A n a r c h i c _ U n i v e r s e ®

I'm Voting Republican - The Video ;P)

Dear Tinovska: Disgruntled Malibu Parent

Dear Tinovska:

My wife and I are desperate. We have three gorgeous li'l pumpkins  who will be entering high school soon. One is a ninth grader, the other is a ninth grader, too. The third one is ... a ninth grader. We cannot break our anonymous status. Just let's say, for the sake of saying it, we are rich and famous.

We don't want our li'l munchkins to attend the local public school. There has been hazing in June, and there many stellar parents, more stellar than us. What should we do?

Signed,

Six-Pack Chest, Blond and Blue-Eyed

Dear Six-Pack Chest:

I'll bet you are from Missourah.  Anyway, to your three little dahlings. Your best bet would be Santa Monica-Malibu USD. First, all you'd need would be for the chi-chi bouique school here in Santa Monica to open. I am sure your money can buy three spots in an elite public school. Besides, there's the fair weather friends, a similar ecology, and this new school won't have hazing or marching band or football. It'll have poor parents like you and Pretty Gina.

Another option would be La Cañada U.S.D.  Mostly Asian students, stellar grades, lousy air. I know you are far from becoming a spacecadet or rocket scientist. How about your munchkins, how about their academic future?

The air sucks. Consider a contribution to thin out the air in La Cañada. Who knows, it might thin enough to launch an unmanned spacecraft right there at J.P.L. ? Think of it, again,

The grandeur of Rome, the glory of Greece, the recognition of your name in science!

Good luck to the five of you. May the force, ah, forget it.

Fondly,

-- Tinovska

¡ 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!

Attention, Please: Cyberbullying; Carry On, Dudes!

Attention, please. Some idle mind(s) labeled my photos at Flickr.com as "adult." They are gone. The Flickr team assigned to my case is investigating it. I tried, quite unsuccessfully, to explain to a friend of mine why bloggers post their photos online. I am quite tired. However, as this feels like the wee hours, I will present to you my short version of a film review of 1939's ten Oscar© winner  "Gone With The Wind."
(Continue reading, please.)

Go, Go, Go, Hillary!

SMMUSD: Difference Between Tim Walker, Teacher at Lincoln

Simple, my friends. SMMUSD's Tim Walker is like divorce: the screwing you get for the screwing you got. He gets 200K, ten years of my PERS disability retirement for having screwed special ed. students and parents in SMMUSD.
Alleged molester teacher at Lincoln. He was quickly arrested after having worked for this excellent-shmecellent district for thirty years, after one girl accused him of molestation on Friday. There must be others, say da police. The bail is at one million dollars. The excellent SMMUSD hasn't pressed charges, just yet. You can keep on reading. This alleged molestation case reminds me of a disaster. Click here for more.

Just in Case You Missed This - Flamengo Champion

Sometimes the loser wins and the winner loses. I woke up from my frustration with the victory of Flamengo against Botafogo sobbing in pain. My friend Romullo Pontes predicted so. I bet on the comments of Professor Avelar I would wear the colors of Flamengo; red and black. Here is the turncoat Tina, wearing a Misook top, hair cut by Kia. Accessories: a ruby cocktail ring, H.Stern earrings, a chain with a charm, and a cross of the Languedoc region.
My uncle in Brazil must be ecstatic. Better only the second coming of Frank Sinatra. Life goes on, I had to post my tears, my photo, my chagrin. Art in back by Thaïs Oiticica, my cousin, one of many. And this is how Brazilians celebrate the noble sport of the Britons.  

Bitches Get Things Done -- Tina Fey

It is hard to cope with the loss of a parent. When Daddy passed away, on December 8, 1986, I was taking my finals and a few weeks away from my quals. He was in Brazil, the country he really loved and adopted as his own, as if he were Portuguese.  Daddy had gone to a Greek school in Ambridge, Pennsylvania.  He spoke and read and wrote Greek fluently. Learning Portuguese and Spanish was a piece of cake. He hated French; I don''t know why.  When I went back home for the first time, in our summer of 1986, I could see how much older he looked. He refused to go see a doctor, and that was that. He was 59.

Today I had to call Mommy's family and my sister to inform them about Mommy's transference from the convalescent home next to us to UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center's E.R. Mommy had shortness of breath and was taken to the E.R.  She is fine now, looking around, her usual curious self. Curiosity may have killed the cat but it is the trigger to discovery, our intellect in action.

I had been happy after getting my UCLA neurosurgeon guys back on track and the solar panel/central AC a date for repair.  It seems nowadays one has to use Bush diplomacy in order to get things done. Most people one speaks to on the phone act like they "no compreende."

Now I am blue, waiting. The doctor in charge of Mommy made it clear visitors are not welcome for the moment. I hope I can get to see her while she is cognizant. If not it wasn''t meant to be. Yesterday, while I was speaking with a friend from Sugar Hill, Harlem, she insisted I should go see my mother. She is a Queen Bitch and she was right. Older than me by twelve years, she has been through it all.

So, I "light my candles in a daze cuz I found God."  I wish Obama and Hillary would team up and end the race in a great way. English grammar teaches us the future doesn't exist. That is a heavy linguistics discussion for some other time.

Let the French Fry

I guess human differences may make for a better world; let's embrace diversity. I am a mutt myself: Russian, Greek, Portuguese, Brazilian and everything there is in Brazilian. It is known Portuguese colonizers heavily embraced (senso stricto) diverse of the people they colonized. Consequently, the people in Brazil are of all hues from blueberry black to light skin black; some with  frizzy hair, some with blue eyes. Unfortunately, the French are the kind of people who stick out like a sore thumb. They will let all around them know they are French and have opinions which inevitably oppose yours.

All the French qualities vanish when they decide to practice their social entertainment, which is to argue a point endlessly. That is socially acceptable and part of the rules of making friends in France. You'll argue with someone you just met, if you are both French, and you'll end up  kissing each other on the cheeks before leaving a bistro table. Maybe "Kiss and make up" is part of their contribution to the English language.

The French acknowledge their stubborn ways in at least two colorful expressions: Têtu comme une vache normande (stubborn as a cow) and
Têtu comme une bourrique (stubborn as a donkey). The first expression was given me by an informant from the north of France. The second I heard endlessly in the south of France, both in the southeast, Avignon, as in  the southwest, Toulouse.

Please don't ever tell a French person s/he is behaving in this socially unacceptable way here in the USA.  For some mysterious reason they don't get it. They don't get it they are in this land of social hypocrisy, the land that seeks conformity and harmony in conversation. Maybe those Puritans left us this heritage. Maybe that blends in with the American Dream. Maybe it's the E pluribus unum of the newfound nation. We will go as far as "Let's agree to disagree." That to me sounds like a f*ing oxymoron, emphasis on the moron part. Just say, "Drop it", instead. " I need to go now." Or "Can I call you later?" People in the USA wish to find common ground when they engage in conversation; they don't want to be "convinced" of an opposite point of view, unless they are wimpy boomers who end up voting for Barack Obama because their chldren told them so.

For example, you went to Malibu for a ride on a sunny afternoon. The French person in the car says something preposterous s/he read somewhere. You can say you read something else in the Pulitzer-rich Washington Post. Or go crazy on your pal and quote Bob Dylan. The French do love our pop culture; they love intellectuals.  When you arrive at your destination, say, West Zuma, an isolated beach, sit at a restaurant, to shield you from the merciless wind, help choose a faraway table. Unfortunately, you may end up sitting next to a right-wing Colombian whose family consists of four-star generals. Women don't count.  Your next-to-you table pal will drop several hints: conspiracy theories, Ann Coulter, Fox News. (Yikes!) But the more hints, the hotter your French friend becomes in a sermonizing speech against the status quo. You can gently say, "Taits-toi" . Nothing will keep your companion from going on and on about Bush and our administration's policies abroad, especially in Latin America of the 60s to 80s.

The Colombians leave; at least we get the table by the window. Just let it slide. There is more of a chance of a Scotsman to speak comprehensible English than that of a French person to admit s/he made a faux pas. After all, at te same time that they adopt the rules of politesse oblige, they cannot see or accept what my Jewish Russian grandma used to say, "Do in Rome as the Romans do."

Just look at the beautiful ocean and babes and dudes, whatever turns you on. It's another beautiful day in SoCal, filled with beautiful young people and wannabe geezers.  Your French companion unwinds and decides it's time to leave. After all, there is no one else to argue with. The scuzzy motel right before the bend to West Zuma was painted beige. What a pity. It was a beautiful moss green. The sun began to set, we are on our way to Santa Monica, and will be back to West Zuma soon. I hope so. It's a beautiful beach, nearly deserted, and the restaurant lets you breathe in the salty air of the wondrous waves of the Pacific without the wind.

It's not Ipanema, but it'll do the trick on saudade. "Chega de saudade", by Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, performed 40 years after the Carnegie Hall show by João Gilberto and Tom Jobim at the Municipal Theater in São Paulo. You'll recognize several Brazilian musicians in the audience.
Courtesy of YouTube.

The Curse of a Viral Larangitis

There is only one other problem bigger than a sick teen at home: a sick husband at home. God bless them at school and work, staying busy. Males cannot stand pain, and are a pain in the arse when ill.

I have had F.M.S. since 1999. The pain has become impercetible to me.  My husband was really bitchy because his shoulder hurt.  Oh, poor me!

Actually, a doctor friend of mine advised I should stay away from dawgs, bitches and other pests for my sanity. That would mean taking a vacation from myself included.

Os Mutantes are recording their new album sans Arnaldo Baptista. Sérgio revealed in an interview in São Paulo how influential Sgt. Peppers was in his life. I believe one could find the whole film on YouTube.

And this is all for right now. Later!