeah, TiVo is my other favorite...)




... is currently playing: More Today Than Yesterday from the album More Today Than Yesterday: Complete Columbia Recordings by Spiral Starecase.