Ginger's follies, foibles and fixations.
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| You Listen to Me, Mr. Kick-Ass Ginger's follies, foibles and fixations. |
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Friday, March 28, 2003 What's the deal with Homsar? posted by Ginger | 6:46 PM Support Our Troops (and our Nebraska-bred journalists) The Fouth Infantry Division ships out to Iraq. Go bust some serious truth, Dionne. posted by Ginger | 6:20 PM A Friday Five to Make You Feel Like a Self-Centered Sumbitch 1. What was your most memorable moment from the last week? The first time at this job where I had to leave the office to cry. It wasn't that big of a deal, but I think a couple of week's worth of stress, lack of sleep and war crapola all piled up and were set off by one relatively minor work-related disappointment. I went out to the balcony where everyone goes to smoke and sobbed for a while. Then went back to work, curiously refreshed. Runners up include: stuffing sixty kids and parents into a 30-seat theater for a weekday performance of our show, and watching Mrs. Boss thoroughly embarass herself during a speaking engagement. 2. What one person touched your life this week? Indirectly, it was a PTA member at the aforementioned speaking engagement. She comforted and reassured Mrs. Boss in a way I never could (public displays of incompetence typically infuriate me, and I am not good at covering it up), and thus saved me from being hated and/or fired. And then Gia for letting me vent all my frustration at her so I was able to keep it in check next time I had to face Mrs. Boss. 3. How have you helped someone this week? Mrs. Boss told me that my help at the infamous speaking engagement was extremely valuable, in that I did things like pass handouts and operate the VCR in a calm and professional manner, which prevented her from suffering a complete meltdown (what she did suffer was close enough). Runner-up: I gave a buck to the genial homeless (?) guy who spare-changes outside the deli. He told me he just found out his only son has been shipped off to Iraq and he's worried. 4. What one thing do you need to get done by this time next week? Just one? I need to finish a writing assignment for the second part of a theatre management workshop I'm taking. It's due Monday, and I haven't even looked at it yet. I'm so screwed. 5. What one thing will you do over the next seven days to make your world a better place? I will try not to kill anybody. posted by Ginger | 2:16 PM Wednesday, March 26, 2003 My Soul Mate. Except pretty young. And coming out of easyEverything1... The other day I went to meet Melanie at the easyEverything in Times Square. I was wearing my favorite new hoodie, and the t-shirt of the guy coming out of the easyEverything as I was going in caught my eye. Hmmm. That's cute, sorta familiar... I thought, as he breezed by and started walking down 42nd Street. Then it struck me -- it was The Cheat2! We are everywhere. Burninating the countryside. ------------- 1My soul-mate would have his own computer, I think. Another reason why Cudgel and I weren't meant to be. 2The Cheat theme song posted by Ginger | 12:02 AM Tuesday, March 25, 2003 Another reason why Nebraskans are cool Here's an article about an acquaintance of mine who is about to become one of the famed "embeds." She's joined us a couple of times for "Nebrooklyn" gatherings. She's smart, cool, has a hot fiance and she's goin' to war. Go Dionne! Bring on some o' that down-home Nebraska no-bullshit facts-gatherin. At one point a few months ago, it looked like I might be going to the United Arab Emirates for two weeks. I didn't report it here because I thought it might fall through, which it did. If it hadn't, I would be there right now. I wish it had worked out. Here, I am surrounded by the manipulative forces on all sides of this war. I don't trust anything I hear, read or see, which makes it difficult to form any kind of informed opinion of what is really going on, what reasons 'we' have for going to war, and what the potential outcome might be. Media are biased, sources are forbidden from speaking freely, reporters deliver White House press releases as if they are gospel, protest numbers are underestimated, then overestimated. Dubai is not exactly in the thick of it, nor immune from its own propaganda machine, but I would have welcomed a different perspective. I feel, or at least I hope, that deep down what most people want is the Truth. The trouble is there is no good way to define the Truth, and little way to know whether you're seeing/hearing/reading it or not. Everyone has an agenda, and unfortunately there are a lot of people out there far more concerned with being right than reporting facts which might conflict with their idea of what the Truth should be. I don't exclude myself from this tendency - we all want to believe that we're on the right side. I think the problem that the whole idea of "sides" is fucked up. Why do we have to be "for" or "against" this war? It's as preposterous as being "for" or "against" abortion. No sane person is "for" war or abortion -- but opinions differ on when it is appropriate to resort to that unfortunate action. I went to the peace march on Saturday, but I didn't stay long. I went because I want there to be peace, but not because I necessarily think this war should end immediately. The language of protest is too simplistic for me right now. I think there are good reasons for taking extreme action to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but I am quite sure that the United States is not motivated by the humanitarian reasons that the so-called "pro-war" folk cite. Without that motivation I fear the Iraqi people - those that count on our actions to bring about positive change - will once more be betrayed, beaten and desperate. This article in particular (thanks Mike!) casts an interesting light on the situation, but it's frustrating to see the level of trust supposedly granted to the U.S. military by the 'pro-war' Iraqis both within and exiled from that country. How "precision" can our attacks be if we keep killing our own soldiers in whoops-a-daisy accidents? No matter how you look at it, a lot of innocent people will be killed in this war, including Iraqi and U.S. and British and Australian soldiers who really would rather not be there but joined the military for the reasons most do - because they're young, need money, have few options (or in Iraq's case, are forced to). When their famililes, friends, babies start dying in droves, will they really be glad the Americans came to 'liberate' them? Will death by American (and UK and Australian) hands be gentler than Saddam's? Will they know the difference? And I'm shocked that any of them trust us at all. In the last Gulf war we bombed hospitals, homes and highways and ground soldiers into the sand. We encouraged the Iraqi people to rise up, fight Saddam, take their country back. Then we signed a cease-fire with Saddam, abandoned the people we told to fight, and turned away while these struggling warriors were mercilessly slaughtered. And they expect us to save them now? They have more faith in 'The Coalition' than I do, and I hope they are right and not simply lacking any other option. Perhaps Iraq will eventually be a better place for our action, I certainly hope so. Though the Truth is elusive, one thing seems to bear out no matter what the situation -- those that have power and wealth will make the right friends, buy the right favors and come out relatively unscathed. Those who struggle in peace will struggle harder in war, suffer more, and in the end see little change. You might trade one king for another, but in the end they all look the same. I hope I'm wrong. We'll probably never know. posted by Ginger | 9:53 PM Monday, March 24, 2003 Allow me to Introduce OscarTM Winner Eminem Okay, first just let me say that I would have won the Oscar pool at the party if it weren't for that damn butterfly ballot. I accidentally voted Scooby Doo for best picture. The truth is that in the confusion leading up to the Oscar broadcast I somehow neglected to mark my votes for Best Picture and Animated Short Film. In the ballot I brought from home, I had chosen Chicago and The ChubbChubbs!, respectively, but skipped that page when I copied the choices over to my official ballot. If I had marked them as I had intended, I would have gotten 13 winners out of 24 categories correct, thereby winning the coveted $15 prize (one other partygoer got 13 right, but he had left before the end of the show, rendering his ballot invalid). As it was, my incomplete ballot only ratcheted up 11 correct winners, tying me with several at the party and one vote short of the two who got twelve. A guess submitted pre-show as to the time the show would end was the tiebreaker -- the "winner" picked 12:03am. I chose 12:10. Steve Martin spit out his last word precisely at 11:59 (we didn't include the credits). So what I'm sayin' is, all those weeks of cramming DVDs and $10 features and I lost the pool because I didn't take two seconds to look back over my ballot to make sure I filled the damn thing out right. Not that I cared about the money of course -- it was the glory, dammit -- the GLORY! The Eminem win was the biggest happy surprise for me. I screamed for what must have been a full 30 seconds. Hilarious! And he deserves it too, which is even more amazing. If I were him I'd be going nuts wondering when the other shoe would drop -- he should probably go live on a mountain somewhere for a while just to decompress. I predict he'll be a surprise write-in winner of a daytime Emmy award at their upcoming ceremony in May. I was really happy about Adrien Brody and I thought his speech was moving and heartfelt. I was sad that Julianne Moore once again went home empty-handed despite two spectacular performances (especially after Nicole Kidman's yawner of a speech--she was almost as bad as Jennifer Connelly last year). I was genuinely surprised that Michael Moore won, and his speech was just as you would expect. Whatever you think of him or his film, you gotta love someone who gets on stage in front of a gazillion viewers and calls the President of the United States a fraud -- during wartime, no less! What was it with all the fat ties? Add a few ugly stripes or flowers and it would have been 1974 all over again. More later maybe. I'm going to pass out, I'm so tired. posted by Ginger | 1:47 AM |
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