A n a r c h i c _ U n i v e r s e ®

¡ El viiiiiicio !

When I think of the so many things I did in my life out  of ignorance and reckless behavior, I don't blush but stll feel bad. The worst, coming up to this number one as years have gone by was smoking tobacco.  First, because it damaged my health. Second, it exposed others to health damages.
I started smoking like most youngsters do. A casual cigarette while going over chem notes with a student I admired who smoked Benson and Hedges, an imported brand. Is it coincidence I wheeze at the recollection? In 1969 we could smoke at school , a bizarre concept, I know.
My father was a heavy smoker, and so was my Russian-American grandma. I had hated cigarettes until I began  to like them and then not to be able to live without them. For I wouldn't go to bed without smoking a last one. i wouldn't go to  bed knowing I had run out of them. I couldn't engage in serious thinking without lighting one. Actually, without wanting to defend tobacco use, I must tell you cigarettes do enhance thinking skills, which might be why people with mental illnesses light up or students cramming light up.
Mark Twain lived a long life trying to quit. I finally quit on February 22, 2006, after many times having quit. February 22 was my grandma's birthday. The thought of having to carry oxygen with me finally sank in. I am at a point iwhere  I can't go out and be exposed to smoke and pollutants. Whn that happens I get a dry cough. No, I don't know what it means.
When I was a teacher of English as a foreign language in Brazil, I smoked in class. And I did it at USC, too. Until very recently I didn't believe in second-hand smoking damage. (Every time I use italics in a sentence I remember Poe's emphasis when telling his madman stories.)
I follow with a lot of interest Nora Volkow's research on neurotransmitters and addiction. She hopes to find a cure for addiction based on their behavior. I do, too. Addiction is a malady. Let's hope the USA government changes its policies regarding addiction from punishment to treatment. That would be a nice thought to entertain while puffing on a cig. Did I say that? Ooops!
The title of this post is a remembrance of sorts of the secretary of the last school I worked at, in which the secretary would kinda sing, "el viiicio!" every time I passed by her to go outside to smoke.

mmeorabilia straight out of the fifties. !El viiiicio!

The Twitter Bug

Well, my friends, I have been bitten by the Twitter bug. Not in a 24/7 way; there are house chores to administer, the garden, my son and husband, e-mail subscriptions, and that's the way the ball bounces for someone older with lots of responsibilities.

When I started teaching at LAUSD I finally learned to leave procrastination and tardiness behind. My principal was an old skool Japanese, Dr. Morita. She'd stand by the sign-in cards and show her loathing for tardy teachers. Even considering she was very small, her loathing darted from her eyes straight like a dagger into one's heart. So I learned to be punctual.  It was hard to commute from Central Los Angeles, a Salvadoran neighborhood where I lived, near Koreatown, to San Pedro and Adams, a couple of blocks from the L.A. river.

So, in learning how not to procrastinate, I learned to measure my time more efficiently. However, tardiness runs in the family. My father took his time to go out, my mother took double time to arrive anywhere, and my son seems to cultivate the rush of last-minute deals.

How did you like today's links? How about the one about UCLA's finding on cancer and marijuana?  Now, I didn't add the one on the passing of Bob Marley's mother's death. What am I supposed to add? Let's light up in your honor? I don't think so. I shot the sheriff but I didn't shoot no deputy?  You all must know the meaning of the previous sentence -- I got rid of the top guy but there are many others that remain. Um-hum.

What I am learning in Twitter is the art of being concise. Coming from a verbose country like Brazil, it'll take a while. Twitter is kewl; I am getting to "know" more people in the English-speaking community, which is so important for Anarchic_Universe.

Hey, "I Shot the Sheriff"; how about that?

There Are Thanks to Be Given

I get fed up with newsppaper articles whose total first page text is deceiving. That is the case of today's L.A. Times article about the girl who was bullied anonymously on the Internet. She had some insecurity issues and hanged herself while the family were preparing dinner.  The perpetrators of this hideous deed seem to have been the mother of a neighboring friend, the friend and an employee of friend's mom's business.
Towards the end of the article the L.A. Times shows an opinion of a jurist concerning a federal law punishing those who anonymously harass and inflict personal injury to others on the Net. So there is a law. I'd be very surprised if there weren't one.

I know I am totally behind in my blogging duties after hunting down the impersonators of Cretinismos, a photolog Fotolog.com hosted and orkut.com  let be without even noticing the profile of the divulger of the harassment, impersonation and breach of copyright photos was a duck without a valid profile sitting in Blogueiros do Orkut board.  Yesterday I paid a short visit to this board on orkut to realize I was being scolded by the probable responsible for Cretinismos and by the owner of the board for leaving the owner a "weird message" someone else told the owner about.  I wrote the owner an e-mail. I have e-mail on my blogs. If a person doesn't want to own a board, don't do it.  But please, don't add to the drama already.  The likely responsible for this deed, along with his pals, frightened me away from Blogger in August last year. I didn't have to sue. We called his Daddy and the 22-yr.-old prankster had to pull every line off his own board about me.  This year his Mommy called me to complain about her firstborn.

A fellow blogger said these anonymous creatures crawling the Internet aren't worth the spit of a mosquito. I can hear my friend, as serious as a Franciscan monk or a German philosopher. Caetano Veloso says German is the natural language of philosophy.

I am glad I am not a fifteen-year-old chubby girl lured into a trap to be led to believe she had an Internet boyfriend who shunned her and humiliated her collectively with other MySpace people. The boyfriend was this friend's mother, so it's reported.  Although Brazilian bloggers in the orkut board thought it was funny to see "me" interviewing "them", I believe I stiil own the right to my speech and image in my country, where all Internet companies involved are.  The prankster jumped into the discussion to say I had to learn I would never be able to sue anyone in Brazil. But who was talking of suing if all I did before for him to  behave was to call his parents?

I had to take a break from VH1 Classics all day today with Bob Dylan. I had to post this for all to know there is a federal law to protect you from cyber-space bullying if you are ever a victim of this cowardly deed.  I just had to do this, after I read the Los Angeles Times misleading front page of the  article about the teen girl bullied to death.

The Anonymous Bullies of the Internet ought to be punished like evil creatures that they are, without a way out, trapped in a corner.

Back to Dylan on VH1. Happy Thanksgiving to all. I give thanks for my family being well and for having a few great friends; they know who they are.

L.A.Times permanent link, click. Pass it on.  With you Bob Dylan and Johnnie Cash.  Enjoy.

Irony Lost: I Love L.A.

I Love L.A. is a song written by the talented Randy Newman, who holds a record also-ran for the Academy Awards till he got an Oscar © for "Monsters,Inc."  One of his uncles, Alfred Newman, the composing music streak is with the Newmans, wrote "Conquest" -- one of the two well-known University of Southern California marching band staples, also a song of film soundtrack. Given USC's latest tournaments we should call Conquest how The West  Was Lost.  That quarterback from U of T was unforgettably hungry for the title; two years or three ago was it?

The irony lost is read between the lines of the mordacity of Randy Newman's lyrics, in which he is criticizing our plethora of villages, Greater Los Angeles. Wikipedia says he feels ambivalent about Los Angeles. I guess we all love the sunny days when we can cruise by to the sound of the Beach Boys.  We cultivate our bermudas and slightly pampered manners, uncouth ignorant wannabes nouveau riche Los Angelinos that we are. Or plain obese immigrants ignorant of each other.

Nic and I have been on a project of identification of the revitalization of downtown and south central.  Our first  homes were on and off USC campus, an area quite similar to the ghetto shown in "White Men Can't Jump."  The 1992 Rodney King riots created empty lots on Vermont past USC. Ours are long boulevards and avenues.  During the latest riots the media announced repeatedly there were no police on the street.  There was a party for Chief Gates.  Rodney King -- Can't we get along? -- lent his name to the riots of spring 1992.

Don't You Know the Answer? In the Lockbox

I received a NY Times and a Washington Post Alert simultaneously.  Al Gore and the United Nations pertinent committee share a Nobel Peace Price.

I confess I didn't read the news in either paper other than the Alerts.  Now I guess I understand the surge of searches for Al's e-mail or phone number here -- why here?

I am very happy for Al Gore. Don't forget to visit your home state this time.

On another political note, I am willing to bet Hillary wouldn't mind having Bill RIchardson as a vice-president.  Both came up talking about the high costs of college.  They have plans. Bill Richardson was criticized for speaking in Spanish the other day. I guess that covers the question of one bilingual blog Freaky Deaky proposed.

And that's all for now, folks.  Big day ahead in this mini-vacation.  Día de la Raza for all Spanish-speaking dwellers in the USA, Columbus Day for the rest.

Typed on my Mac,

--Tina Oiticica Harris

Loki - Arnaldo Baptista and Moisés Santana

PLEASE SEE UPDATES BELOW

Bill Maher -- The Jam

What a fool I was to suggest we watch Bill Maher's show last night. I guess we do get out of touch when going on vacation.  Hello, dear?  Iraqis aren't promoting ethnic cleasing unless you are a believer who thinks Xiites are in the direct line of a descendant of the Prophet, or you are a Sunni who believes it is your lineage that merits the name of leaders of Muslims for the same reason: ancestry related to the Prophet.
Bill Maher, the best word is fraticide. Both Xiites and Sunni Muslims are the same people.  I just wonder why this wonderfully left-wing program of Bill Maher's didn't mention genocide -- extermination en masse of (a) people(s).  For oil.  Or is the TV show really left-wing?  Let's stretch, guys and dolls do our calisthenics at the sound of an under-appreciated band: The Jam.  First post of a series.  Good day! That's Entertainment. The Jam.  First, The Start, a beautiful, dynamic look at these guys in their best 80s garb.   

Coffee, Blogging, BP or Lake Michigan

Coffee is highly addictive. Without coffee I'll get a headache and fatigue.

Marcus from A Grande Abobora sent a link to our network --
Tomorrowski, sorry. It's on stuff bloggers love to bull about. Without coffee how could I know it from Shinola ® ?
It's about links, okay?

BP or Lake Michigan is a serious cause I must embrace. BP, or Shell in my youth, is throwing people outside of their homes, dumping chemicals in the largest drinking water supply for ...

B12Solipsism takes it further.

Check A Grande Abobora for a travelogue of the Cinema Festival in Gramado, Rio Grande do Sul. Gramado was a very hip place to go to, but the Redeemer junta squelched my groove. They shut down the gas stations when I was still in Santa Catarina. I had to start back to work on a Monday. RS is a state whose Portuguese is very melodic, sibillant [s] , macho, borders Uruguay and Argentina. never been either. High literacy & light people rate. Bloggers galore.

Let's give peace and people a chance? John Lennon shouts out.

(5.5)+ (27.5) + 22 = Perfect Half & Half

Today I celebrate a life spent half in the USA and half in Brazil. Starting tomorrow I will have been here in the USA longer than I was in Brazil.
I was born at the Cornell U. hospital in Manhattan. A nicer way to say Metropolitan Hospital. At that time, 1952, the Bronx was beautiful. The most beautiful tree in the world was Rockefeller Center's Christmas tree.

We moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1957, just when I could see ice skates within my reach. I marvelled at the Sugar Loaf; a hill! There was a lit placard with moving news at the bottom of the Sugar Loaf. Botafogo, my first neighborhood in Rio, was getting crowded with those who sought a better life away from the north side, closer to the ocean. Next to my building was one so packed, it'd explode if the tenants flushed their toilets at the same time. I played with a Spaniard, José-?, whose mother was of ill reputation. In those days unmarried women, especially beautiful ones would be whores even if never having exchanged French kisses. Brazilians were L7 (square.)

I had scabs from hives: allergies to cotton oil, lard, I was teased for my Green-go accent. I immersed myself in books. Don't laugh -- I sobbed watching Pollyanna. Stars and Stripes etched in my mind.
On the other side of my building was an American-English Lycée. I saw a marching band once all my life in Rio. Sears Roebuck opened its doors with fanfarre next to the school, giving away hoopla-hoos. There were magicians and artisans blowing glass. It was the marvelous US way of doing business. Amigo, ¡muy amigo!

When I grew up I could never decide on a profession. I wished to study here. In 1984, my mentor, Bob Maple, helped me choose a school. USC's linguistics department was stellar back then. This date, August 16, 2007, marks my 22 years back in my country of birth. It is here I vote. Brazilian society caters to a collective self; we are individualistic here. I like that.

So, 5.5 years in NYC + 22 years in Greater Los Angeles = 27.5

In Rio I spent another 27.5 years; 1957 to 1985. I'm 55. (some math steps skipped.)

Brazil is where friends and I watched the sun rise on Ipanema or Leblon. Where I worked for ten years and collected my pension fund so I had money for a ticket. Where all my books were till 2005, when they were shipped here. My poetry. Friends, Jurassic friends and relatives. Mommy and Daddy, sister.photo blogging

My Rio de Janeiro seems to be gone, except for rare glimpses of smiles or jokes, Brasileiros love jokes. Sometimes I wonder why go back? Ipanema. Remembrance of things past.
"Paris and Rio are the most beautiful cities in the world," Mommy said this all the time.
Even if mockingly, I love L.A. My house, my son, my husband, the opportunities to be; even if weird, be somebody. A tiny fish in a big bowl as opposed to a big fish in a small bowl.

If I could, I would bring Ipanema closer to us so I could visit. This is a longing without regrets. I love the USA, my country, my fellow country people who seek change. We'll make it.

Tonight, I celebrate America, with Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.
Good morning, America! Saudades, Rio de Janeiro.

Lithium and Kurt Cobain Life In L.A. Part 2

In November 1991 I was politically correct. I stayed home and breastfed.  We had a bin for the cotton diapers we sent out to wash weekly.

Relatives hated the breastfeeding bit.  Those diapers stunk.  One afternoon, I watched "Smells Like Teen Spirit."  Kurt Cobain wearing my 1968 fashion, short sleeve-T over long sleeve shirt. Stripes.

Cheerleaders.  Brunnettes. No blondes.  Black outfit adorned with the A+circle emblem. In Red.  The scarlet letter cheerleaders.

The video shows a guitar player mumbling the lyrics he wrote to a hypnotic beat. The crowd gets crazier progressively turning into what would be "the mosh pit."

I didn't understand the lyrics. One day, in 1992 , I saw the Lithium single. With the lyrics.  Lithium was my medication.  How could he know the perspective of those with a mood disorder?

I chose to see a doctor.  Kurt chose to self-medicate shooting heroin. His death at age 27 was devastating. 1994. 
Then 2004;  It was Green Day's political stand that shook me out of a self-involved navel trip.  American Idiot was a wake-up call. A rock opera about the ghetto punks and our screw-you system.

While Kurt Cobain wrote little gems that together reflect his psyche, GreenDay wrote  American Idiot, which reflects our USA angst. We, the connected, we the rockers. Kurt Cobain wrote about death. For ten years I joined the cult to death, which still is alluring so many young people. Bush again, the images of 9/11, "The brighter side is suicide." Wrong.

American Idiot is about life.

What happened beteen 1994 and 2004?  I'll tell you.See ya!

© Anarchic Universe, 2007

You'd Like Some Bread? Have Some Eggs!

I received the news this afternoon, in an e-mail sent by a fellow blogger, Alvarenga.  It was hard to believe my eyes.  Two videos showed upper class youth throwing eggs down onto cars passing on Vieira Souto Avenue, the thoroughfare by Ipanema beach.

One kid is a member of the Globo Network dinasty, "Boninho". Boni was a terror top exec in the 70s ad 80s.  Then there is a grandson of socialist Leonel Brizola, recently deceased.  I guess the eggs are socialistic, spread equally on all.  Finally, there are some socialite vamps teaching recipes of egg throwing, snot throwing, etc.

Amusing.  Who is pulling down the videos from YouTube?  The kids' community on  Orkut, an older MySpace also owned by  Google, was pulled down as well.

Here are the links, one from "Folha de São Paulo" -- a serious newspaper.

http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/ilustrada/ult90u317494.shtml

And the other is from a humor blog, which has the videos downloaded so he will have them.  I hope they are still there.

This is a shame, especially when one thinks most of Brazil is poor.  Sometimes I have no pity or sorrow for the existence of the guillotine.

http://www.kibeloco.com.br/

The news is dated August 3, there are three parts of the "ovo" incident, marked aqui and aqui.  Thank you Tabet from Kibeloco.©Anarchic_Universe, 2007

All I Need Is More Exams

I landed on the bedroom floor Sunday morning, at the Hour of the Wolf, paying tribute to the great Ingmar Bergman.  The hour when children are born and humans die.  What went dead was my body strength.  Literally dead weight, giving myself some time to recover so Nicolas could lift me.

And that was when I decided it was time  to come back to the Catholics -- Saint John's Hospital.  Since then a lot of exams, a definite confirmation of hypercalcemia.  Hypercalcemia doesn't mean I am immersed in the juice of life or milk all day long.  The parathyroid is releasing this calcium and the electrolites in my blood are imbalanced.

Probably it's the lithium. I'll switch to Abilify and make Big Pharma happy.
Only today I found out this room, in the new part of the hospital has wireless connection. Duh-uh.  I guess the nuns save up better because they don't have all these molestation charges.  Oops, better mum till I'm outta here.

The endocrinologist is a cherry bomb.  I was quite impressed at how she got here and made three or four nurses move their asses and get going.  At the same time she took info on me and ... well I was impressed.

So, I must thank an Irish blog for visiting Anarchic_Universe.  I hope you enjoyed your visit and come back again.  It's a music blog, all they need is to learn a little bit about Tropicália.  OS Mutantes played in Ireland without Arnaldo or Zélia.  The photos and video are kewl.  The post is here.

Maybe Seth from B12 Partners would know the meaning of the name of this music blog.

I will have had so many exams here, they will be able to reconstruct me after I am gone and cremated. Serious.  Tomorrow I start the song and dance early so I bid you adieu.  Pretend you are at the Blue Bar, in NYC, with the Irish, and be merry for me. Click to enlarge, please.  Now, this is forró, from Brazil, not Tropicália, something else. Forró=for all, when gringos let all come to the hoe-downs.  With David Byrne.
 

Strange Ideas In The Middle of The Night

• What if John Waters' idea had prevailed and baby pictures came with scents? How lovely!  Cootchie-cootchie poo, pee and barf. Rotten milk.

• Can you imagine if all the announcements of "The End of the World" had been true?  Tammy Faye would have been saved many times. I don't want to think of my fate.

• It's been weeks the administration and the spooks declare there is a heightened danger lurking over us.  It must be the release of the Harry Potter book and its vile attack, shush!  Say no more.

• Maybe I must change my profile wherever I have them to Tina, aka Messalina, will do you free of charge if you leave me a comment.

• I don't want to have links to journal-blogs, neither do I need links like Revolver who never show up, never comment, and never link anyone.

• I am doomed to the Sacrilege Trilogy: B12 Partners, Freakytopia and myself.

• Although I don't blog about him, Ron Paul is a jerk selling Utopia to the rich (Bill Maher) and the young. Hello, who takes care of the poor and health care? The Statue  of Liberty?  Good joke.
• Wouldn't you have though twice before leaving your seed in that tunnel of love if you knew how fat your chick would get, and how stinky the house would be with those cloth                                                          diapers waiting for collection?

©Anarchic_Universe, 2007 photo by BPS, All rights Reserved.

I don't know if Russians eat little babies. I do know this band rocks big time.
"Teabags" multilingual -- Push the Button.  Très Kewl.

To a Rewarding Day!

For many people a reward means money, brass in pocket, as Chrissie Hynde sang in the very early 80s.  To others a reward means good food and drink.  To many others, good prices are a reward.  Good grades to a student, praise for most humins works.

Aside from knowing my blogging voice reaches across the Earth, my most prized reward would be to get well. Later today I will see a very expensivo G.P.  Most people know how screwy our health system is, from BIG PHARMA to health insurance. SICKO features just that. This doctor doesn't work with insurance companies.  We'll pretend we went to eat at Fogo de Chão, a real Gaúcho restaurant on Restaurant Row in Beverly HIlls. I expect to spend a few hundred dollars out of pocket.

My current G.P. has a secretary who is extremely uncooperative.  Today my pharmacy faxed her a request.  At five-thirty, NADA.  She says she can't fax test results to other doctors.  She's nosy, rude and lazy. Health insurance coverage, you see?

My shrink will alert me for the nth time about the possibility of a cellulitis comeback. I thought it was a skin problem the poor got, like scabs.  Anyone can catch it.  I did.

How do you feel when nobody has been able to fix the machinery necessary to keep you going?  C'mon, my spiritual friends, without my body I am literally out of here.  Road to Nowhere. Talking Heads.  The first song played after my wedding ceremony.

In Brazil some fascinating discussions take place. Copyright as a right for bloggers. Well-made in th esahde bloggers poo-poo the concept. Anther heated debate is about the splitting of hairs difference between terrorists and guerrillas. Do you remember Bill's "It depends on what the definition of IS is."  What a master lawyer.  Here I was shocked to find out some Black Panthers were petty hoodlums. It all looks romantic from afar.

And finally, the most fun of all, the female bloggers urge to narrate their experimentation with solo sex in gynecological details.  Poo-poo'd too.

What a relief father's day is gone, Paul's b'day is gone, the blogosphere will move to other topics.  It seems stuck on YouTube and its Beta experiment , I guess, getting ready for Apple.  I do have a cute video of Caetano Veloso and Os Mutantes, participants, heart and soul, in  Tropicália.  Baby, just added on June 17, 2007.

So, I hope to return by the end of the day with good news.  The most  moving reading today besides the girl's suicide, beware of the Internet, was Alê Felix' s blog.  She has a way with words, just extraordinary. I am happy she is back, still struggling with a new life without her chauvinistic pig. This is the bud you need, Alê, not a beer. Take it as a tribute to your talent.

"Why Am I Surprised?"

While I was socializing, at my orthopædic doctor's office, a Mexican mom, from Jalisco, where the sing-song of Spanish is easily identifiable, told me the Pope had excommunicted all the politicians  who'd voted for the legalization of abortion in Mexico.  I need to check for that piece of news because:

In Brazil he declared the same thing.  There are two identical front pages of big newspapers.  However,  the official word of the Vatica omitted his threat.

Just click on the link inside my law school/journalism student, Gabriela Zago.

Then there are people surprised to learn Sarkozy, called by his detractors Sarkoh-fashoh, is Jewish.

I must confess I read about this two days before the election, which was on May 6.

As John Lennon would say, "So what so what, so f***ing what?"  What's the big surprise?

Take your pick.  I like the Google alerts.  You choose the subject they send you news once a day.  Très kewl? There are our delicious links , too.

I knew about this Pope from a article in the NYer.  I read it when I can.  My social life is so intense, from doctor to doctor; Check it out, please.

Mothers of the world, happy Sunday.  A cover of John Lennon's "All I Want Is the Truth."

Paris Hilton-Room Service Starts at Six-Thirty A.M.

Poor Paris Hilton. Aw, Tina, don't be a hypocrite. Nobody thought Paris Hilton, the sexpot, seductive blond heiress to a fortune, would ever be sentenced for her driving. Certainly, arriving in court half an hour late didn't impress the judge at all.

I was reading the Los Angeles Times about her routine these next 45 days. Wake up for breakfast at 6:30 A.M. That has got to be a diversionary tactic. Six-thirty in the morning is when she arrived from parties.

Then, all meals are chicken-something or other. Three meals, one hot meal. Gee, goodbye to caviar and champagne, steak with truffles, exquisite sushi. It is when we don't have stuff that we remember all we like and it's not at our fingertips.

A toilet inside the cell. Lovely. If Lynwood is already a pretty run-down city, riddled with corruption, I can't imagine what the jail is like. Maybe Paris Hilton's shit don't stink and that was why she kept those pouty lips pouting. It was unfair for some Italian blog to accuse her of being a professional B.J.giver. Hey, at least she won't have to wash cars in prison.

No cell phone is tough. With a good Nokia she could film herself ans send out to YouTube scenes of her life in jail. Lindsay Lohan would die, green with envy. In a snap, I am sure, several talentless nice bod celebs would be in jail with their Nokia cell phones.

Only one hour for hygiene, phone calls, sun bathing, no fake suntan product allowed, babe. That is too little. Paris Hilton can speed in traffic, but she was aided and abetted by a Mercedes Benz and liquor when all that happened. See post below.

Heck, the room service is punctual, there will be no rushing to the bathroom. The toilet is right there. The purpose of her incarceration is to try to help her change her attitude. I hate to disagree with the judge. People born in privilege don't know us, the little people, they can't change if they never learned how to be part of our society.

What can be done about these social leeches? Gawk at them on YouTube, for sure! Just click on the links. See you!

Was Thaaaat My Daughter?

It was by sheer coincidence that one of the bloggers linked to this blog was writing about a topic that drove me nuts in Rio: the slutification of teen girls. The blog was Freakytopia, right there on the left. I was stunned someone agreed with me.

In Rio, actually in Brazil, young teens are being left on their own more and more to make their choices. They go in groups to resort towns over the weekend, with no adult supervision. I am talking about girls as young as thirteen mixed with boys as old as seventeen.

His example of how far things have gone was the video Lil Mama Lip Gloss. Click, please.

Here in greater Los Angeles I know the pros are pissed of with the young girls, who do it and more for free. Both groups wear high heels in case there are problems, big bags, ditto, clothes that can be mistaken for lingerie, heavy make-up. The skirts are akin to pussy-lampshades; the pants are taco-pussy style.

I'm not saying Cory Kennedy's mother knew everything he daughter was up to. She knew some of it. However, the number of parents who know nothing until a disaster comes along is staggering. Dylan Klebold's parents never figured it out. Cho's knew something was wrong but never sought help.

So many people feel better not taking the kid to seek professional help. What are other people going to say?

Screw what other people are going to say. They won't pay your bills.

Others find solace in thinking this generation is all like that, ADHD and computers. I got news for you. I don't care what all the other kids do. My kid must use all the IQ points he's got effectively. I'd hate to see him working across the street, "Would you like fries with that?" "¿Quiere una coca con hielo o sin hielo?"

I don't know about other parents. I know Mark Twain said, "keep your eggs in one basket, and watch the $#@^% basket." And he was a genius.

Language Learning With Maraka

I couldn't believe a program like this actually existed.

Welcome to language learning! Bueno... Click here.

Is Marriage a Healthy Fix?

This past Saturday we went see "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." It's a play by Edward Albee, pronounced all, not Al as in Al Bundy. It was a special treat for me. I studied it in American Drama, I taught it, and my professor and I used to exchange lines. He calls me Martha, the older woman in the play, and I call him George.

In the play George and Martha are married. She mercilessly attacks him because she is a phallic woman, the one who wears the pants. The counterpart of the phallic woman is the castrated man. However, George picks himself up little by little and surprises Martha in the end.

A young couple are visiting, NIck and Honey, him a young professor, with ambitions, who humps Martha to get ahead in the college. Her father is the president of the college. Honey is a pain, sips brandy and throws up thru the play.

What is notheworthy is the fact that the seemingly screwy couple are the ones who communicate and have some honesty in their relationship, George and Martha still love each other. On the other hand, Nick and Honey are nice to each other but don't communicate, and lie.

This play, in real time, three hours, from two in the morning till dawn, questions marriage. Moreover, it questions the hipocrisy of so many couples who keep their feelings bottled inside.

Our son said I was just like Martha. Some people overheard him. A lady stated he would never get married after seeing the play. And here I want to say I include couples without a marriage license as "married."

To me, the unofficial Martha, it is important to be honest even if brutal. No pressure cookers here.

Where's Mark Hunter?

Someone's got to explain this to me. Mark Hunter had taken off when the big story on Cory Kennedy and his cobrasnake.com photo site broke, last February 25. I saw the site back then and now, it's all different!
Cory's photos are nearly all gone or somewhere I cannot see.

This morning the guy was in Paris and now he is in London, asking for parties to go to. When did he have time to rearrange his website and why did he do this?

When I read Shawn Hubler's piece on Cory, I hadn't noticed this: it is said the parents sell high school diplomas to be gotten in less than a week! I found that out on Wiki. Her old wiki entry was nixed. A new one was written, based on the West mag story, Shawn Hubler's. Wiki gives access to a NY Times story which erroneously claims Cory went to a private school. No, sorry, she went to SAMOHI, and now we, SM homeowners pay for damage repair at a private school for the tidy amount of 67K/year.

Anyone seen Cory Kennedy this weekend? I don't live near Frank Ghery, y'see; we're not that close. We'll keep oone another posted on this Has-Been Internet-It-Girl-Heroin-Chic Wonder. An expensive one, at that.

The It Girl-Cory Kennedy-Was, Is a Has-Been

Cory Kennedy's life according to the Los Angeles Times' West Magazine , pressed a deep impression on me. A girl named the epitome of "heroin chic," underage, clubbing in NYC and Los Angeles, smoking and drinking, not going to school--who would have had the time for school? All of this was a little bit too much for me. The call on the cover of West magazine said the mother didn't know anything. How could she not?

This week I paid some visits to quite a few sites listed under Cory Kennedy at Google.com. Google search is so helpful; I visited a few sites,not the over two million under Cory Kennedy. A lot of them,though. Like Mr. Keyes in Double Indemnity I had a little man in me saying the story in "West" couldn't be right. My own little man felt like a chunk of concrete; my stomach burned. Like Edward G.Robinson's character I can't feel at peace until the truth comes out. Why? I know I teach no more. I know I have a boy not a girl. I'm like Bill Clinton and Hillary. I care, I feel pain, I believe in education as the most powerful means for a person to achieve in this life. In another, I have no idea. Take your pick. The L.A. Weekly had no kind words for her. The Gawker, a fashion /gossip site had ever fewer kind words for Cori. Let's face it. Even bozo celebs whose only contribution to society is taxes if they pay any, must have more to say than a fiifteen-year-old from a provincial town such as our beach town. What was intriguing was the look at the comments in Fashionologie. Click for comments, please. In there you could find the mention to a page of Holland's Vogue© , a comment from a teen in Argentina, another from a teen here saying Cory was rude at SAMOHI, the school she should be going to instead of going to clubs or dancing with Puff D.

A video on YouTube, check Gawker link above, shows Cory giving a short interview with "...mmm like..." abounding, in which she says her family knew about it all. Say what? And we are led to believe they knew nothing because facts were checked carefully by the crew of fact-checkers at the LA Times? Or was all this just for a story? Better yet, how come all Internet entries on this oh-so-popular girl are from 2006? Would the story then be a fashionista ploy to bring her back to the eye of the storm that hits celebs? Did a plot just go bust?

C'mon, I do feel entitled to an explanation. After all, I am paying for Cory's rehabilitation and hope she can make it back to the toiling real world, where kids study and have jobs.

Cory's MySpace was updated this March 5; her blog, CoryKennedy.blogspot has the juicy stuff in the back, meaning when her Internet life seems to have begun, August 2006. The you can read about her parties and see some unflattering pictures of the Internet It Girl.;P))

I mean, the Former Internet It Girl. She's been replaced faster that I could say ,"Fiat Lux".

There are quite a few girls out there dying for a chance to strut their nonstuff. Cobrasnake,aka, Mark Hunter, former vice-president of SAMO's student body, the guy who pimped sold Cory Kennedy's chic image to the Internet took off, returns from Paris on Tuesday. Amazingly enough, he found time in Paris, France, not Paris Hilton, to pull most of her photos from his site. They had been there till beginning of this week. In most of the "hot" places I visited, I saw "Hot New Faces." No washed-up-problem-child face thank-you-very-much.

Gee, all that effort to fit in, all those classes missed, all this money from public education general funds, the roughly 70 K/year for a special ed. 9-12 boarding school, all in vain. In less than a week, the kid is a goner, we who pay for SMMUSD are poorer in other education priorities. One friend said the mother couldn't have known what the kid was doing on the Net. The mother ought to have known what she was doing off the Net. Another friend, a philosophical Texan, says, "She's just one of many who get their education paid by the districts. You'd be surprised."

I sought too many answers this week, I will just leave the rest to the expert fact-checkers of West. Have a good week. If you kow about Cory, will you drop me a line?

Tenting Termites

California is great. Except for water, which we'll have to buy or steal, we have everything in our Golden State. And lots of termites. Termites in love with our juicy wooden structured homes.
In a state where the price of property is out of sync with reality, where earthquakes mandate all construction be as light as possible, termites party.

Our climate is warm, they love it. We have lots of wood, they love it. We must protect the 20% we own of our home; the rest will always belong to the bank. We tent the house every five years. This is an arduous process:

•The Doberman went to a dog hotel. We went to a cheap motel. One room with the stinky teen, samo Dad and moi. And Kitty Carslyle.
•All edibles had to be double-bagged and tied. Of course, Terminix sent no elastic bands. And said I was facetious when I said they sent us a bozo.
•We do have speedless Internet. I mean, we have a fast connection that drops to zero all the time.
•In the perennial haste of last minute preparations, it is only when we are here in this hot pillows motel that we realize how important were some items left behind. This will be over on Sunday, we hope.
•You all know where you can find me. Right here inside your computer screen. Regardless where my material self is, Anarchic_Universe is right here, at your fingers' reach.

Good night and good luck, we all need both.

Does Dowdy Want to Shimmy With Barack Obama

The story is 0ld but worth mentioning. Maureen Dowdy, whom I always found interesting for lack of a better adjective became repulsive to me after