Okay. So they've surpassed the horror of the Nick Berg murder by kidnapping some poor American, announcing they are going to kill him . . . and then killing him days later.

So much more media-savvy. More coverage this way. A PG-rated pre-videotape that acts as a trailer to the killing footage.

Here's the deal, guys: we know you are sub-human. We know you kill your own daughters just because they were seen in the company of males. We saw your work on 9/11 and a dozen other days. We know what you are.

We won against the Nazis. We will win against you. We will not rest until you are all captured or killed.

And to my friends: do you get it now? It's not about oil. It's about eradicating butchers all over the Middle East. We need to do this if we want to stay alive.

I want to live. I really do.

Re-elect President Bush.

Thank you.

Posted by: Attila at 01:06 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I was out at Malibu today, having a panini sandwich from a quaint deli at one of the shopping centers there, and wondering what it was in the air in Malibu and Santa Monica that gives one such a sense of well-being. Is it the sea breeze?--or is it the smell of money?

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What a roller coaster the last six days has been. I'm not sure when it was that my estrogen levels hit rock-bottom—definitely between Friday and yesterday. Both those days I found myself considering things that were crazy enough, I finally thought to check the calendar. ("See?" one tells oneself. "It isn't all shit. It just seems that way right now.") As a consequence, I didn't run away for a few days to sleep on my mother's floor in El Cerrito and make her buy me Mexican food. I probably did the right thing, but a few tamales would have helped. I swear.

The employment-lead fairy has come, and not a moment too soon: I was really running out of money. Now I have three possibilities, all of them tantalizing. The one that is closest to home is also scariest: it would represent changing to a completely different industry, and doing a type of work I haven't done in 20 years. Because the fear factor is greatest with this one, I suspect it might be the path of personal growth. Another stroke of luck, though, is that it appears the job offers—if they come (and I think they must)—will line up in sequence, and that I won't have to do any tap-dancing (e.g., "that's an interesting offer? Can I think about it for another week?").

And I'm attempting to bust through my clutter by any means necessary. Preferably before a social worker shows up here to find out if our house is bitchin' enough for a child to inhabit.

It looks like I'll be having 10 or so people over in mid-July, as a sort of late birthday celebration. This is also a little scary, since the Attila the Hub and I haven't done a lot of entertaining in the past 2-3 years. It'll be my friends, so they probably won't judge too harshly, but it would definitely behoove me to clear this place out so that I'm halfway happy with it. We probably won't have the new piano by then—nor even art up on that bare spot over the couch—but it'll look better in four weeks than it does now. Trust me on that.

I even bought The Food Magazine today, partly for the recipes and partly because it represents coming to terms with a strange segment of my life. There were so many things I loved about working for The Food Magazine, but despite my best efforts there was one person with whom the chemistry wasn't good, and that was enough to destroy my chances of ever going back—even as a temp, doing jobs I'd been stunningly successful at. It seems so arbitrary, but it isn't: these things happen, and I'm likely better off for it. I certainly have more freelance clients now than I ever would have if I'd been temping for the foodies over the past two years. (And if I get a staff job I'll have to decide what to do about those clients. Keep one or two, I think, and foist the others off onto other L.A. copy editors.)

In short, things are looking up. Stay tuned.

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On Ted Rall's cartoons.

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Via James, Tim Cavanaugh discusses his feeling that Bush will be a lock this fall. I've been saying much the same thing myself—that it won't even be that close.

Whether people vote security or the economy, Bush is the guy. This should become clearer and clearer as time goes on.

One interesting phenomenon in the Reason blog is former Gore voters documenting, in the comments section, their "road to Damascus" moments, and explaining why they are now voting for Bush.

Hint: Damascus must be somewhere in New York City.

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Kelley broke her arm in Hawaii, and then flew home to Georgia before going to the emergency room to get it set.

It reminds me of the time when we were teenagers, and went to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Tiffany Theatre in Hollywood. We didn't always have access to cars, and usually when we went to midnight shows of RHPS it was at the Fox Theatre in Venice (now a swap meet) or the Nuart in West L.A. (which still shows that movie on occasion at midnight on Friday or Saturday night). So going as far as Hollywood to see it was a special treat.

My friend Ally broke her foot that night before the movie, and we weren't willing to give up seeing the show (including Ally). So we elevated her foot throughout the movie (easy because Ally is less than five feet tall) and went to the emergency room after Rocky Horror. And never said a word to any of our parents.

And now Ally has given birth to her first child. Which puts me, come to think of it, in a great position to extract a little blackmail money.

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Patterico drives one more nail into the coffin of The Los Angeles Times' lost credibility.

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I vote for the $20 bill. Why fuck around?

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I often wonder about the nature of marriage, and I think my husband has it easier (and harder, of course): he has seen a successful marriage, up close and personal. I haven't.

To me, being a decent wife is the hardest job I've ever held. I know it may get harder when I become a mother, but I think it's easier—in one way—to submit to the next generation, versus one's own. This is it.

"Go ahead. Make my day." (I've been hearing that a lot this week, of course.) I'm going to annihilate the enemy.

Can you tell I spent last weekend in weird introspection?

I may not meet the "Nancy" standard, but I will provide our kid(s) with an amazing example. And that will be their father's legacy, too.

Via con Dios, President and Mrs. Reagan.

Posted by: Attila at 02:41 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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My traffic's in a bit of a slump. I assume that's because I drove off all my non-political readers with a week of pure politics, alienated my political readers with another week of personal entries, and have nothing left but a few fans who either are die-hards or have lots of time on their hands.

I guess it's time either to post a picture of my rack, or blog about anal sex . . .

Hey!--It was a joke, dammit! Where's everybody going? Aw, geez.

Well, I'm off to finish working on this cookbook manuscript, and attend a pool party tomorrow afternoon. I'll be back and brilliant quite soon; light blogging (or none) until then.

Oh, and--my birthday's in four weeks. Buy me stuff, or—even better—send me money. Money makes my prose sparkle like you wouldn't believe . . .

Posted by: Attila at 05:24 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Via John of Aargghh! comes news of another innovative charity whereby those of us watching the War on Terror from the sidelines can help the young men and women who are fighting to keep us safe.

It's called Adopt a Sniper, and it's run by a former police sniper who's committed to making sure our guys have the best equipment they can possibly have. Because he knows the kind of gear these people need, and where to get it, he fills a gap other civilian groups can't.

Sain said he was inspired by the close-knit “sniper fraternity,” whose military and civilian police members are unusually interwoven. “A lot of SWAT [members] are former military, and a lot of them are reservists who are now going over” to Iraq and Afghanistan, Sain said. “And even if you’re not military, getting shot at is getting shot at, no matter where you are.”

Sain said he knows “what it’s like not to have the equipment you need.” In 1994, Sain said, “I watched a guy hold a baby out a door through my sniper scope. I couldn’t see [well enough to shoot the man]; it was dark and I didn’t have night-vision equipment.” As Sain watched helplessly, the man shot the baby in the back.

Sain said he is determined to make sure no deployed military sniper will ever be in that spot — unable to do his mission or worse yet, in danger, because he doesn’t have the right gear.

There's more information at the web site, in case you know of someone who might need equipment. And please consider sending them your spare change.

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When SondraK was guest-blogging over at Dean's World, she drew our attention to the fact that there are Pagan Conservatives. Matter of fact, there are a few Yahoo Groups that deal with Pagan issues from a conservative perspective, and vice versa.

Steven Malcolm Anderson, the most colorful (and among the most lucid) of Dean's commenters, had this to say on the subject:

"Pagan" and "Conservative" are practically synonymous. "Pagan" or "Heathen" comes from "country-dweller", a "rustic" , or (today) "redneck". They were those in the late Roman Empire who lived out in the country and held to their old Gods and Goddesses while the city-slickers were taking up exotic eastern cults like Mithraism or -- what's the name of that new one they've got? Christos? Christo? Christianity? Never heard of it! What's with young people today? Aren't the Deities of their grandfathers good enough for them?

In ancient Egypt, these Conservatives opposed Akhenaton and his monotheistic revolution. I would have been one of those reactionary polytheists. I have often said that Akhenaton was the first Communist.

Today in America and the West, the Conservatives, the "Pagans", are usually traditional Christians. Yes, the Jack T. Chick Protestants and the Latin Mass Catholics are the most "Pagan" of the "Pagans" of today, sticking to the old ways. The deepest Christians today are precisely those who would have most fiercely resisted Christianity a thousand years ago.

Polytheist Pagans and traditional Christians ought to be allies against the secularizing, levelling, homogenizing forces of the modern world.

Thomas Molnar, a Conservative Catholic who used to write in the "National Review", once co-authored a book with Alain de Benoist, a polytheist who leads Europe's New Right (Nouvelle Droite), "Eclipse du Sacre" ("Eclipse of the Sacred").

"New Right"? Old Right. Ancient Right! Eternal Right!

Posted by Steven Malcolm Anderson, the Lesbian-worshipping gun-loving selfish aesthete, on June 07, 2004 at 9:53 PM

A friend of mine who is interested in a lot of different approaches to spirituality—yet has a head on his shoulders, and politics a bit right of center on some issues—has this take:

Yes, I've heard of these folks, and am glad they're around to provide some of that DIVERSITY that the lefty-pagans are always whining about.

As a self-confessed "Apollonian Pagan," I've always been ill at ease with the lockstep leftism and knee-jerk counterculturalism that infests the "earth religion" scene. If anyone's to blame for it, I'd name Miriam (Starhawk) Simos as a prime suspect; she's spent the last 30-odd years trying to turn Paganism/Wicca into a spiritual front for ultra-left activism, and has been fairly successful, especially in the Bay Area.

My friend wants me to turn you, my loyal readers, on to this site which could be the biggest clearinghouse for Conservative Pagan thought.

I am a Christian, but I love the fact that these people exist, and I'm glad they are blowing the minds of their fellow pagans. Tear those stereotypes down! The people who learn T'ai Chi with my husband and me are gradually learning that their Bush jokes may get a chilly reception from us. It's a bigger world than they might think.

In fact, that's one of the biggest attractions about driving a Prius: if I get one I can put a nice GOP bumpersticker on it. No one will be expecting that.

Posted by: Attila at 02:51 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 SHHHH... I BELONG to Pagan Conservatives and Phoenix is a personal pal Thanks for gleaning the veiled trail I had wished to draw folks down..... And honey....I am tearing down those walls and leaving people scratching their heads as a mission. One of the most common introduction e-mails to or group is one that exclaims relief and camaraderie that "I am not alone". And we're quite an iconoclastic bunch even within ourselves!

Posted by: SondraK at June 11, 2004 08:39 PM (+9BwC)

2 Oh, girl. Thanks for stopping by, You are the woman, and now on my regular stomping grounds.

Posted by: Attila Girl at June 12, 2004 02:54 AM (LcVoH)

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My husband got up very early today (or, yesterday: Tuesday) in hopes of paying his respects to President Reagan. When he and his friend arrived at the parking area of Moorpark College they were told it would be an eight-hour wait to see the casket at 6:30 a.m.; they decided this was impractical, and went out to breakfast instead (and then visited the friend's beach house in Oxnard, very briefly—the Attila Hub had never seen it).

Ironically, the wait got better as the day wore on and more shuttle buses were added, so it was more like two hours in the afternoon. The Library apparently extended the viewing time another four hours, to 10:00 p.m.

And now Reagan is on his way to the Capital, where he will lie in state before the big funeral on Friday. Poor Nancy will have to bury her husband all week, in at least four separate ceremonies: it'll be her last service to the country that loves her late husband so much.

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I went to Leo Carillo Beach today (Monday) with some friends who were in town briefly before heading off to England to live for a year. I'll miss them, but it was nice to see them for a little while.

I've decided that that was my last hurrah before diving into my current proofreading project, due at the end of the week. This means I won't be going out to see Reagan's coffin tomorrow. That's the bad news. The good news?—the husband and I are planning to get out there sometime after the President is buried, say in a couple of months. After the crowds have died down. We can look around, then, and I'll pay my respects at that time. Because I suspect Reagan would have wanted me to meet my deadline.

Last Saturday night I was at a wedding reception with my spouse and a lot of old friends, many of whom go back with me 10, 15, 20, 25 years. We danced and I described the scene today for the good professor, who knows some of the players. I explained that at one point I found myself on the floor with Mr. Linguistics—a classical-only guy—who was attempting to dance by moving only his hands.

"Move your hips," I told him. "Your hips. Important."

After that what he was doing started to resemble Actual Dancing almost as much as my own efforts, though I don't delude myself that I can dance any more than I can sing.

The professor reminded me of a time several of us had met in a Berkeley alternative nightclub and danced in our own free-form ways to some African fusion music back in the 80s.

"We were all bad," he told me. "But out of all of us, you enjoyed it the most."

I do. I can't explain it, but I do love to move.

And now I'm sunburned and ready to do things less fun and flashy—but more lucrative.

Even a messy life full of frustrations has its moments of joy.

Posted by: Attila at 02:25 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Who would have thought that this man we looked down upon, thought of as a buffoon, and denigrated at every opportunity would end up saving millions of lives and bringing freedom to so many in the world—Eastern Europe in particular?

When James was talking a few days ago about George H.W. Bush and the great example he set for other former Presidents, in terms of the happy, active and fulfilling life he lives now, I couldn't help but think about Reagan. And it broke my heart that he was going this way, enduring ten years of suffering. Incurring huge suffering for his family—especially Nancy.

And I hoped this day would come soon, so we could mourn for him honestly, and regard him as being really dead—rather than existing in a sort of twilight wherein we couldn't reach him, or see him, or really discuss him in the past tense, either.

It was time. I do not know God's reasoning for anything any of us goes through, but I'm glad Nancy's ordeal is over. I'm glad Ronald Reagan is at peace.

The world owes him a huge debt.

James has some good roundups, as does Dean. Since each has multiple entries on Reagan, I suggest you go there and scroll.

Light a candle. Fly the flag. Pray we have more like him.

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For those who want to see stills from the next Harry Potter movie, have at it.

I'll probably wait to see the movie until the crowds die down, unless the husband and I can grab a matinee this week, while many munchkins are still in Azkaban school.

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I used to be in charge of killing spiders when I lived with the mathematician; he was afraid of them, hated them. (I was also in charge of getting the dead birds out of the back yard when they were killed and left there by the neighborhood cats.)

I've lived in houses with lots of bugs for half of my life, which has given me a very friendly disposition toward spiders: all those things they like to eat, I want them to eat.

And then, having started T'ai Chi just last January, I'm not too interested in killing anything that doesn't really have to be killed. I started this policy with the spiders in my house.

It hasn't been a high-water year for arachnids, not really: you can tell from going outside and seeing how many webs are on the patios. There aren't many. (Each species seems to have years that there are a lot of it—these are temporary imbalances that correct themselves as the ecosystem moves along: there have been squirrel years and spider years and one cottontail rabbit year, followed closely, if I recall, by an owl year.)

But there are spiders all over my house. I haven't yet perfected the art of "Quasi-Buddhist Humane Relocation," since they're hard to catch. There are two underneath the bathroom cabinets. There is one in at least one corner of every room. There are so many cobwebs it looks like the Haunted Mansion in here—without the weird mirrors.

I guess I must do something. Perhaps little traffic signs directing my eight-legged friends to the outdoors?

Must learn to catch them to release them outside. Let me know if you have any tricks or tips before we are completely overrun with cobwebs, and start to look like Frodo in The Lord of the Rings.

Posted by: Attila at 02:18 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Oh, man. If you've been following the coverage of Wonkette (world's shallowest blogger) and the Washingtonienne (the blogosphere's first "out" ho)—or experienced the agony of reading either of their blogs—you need to get over to The Commissar's Place, fast, and read his interview with Ana Marie Cox. Here's a taste: the title is "Does This Font Make My Blog Look Fat?"

Via Dean Esmay.

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Just when I was, once again, enjoying the "semi" aspect of my "semi-employed" status, I got a note to the effect that another cookbook is on the way. Oh, well: I can definitely use the money. And it's a short one.

I told my 67-year-old mother today that I'd finally shipped off the erotica I'd been copyediting, and reminded her that it was the first pornographic manuscript I'd ever worked on (in a professional capacity).

"How is it different from other types of manuscripts?" she asked. "Does it take longer?"

I informed her tartly that, no, I never did have to take breaks to masturbate. As as matter of fact, I was moving at such a clip on those stories that toward the end each time I started a new one I'd start to think, "sex again! Why couldn't it be about food or architecture this time?" This proves that any kind of job can be drudgery if you let your attitude slip. (And please: do let me know if you hear word of any books or magazines that would require knowledge of sex, crime, food, architecture, guns, health, and hunting. I'd be home where the heart is in that kind of setting.)

Of course, I think the fact that my Memorial Day blogging turned into a weird reverie about the two lead actors in Band of Brothers and what it would be like to have a threesome with them shows that these things always have some sort of effect—one way or another. The hormones were in the bloodstream at that point.

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There is never any danger of mistaking a "Cappuccino Delight" Slim-Fast for a real latte-type drink--even an iced one.

No danger at all.

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