I rarely have more than three drinks—even the weak ones I make myself with no more than a single ounce of booze in 'em.

And yet, in my internal cartography, the land beyond three cocktails is labeled "here there be monsters."

I guess I'm about to find out how accurate that is.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:11 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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. . . within as many weeks.

And the weird thing is, these appear to be real jobs, as opposed to that sort of thing wherein the company interviews a bunch of people so they can say they did it, before they promote from within, move people around, and finally hire a 22-year-old editorial assistant for ten cents a day or whatever.

I mean, I'm hearing from the hiring managers, and they want to talk to me in person. Strange.

I guess things are finally looking up to the point that former English majors might get a piece of the pie. Cool: I like pie.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 05:53 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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I would rest on them.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 05:47 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Unless he's going to do them incorrectly, by which I mean diverging from how I would do them in any particular, no matter how minute.

And I reserve the right to tell him endlessly how incorrect his approach is. After he's completed the task at hand.

(More from the "wow; I really am a witch" series. Fortunately, I know I'm a witch, and keep my mouth shut lest my witchiness manifest itself externally.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 05:42 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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This is a good point: 40% of the Iraqi population is under 18. And it doesn't matter where you stand on the U.S. invasion of Iraq: the children had nothing to do with either that or the dictatorship that preceded it.

My lefty friends, especially, will want to be aware that the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation is no wingnut group (hey: no one's perfect). And their War Kids Relief program is a good way to show that Americans of all stripes care about engaging at-risk youth—no matter where they reside.

Dig into your pockets, boys and girls.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 05:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The staff job possibilities are multiplying: Last week I went in for a "test day" as a bizarre way to interview for one magazine; yesterday, I took a test via e-mail for a second publishing house; and today I'll be getting up very early to interview at yet a third.

Something will pop soon. Let it be one that either has 1) interesting subject matter, or 2) a semi-humane commute. Or both!

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Or is Harrell getting almost tart these days?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 03:21 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Same as mine, oddly enough.

Rightwing Duck has more.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 12:39 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Dafydd has a short summary on the problem of illegal immigration.

The main problem WRT illegal immigration is that no one will budge an inch on either side: the free-market types won't concede that border control is a good idea in this day and age, and the border-control types won't admit that we depend on large numbers of immigrants to run most of the border states.

The problem can only be solved if the border is controlled, but legal immigration would have to be liberalized tremendously, and the extreme bureaucratic nature of applying for residency/citizenship would need to be likewise streamlined, so that legal immigration would become a realistic option for poor people in foreign countries.

In a world wherein it seems like a better bet to pay off a coyote and risk your life, versus entering this country through the front door, something is seriously wrong with our system.

And, no: I don't really want to pay $10 for a bag of lettuce. I really don't. We're writers in this house: our incomes are really unreliable.

And I'm not good at construction, so forcing the local contractors to hire citizens helps me not at all. Except that it decreases the likelihood that we'll ever be able to remodel—even if we're flush again—and strict controls on employers would mean that a lot of people in my neighborhood wouldn't be able to afford their gardeners any more, increasing the devastation during wildfires.

The problem needs to be attacked from both angles, but each side only sees through its accustomed prism.

UPDATE, 3/29: This would appear to buttress the notion that the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants pay taxes—and suggest that many do not take benefits out of the system. I understand that some people's observations are going to differ, but I'd really like to get an idea what the big picture is—beyond anecdotes. ('Cause we all like to extrapolate from our own experiences, and that doesn't appear to give us much clarity on this issue.)

Gotta run.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 05:42 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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Those who have concerns about the tactics of Bob Hymers, or any of the cults he's presided over (Maranatha Chapel, Open Door Community Churches [House Churchs], Fundamentalist Army, and the current Fundamentalist Baptist Tabernacle) should check out the Hymers Warners Yahoo Group.

It's a good place to get your questions answered, and learn some of the troublesome issues that have led others to flee Hymers' "churches."

Be aware, however, that Hymers' minions do check that site regularly, so if you want to join it, please create a separate confidential identity for yourself (including an unrecognizeable yahoo/gmail email address) if you're afraid of being found or identified by your current/former "brethren." Also, be prepared to explain to former Cult members why you are interested in getting answers: keep in mind that they are accustomed to deception and manipulation from Hymers and those who work for him, and presume (correctly, I believe) that Hymers will be monitoring the site through proxies.

This all may seem a bit cloak-and-dagger, but those who have emerged from the R.L. Hymers Cult(s) know how litigation-happy he can be—and that he is not above other forms of harrassment and intimidation.

Quite the man of God. Sigh.

The man has twin sons. Please pray that they will be able to break free of their father's influence someday to live rich, full lives. One always worries about the second generation in any cult: after all, the parents chose that life. Cult children were born into it.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 02:49 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Insty recently posted a sort of roundup of possible House Bloggers for the Washington Post.

And now Jeff Percifield has thrown his hat in the ring:

I know you'll pop wood when you read my trenchant political analysis of terrorism's pop culture non sequiturs, the root causes of Katie Couric, the protocols of the elders of challah, the Cybill Shepherd trainwreck, as well my tedious obsession with all things Gaddafi.

Unlike that other guy, I haven't left a paper trail due to my extreme laziness. As for my colorful resume of institutionalizations, it's all the fault of irresponsible doctors who gave me generous prescriptions for medications like crack, E, & Special K to treat various sports injuries.

Well, I think that answers any concerns I had. Let's see what the Post says about this exciting possibility.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:16 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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On Francis Fukuyama and the war in Iraq:

"The undertaking [establishing democracy in Iraq] is enormous, ambitious and arrogant. It may yet fail."

For Fukuyama to assert that I characterized it as "a virtually unqualified success" is simply breathtaking. My argument then, as now, was the necessity of this undertaking, never its ensured success. And it was necessary because, as I said, there is not a single, remotely plausible, alternative strategy for attacking the root causes of Sept. 11: "The cauldron of political oppression, religious intolerance, and social ruin in the Arab-Islamic world -- oppression transmuted and deflected by regimes with no legitimacy into virulent, murderous anti-Americanism."

Fukuyama's book is proof of this proposition about the lack of the plausible alternative. The alternative he proposes for the challenges of Sept. 11 -- new international institutions, new forms of foreign aid and sundry other forms of "soft power" -- is a mush of bureaucratic make-work in the face of a raging fire. Even Berman, his sympathetic reviewer, concludes that "neither his old arguments nor his new ones offer much insight into this, the most important problem of all -- the problem of murderous ideologies and how to combat them."

Plus, Fukuyama apparently made shit up for America at the Crossroads, which is rather bad form.

Via Insty, who remarks, "not that his history of being wrong about, well, pretty much everything has hurt Fukuyama's career so far."

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:51 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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. . . need more publicity, since the work they do is so critical. Pass it on.

Via Insty.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 12:13 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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People whom I supposedly have a few points of agreement with can be just as childish, shallow and stupid as the silliest people in Hollywood.

I'm just about to burst with pride.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 12:06 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The goth-niece leaves tomorrow out of Burbank; we're hoping to show her the famous Warner Brothers water tower on the way to the airport. It's been a stunningly successful trip. We've shown her:

• Hollywood, including Mann's Chinese Theater and the Kodak complex;
• Brentwood, including the B-wood Country Mart where Nicole Simpson ate her last meal;
• the Sunset Strip, including the Viper Room;
• Venice Beach;
• the bluffs above Santa Monica Beach;
• a real Mexican restaurant;
• the view from the observatory at Griffith Park (her uncle took her to see that, and she was impressed, coming as she does from the flat reaches of the Upper Midwest);
• the Wiltern Theater, where Dir en Grey was playing.

Not that there isn't plenty to show her when she comes back. We'll do a road trip perhaps, next time, and she can see the coastal route and Big Sur—or maybe even the large dinosaurs in the middle of the desert that appeared in Pee-Wee's Playhouse or whatever it was. (The dinosaurs are too far, I tell her. They are truly in the middle of nowhere; we'd need to be driving to Phoenix or somewhere like that. And of course I'd rather show her Yosemite, but maybe that's just me.)

And all I want to do for the next week or so is sleep. Can I get a witness?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:52 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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But the happy kind: when people die in their nineties (and sometimes eighties; perhaps even seventies) it's easier for most of us to let go.

There was weeping, and it was certainly an emotional time for the children and grandchildren of my great-aunt. But it was easier for the great-grandkids and cousins to bear death under such circumstances—after someone has lived a rich, full life.

The great-great granddaughter was too young to comment on the matter, but I'm given to understand that she wanted to be fed and changed after the service. Perhaps there's a message in that.

I was told my great-aunt is having the best times of her life these days, and once more envied the faith that makes such assertions possible. Let's just say I see through the glass very, very darkly and hope one day to glimpse the reality face-to-face.

Goodbye, RoseMary Goodwin.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:40 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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"I've never been a knitter."

Posted by: Attila Girl at 12:13 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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In a letter addressed to the "Christian Peacemaker Losers," he declares:

If an American or British soldier had been killed wasting his time on you, I would have finished you off myself. It's too bad the Islamonutters snuffed that one dude, but, you know, shit happens, especially if you go around sticking your head in septic tanks.

Read the whole thing. It's a freakin' work of art. Right up there with his infamous statement that gays who obsess over marriage while ignoring Islamofascism might have to "give head, and not in a good way" under an upcoming Caliphate.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 12:04 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I really thought they were going to leave you-know-who entirely indisposed all season. Did someone lose their nerve? I thought this latest season would be about AJ, but we're stuck with his dad's point of view. Along for the ride, as usual.

And I still like the dream sequences, so there.

Kev-Infinity. It took me a while. Sheesh: I'm getting slow in middle age.

And: To what degree does the desire to watch The Sopranos betray not just our wistfulness about not being able to act on our animal desires, but genuine fear that we've lost track of those desires, and don't even really know what they are any more?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:00 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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To: Spike Lee

From: Joy Whittemore

Re: Inside Man

NYPD detectives aren't going to be assigned to bank robberies. That's a Federal thing, my man.

I know where you can get yourself a superb fact-checker. She works cheap, and she has experience looking at scripts. FYI.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:51 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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