Hostiles

I've been thinking about laws and common sense lately.

(Yes, hello, it has been a while, how've you been?)

When I was studying American history many years ago and first learned about Prohibition, I remember clearly thinking "Well, that was a dumb idea. You can't legislate morality. What were they thinking?" Of course, having not lived through that time, I can't know what they were thinking but the fact remains that it didn't work. Prohibition made the various mafias richer, and forced the whole thing underground, but it didn't eliminate alcohol from American society. If that was, in fact, the goal, to get rid of any and all alcohol in the United States, it didn't work. It was, rather, a failure on an epic scale.

Of course, the argument could be made that we can, and do legislate morality; it is against the law to beat someone up, to kill someone, to take things that aren't yours, et cetera. In a utopia that we'd all love to be a part of, people would simply not do those things, and we wouldn't need laws and the judicial system and lawyers and government. Ha. As if.

But I'm thinking more about the provision of the sexual harassment laws that prohibit creating a hostile work environment. Here's a definition from EmployeeIssues.com:

...In the legal sense, a hostile work environment is caused by unwelcome conduct in the workplace, in the form of discriminatory harassment toward one or more employees.

The harassing workplace bully might be an employee, such as a bad boss or coworker, or even a non-employee, such as a client or independent contractor. But the workplace bully is doesn't matter as much in the legal sense, as does the fact that he or she is creating an intimidating, offensive, abusive or hostile work environment through discriminatory workplace harassment.

There are no Federal "hostile work environment laws" or "hostile workplace laws" named as such. Creating a hostile workplace is prohibited under certain Federal discrimination laws (listed below). Subsequently, to be illegal under one of the laws in the eyes of the courts, a hostile work environment typically must be caused by discriminatory workplace harassment based on race, color, religion, national origin, disability, age or sex. Additionally, the harassment typically must be severe, recurring and pervasive. Lastly, the victim or witnesses typically must reasonably believe that tolerating the hostile work environment is a condition of continued employment. In other words, the victim or witnesses typically must reasonably believe that they have no choice, but to endure a hostile workplace in order to keep their jobs.

Listed below are the specific Federal discrimination laws under which it's prohibited to create a hostile work environment through discriminatory harassment; but, other discrimination laws might come into play. Also, the state in which you work might have enacted equivalent laws with even better protections.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

Whether a victim or witness, you may report a hostile work environment by filing an appropriate discrimination charge directly with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or a state equivalent or with either though an attorney. To file a lawsuit under one of the laws listed above, you must first file a charge with the EEOC or a state equivalent. A statute of limitations applies.

So wading through all that waffle, there's this: it is illegal to be a bully, but it is illegal only under the right circumstances. You can't file a hostile work environment complaint or lawsuit for the cattiness, nastiness and backbiting that goes on in every workplace all over the world. You can't stop people from being idiots.

It is now more than a year after my stint with the horrible sales job ended, so I feel all right with sharing the following facts: that place was the most hostile, toxic, and miserable place I have ever worked. Ever.

Beyond just being obnoxious and bullying, though, that office was hostile for other reasons. Primarily that the people I worked with there were bigots. They never met a racial or ethnic group that they liked; I heard slurs of the worst kind about every ethnicity, every race, every religion (except their own brand of Christianity...walk the path much?). They also didn't like gays, bisexuals, transgendered people. Nor anyone who didn't toe the line of very conservative side of the Republican party. I eventually realized that unless the person standing in front of them looked just like what they saw in the mirror, then that person was OK. Otherwise? Not so much.

I was offended nearly every time someone opened their mouth in that office. The racial epithets, the slanders against gays, the insinuations that Jews are misers and Muslims are all violent and hell-bent on destroying the western world, the smug certainty that anyone didn't share their beliefs was both an idiot and bound for hell....yeah, it got to me. With a gay cousin, a good friend and neighbor who is African-American (and incidentally the most beautiful woman I have ever met) and my BFF being half Jewish, it was really all that I could do not to sucker-punch them. Daily.

I complained to my boss. He, appallingly, told me that I should expect such behavior and comments; he excused it by saying that racism, intolerance and class divisions are just a part of our region of the country, that the divisions created in the steel mills (which have been closed for 30 years now!!!!!!!!) will always exist, and I should not only expect it, but tolerate and ignore it. !@&$$%^#$$!@#@!#$% Oops. Sorry, that was my unprintable response to him.

My final straw came after a sales meeting where I was one of 6 people at the table, and a racial slur was uttered. I gasped at the horribleness of it, but everyone else at the table? Laughed. And added their own off-color remarks. That, right there, THAT was IT for me. I lodged a formal complaint with my boss, and his response, in a nutshell, was, "Pick your battles, kiddo." And so I did. I chose not to fight that one. I had an interview that same afternoon, and although I had to wait a few agonizing weeks, I was able to quit, and get the hell out of that toxicity.

The reason this is all stirred up and fresh in my mind is that I got a visit from a former co-worker yesterday. Not one of the offenders, per se, but he never spoke up against it, either, and that for me spells a-g-r-e-e-m-e-n-t. Or it spells c-o-m-p-l-i-c-t-y. If you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

There were one or two people there who I liked reasonably well. There was no one there that I trusted. So this visit from a former co-worked seemed fishy, and a lot like a fishing expedition. I like to talk to much, and I have to watch myself around those I don't trust, because you never know where something you said might be taken wildly out of context and repeated. It was a nice chat, the person seemed sincere, and was very pointed in noting that they've removed themselves as far as possible from the toxicity, including moving offices to another city.

What did they want? I have no idea. I was polite, although hesitant. The person will be back; they've got some business near my offices, and I expect to see them again soon, and frequently. I'll have to remind myself that although I feel no outright hostility to this person, they are not my friend. I'm not sure what I will do if they show up with a few more co-workers in tow next time. The world isn't evenly divided into "friendlies" and "hostiles".

"Real" ID (because, apparently, every ID you already own is a figment of your imagination, i.e. not real.)

I've avoided a whole lot of Current Events postings for about the last year, treading carefully when and how I write about the news and my favorite news programs. My reasons are my own, but since I've written about the Real ID program before, I feel I'm justified in revisiting the issue. Granted, that post was a year and change ago, but the proposal didn't die just because the administration changed.

According to the story I heard the other day, in the end, many states passed laws and resolutions specifically refusing to implement the changes that Real ID was supposed to bring. Good on ya', mate, I think the rights of the individual states are very important and at times supersede the rights of the federal government. But I digress.

Since so many states refused point-blank to make the changes to their drivers' licences, and Uncle Sam never funded the mandate, Real ID is sort of DOA. But wait! There's more! There are people (read: lobbyists) that want Real ID completely funded, left as is, and forced down the throat of every state. Then there is a group of legislators who have gotten together and come up with another version, called Pass ID.

Now, since we all fall for the marketing gimmick of New! Improved! Shiny! New! Better! it would appear that all the legislators are doing is re-packaging Real ID, giving it another name, et volia, new legislation! Allow me to use a phrase from my teen years in response: NOT!

One of the many things about Real ID that got my dander up was that this was supposed to make your state driver's license proof of citizenship, among other things. (Like making driver's licenses immune to faking and tampering, to which I say what-ever!) We already have identification that is proof of citizenship. It is called a passport. You are required to present rock-solid proof of citizenship to get a passport, and worldwide, passports are the standard for proof of citizenship.

Why didn't Congress just require everyone to get a passport and be done with it?

Well, firstly, because that's too expensive, for one. After September 11, the gub'mint raised the fees for passports, and although it was never "cheap" to get a passport, it is costly. Besides the processing fees, you have to go and have a picture taken, fill in a bunch of paperwork, blah, blah, bureaucratic process, blah, blah. It is time consuming, too. If you live in a big city, you can go and get a passport in person, but if you're a country mouse, you have to mail the stuff away, and wait patiently for it to come back to you. Want a delivery confirmation, or to have it shipped more expediently than the US Postal Service? That'll be an additional fee, thankyouverymuch.

So passports for everyone isn't the answer. But Real ID isn't the answer either. Thankfully, figuring out what the answer actually IS - well, that ain't my problem.

The Triumph of the Proletariat

(or something)

Politics have endlessly fascinated me since the 1984 presidential elections, when I was <> 10.

My mother was a freelance reporter for our little tiny town weekly, and as part of that, she covered the local government councils, a village and a township. I went, whenever I could talk her into it, and had lots of questions on the way home. Even at 10-11-12, I thought that the township trustees were petty, back-biting, bickering brats, and the village council members were hoity-toity.

But the political process has continued to fascinate me, and the fact that we as citizens can contribute to that process with not just our money and our votes, but with our voices....well, at 34, I still think it is pretty freaking amazing.

A few weeks ago, I posted about Ohio's budget crisis, and the plan that our Democratic Governor, Ted Strickland, proposed to lawmakers, which would result in our state-run libraries operating next fiscal year with 50% of the budget of the previous fiscal year. I urged one and all to visit SaveOhioLibraries.com, where further information is available about how you can tell your Ohio elected official just what you thought of the plan to cut the libraries to such a devastating low.

I am proud, and humbled, by the number of people from Ohio (and beyond, too, impressively) who wrote to their local state reps, and to Gov Strickland, telling them was an abysmal idea the funding cuts were. Strickland spoke out vehemently against this public outcry, claiming he wasn't going to budge an inch on his proposed budget.

The folks elected to the Ohio State House and Ohio State Senate, however, recognized political suicide when they saw it.

In the end, the state cut 84 million dollars from the budget of Ohio's 251 library systems; painful, yes, but not as devastating as Strickland's proposed 227 million dollars. The state-wide protests, held in front of libraries and in Columbus on the steps of the capital, not only made noise, they got attention. National news coverage. I heard, although I have no source for this, that the telephone systems at the state house were so overwhelmed with the number of citizens calling to protest that they crashed a few times during this period.

So yea, I'm feeling pretty damn triumphant, and proud. A little of my faith in our system of government has been restored; they listened. It worked just like it ought to. Our elected officials work for us after all!

Power to the people, y'all!

Not as you think.

A few years ago, when my nephew made his First Communion, I sat at my sister-in-law's house and talked to her in-laws. They're conservative Catholic folk, and therefore in general, we don't see eye-to-eye. I try, really, I do, to keep my liberal lefty opinions to myself, but I don't always succeed.

As I talked to her brother-in-law about politics and public policy, the conversation turned towards some of my pet issues; the death penalty, among other things.  Eventually, he sat back, laughed, and said to me, "You are NOT as liberal as you think you are."

I told him we'd have to agree to disagree on that.  But.....

Last night, as I was driving home, I heard just a portion of this story, enough to make me remember to seek out the full audio and listen later.  It is about the drug problem in Mexico, and the official response of the United States' government to the same.

My gut reaction to this was annoyance, and I surprised myself by saying to the radio, "and this is MY problem, as a US taxpayer, how exactly?"  No, me talking to the radio was not the surprise. I do that all the time.

I don't take illegal drugs.  (Nope, I save my money for the legal ones, eyeroll.)  The drug cartels in Mexico aren't what we need to be spending taxpayer money on right now, people.  It annoys me that Mexico has its hand out, looking for money from the United States to solve problems in Mexico, of Mexican creation.  Their police force is corrupt.  Their jails are apparently a sham.  The cartels run things any way they see fit, committing murder, kidnappings, extortion....and they want the United States to fix this?  Buh?

And wow, that is about the most conservative right-leaning thing I've ever typed OR said.

I understand the argument that without the United States and the voracious appetite on this side of the border for cocaine and weed, there wouldn't be a drug problem in Mexico, but with respect, I disagree.  There's a market for illegal drugs the world over, and it was a very long time ago that the US had the largest population in the world.  After China, and India, the United States ranks third in population size, and somewhere, someone besides Americans on American soil, are buying Mexican product.

When did the US become the world's ATM?  Why does the perception that we have oodles of money to be handing out over every third-world nation conundrum persist?  GLOBAL Financial Crisis, anyone?

This all makes me wonder, too, if I would feel differently (i.e. more leftist) about this issue if the US economy were not hemorrhaging jobs at an alarming rate and several of our biggest industries - financial, automobile manufacturing - weren't on the precipice of complete disaster. 

I'd like to think so.

Damages

In the sidebar for almost two years now, I've had a countdown timer from backwardsbush.com. Anxiously awaiting the day when there would be another president, even when I had no idea who that other president might be.  Someone, hell, ANYONE would be better than him.

Now that there are far fewer than 100 days left in his miserable administration, the Bush White House is striving hard to make sure that President Idiot leaves his mark on history.  He's been busily signing stuff into law that maybe he thought would fly under the radar screen, but instead is big daily news.

The most recent thing that has me all riled up is some 500 pages of revisions of rules for the guest worker permit program, also known as H2A.

It is my general opinion that Republicans tend to be pro-business, pro-big business, often at the expense of the environment, or, as in this case, at the expense of the impact it will have on the most exploited group of workers in American society.

But this is just the latest thing in a long list of stuff that the Idiot Administration is pushing through during the twilight of their days in office, railroading a laundry list of "reforms" through while they've still got time.  Relaxation of environmental impact study requirements.  Reduction in the amount of input scientists have over how much damage new power plants would do to national parks.

President-Elect Obama has said that he will overturn much of the damaging legislation that Pres Idiot has pushed through in recent days, but that will be a much lengthier process than getting them into law in the first place.

How much MORE damage will he manage to do in the remaining 39 days?  The end of his administration can't come soon enough for me.

Huh?

I heard a news report about the religious right being "energized" after their candidate was defeated in the US presidential election.  Organizing, planning, getting ready to make sure their point of view doesn't get bounced off the country's agenda.

Here's something I've never understood.  (OK, yes, there's a long list of things I don't get, but I'll stick with one today.)  I actually heard one of the interviewees talking about "protecting the sanctity of marriage".  I do not, and probably will not ever, understand why these people get so cranked about the fundamental right of anyone on this earth to love whomever they please.  And don't quote the biblical verse to me about marriage being between a man and a woman, because it holds very little water with me.

How would the hetro community feel if suddenly there were referendums on who they could marry?  Tall people, no, no, you can't marry short people.  Fat people, you can't be in a relationship with skinny people.  If you were to substitute any other minority for the word 'gay' in the language of these "sanctity of marriage" laws, such as Hispanic, Bi-Racial, Oriental....you'd have people all over the country (and probably some of those same fundamentalists) screaming about racism.

The root of what I don't understand is this: how does homosexual marriage "destroy" the "sanctity of marriage"?  Why does it matter to you if there are or are not gay couples?  It'll cause the breakdown of society?  What. Ev. Er.  That same argument was used when laws were still on the books about blacks and whites marrying.  It was as wrong then as it is now.

I'm very disappointed in Prop 8 passing in California.  Ever Governer Ah-nold called the passage of the act "unfortunate".  It'll be dragged through the courts again, and in the meantime, same-sex partners are denied the right to be married.

Homosexuality is not "wrong".  It is not an "abomination".  And it certainly isn't a lifestyle "choice".  And why do you care, anyway?  What goes on in my neighbor's bedroom is none of my business....how is it any of your business?

Juris

It really is no wonder that the rest of the world thinks Americans are arrogant.

I have read and heard and seen this everywhere over the last few days.  

The son of former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, Charles "Chuckie" Taylor Jr., has been convicted of torture, from crimes committed in Liberia.  That's not the problem, that's the good part.  The part that confuses the hell out of me is that he was charged and tried by a court in the United States of America.  

Where the bloody hell do we get jurisdiction over crimes committed in another country, by nationals of said country?

If I recall my lessons in our legal system correctly, in order to have jurisdiction over a case, a court must have some vested interest in the crime.  I.E., it was a crime committed in a particular city, the person charged with the crime lives in a particular township.  This falls far, far, far outside of traditional jurisdictional rules.

From Reuters:

Chuckie Taylor was the first person charged under a law passed in 1994 known as the extraterritorial torture statute, which allows prosecutors to charge a U.S. citizen or someone present in the United States with acts of torture or conspiracy to torture outside the country.

In plain English, then, this law allows American courts to charge non-citizens with crimes not committed in America.  Huh?  How is that legal or possible?

Is what this guy did wrong?  To quote the odious Sarah Palin..."You betcha!"  But this trial makes a mockery of the Human Rights Tribunal in the Hague.  American courts trying non-citizens for crimes not committed in America?  WTF?  That takes away the teeth from organizations like the UNHCR, the Hague courts, and other already existing bodies of judiciary worldwide.

He should be punished for his crimes.  He committed truly evil acts.  I saw this story first on MSN when DH was surfing, heard it on the radio, and then saw it on CNN.  The gory details of what he and his cohorts did disgust me so much that even though there are literally thousands of stories out there on teh interweb that I could link to, I won't, because to read yet another account sickens me so much that I just can't read another one.  

Yes, what he did was wrong.  

Trying him in a court of law in the United States in not the proper redress for those wrongs, though.

Fear-Mongering

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
~George Orwell, Animal Farm, published in 1945

On Thursday last week, I was listening to NPR and marveling, yet again, at President Idiot's latest crisis-mongering tactics. Will it ever end? *Sigh* Not until he's out of office, at any rate.

Here's the scoop:
Congress and the pres are facing off over a continuation of a bill that allows Uncle Sam to place wiretaps on foreign citizens, in foreign countries. Yep, you read that right. If you, living your life in Italy, as an Italian-born citizen, are doing something that brings you under Uncle Sam's suspicions, Uncle Sam seems to think that he ought to be able to tap your phone. Regardless of Italian law, apparently. Now I'm using Italy as an example here, but as I understand it, we're talking about hush-hush wiretaps all over the world.

This irks me for a couple of reasons, not least of which is that I value my own privacy highly. Very highly. So I think that everyone is entitled to protection of their privacy. Additionally, we get all up in arms when OUR civil rights might potentially be violated, but furiners? Damn, who cares about that, anyway? No one, apparently. Urgh.

No one is above the law; if you believe in democracy, freedom, and the rule of law, then this is wrong. Going outside of legal systems in other countries, in my ever-so-humble, is a violation of their sovereignty, plain and simple, no ifs, ands, or buts.

To play my own devil's advocate for a minute, I do understand why the intelligence services (oh, and I use that term loosely) would want this ability. Easily. You'd probably worry that if you informed the foreign government of your intentions that they might tip off their citizen, or forbid it entirely. I'm sure that the spy agencies place taps all the time anyway, with or without legal consent. At least, that's what the movies would have you believe.

I should note that I'm also hotly opposed to the feds listening in on MY calls overseas, which has been in the news previously. If someone wants to listen in while I bitch about my job to my Mama, firstly they're going to be bored witless, and secondly, I want to know who is listening and why.

Ah, your tax dollars at work. Joy.

American citizen held in Iranian jail

NPR had a story this morning about an American woman who is being held in an Iranian jail, accused of being a spy. She's been prevented from leaving Iran for four months.

Considering the fuss that was made over the Brits who were held by Iran earlier this year, I am surprised that this is the first time that I've heard about this.

My disparaging thought is that because this is one woman, female, that they're not going to make a fuss over it, but I honestly think it far more likely that there hasn't been a huge fuss because this woman was born in Iran and became a naturalized American citizen. Which admittedly, isn't all that much less disparaging, really.

Haleh Esfandiari is the director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, which without Googling I'm guessing is a Washington DC think-tank. Lemme check. Wow, my own powers of intellect amaze me sometimes. From their own website:

The Center is the living, national memorial to President Wilson established by Congress in 1968 and headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is a nonpartisan institution, supported by public and private funds, engaged in the study of national and world affairs. The Center establishes and maintains a lively, neutral forum for free and informed dialogue. (Source)


Living under a totalitarian regime must be terrifying. While I joke quite a bit about President Idiot being a dictator, truth is that even with the erosions of personal freedoms we've endured under his tenure in Washington we still have due process. Ms. Esfandiari's attorneys have yet to be able to speak with her, and the news today was that the Iranian government fully intends to charge her with espionage. Unreal.

Treading into personal opinion here, it seems to me that the religious leaders who make up Iran's de facto government can't handle a successful and well-educated woman, which is why they've arrested her.

I hope sincerely that the Idiot Administration gets involved here to negotiate her release. I'm thinking positive thoughts for her and her family.

WOW!

Many, many, many thanks to Mischa at Church Made Me Stupid for writing a post about this, which caught my attention. Rarely if ever do I do more than one blog post in a day, but this is important enough to warrant a dual post.

Please direct your mouse over to Feministe, and read about an attempted bombing at an abortion clinic in Austin, Texas. What, you didn't catch that in the national media? Oh, that's because "terrorism doesn’t count if it’s directed against women and their health care providers"

Dual standards for everything else in the whole wide world, not just male and female public behavior, but even for the safety of providers for women's health. Good Goddess, what is the world coming to?

Interesting news from Texas

A little while ago, I wrote an outraged rant about the Texas governor Rick Perry sidestepping the legislative process by signing a law that requires girls going into the sixth grade to have been given the new HPV vaccine. My issue with that is that I think if the shoe were on the other foot, and it were a boy cancer prevention vaccine, no one would be talking about requiring it for anyone.

My header at the top of the page used to say that I wrote about the disparity between expectations of public male and female behavior, but I took it down because I so rarely do anymore. Yes, society expects vastly different public behavior from men and women. Yes, it still pisses me off. But pointing out every single instance of it solves nothing and only makes me mad, so it takes something special, like this issue, to make me put that hat back on. And I've been very busy blathering on about something else lately. What?

The news today is that the Texas legislature is firing back, passing a bill with 119 votes to 21 to overturn the law. The Texas legislature doesn't work the same way as the federal Congress does, so there is no surety that this will pass, or that they would override a veto if Perry chooses to veto the measure. They also only meet every other year, so if it does not pass this year, it will be 2009 before they consider it again. (How do you get a gig like that, working only every other year? I'd like to know.)

Now here's something that makes me vaguely unsettled. Conservative Christians are also against this law, not because they think that it was really wrong of the governer to usurp the legislature, but because they feel the vaccine will encourage promiscuity. Heh. It doesn't happen very often that I am on the same side of any issue as conservative Christians, but in this case we are on the same side for different reasons.

My stance on it is about personal choice and privacy. It should be the decision of the person getting the vaccine (or their legal guardian). Not the legislature. The privacy thing is that once you've gotten this shot, mandated by the government, then you must have a record of it to show the school. Are we puppies, with our 'papers' or people? I suppose that you could look at any government issued identification the same way, using that logic, but this is very different from, say, a passport. And it also reminds me of some of Twisty's recent posts, tagged with the label Men Hate You. I never really thought about it that way until I started reading her, but the more I look around and think about it...yeah. She's right. *Sigh.*

Reading the Bloomberg article that I linked above a bit further, I find that Rick Perry has ties to Merck, the vaccine's manufacturer. Dun dun DUN! And people wonder why I'm a conspiracy theorist.

He did something RIGHT?

Will wonders never cease? I'm watching Larry King Live and it seems that President Idiot actually did something I approve of. He signed a law named after Adam Walsh, the son of TV star John Walsh, who was abducted from a mall in Hollywood, Florida twenty five years ago today. When John Walsh was on the Today Show in 1981 to beg for help for his missing son, I was 7. I don't remember that, but I do remember the terror that swept through my community (several hundred miles away from Hollywood, FLA, I might mention) and changes that our local mall made to their security procedures.

I'm quoting a conservative website here, but the salient points of the law are that it:

1. Establishes a national sex offender registry available on the Internet.
2. Requires convicted sex offenders to be entered into a national registry before they are released from prison and update the registration in person within three days of moving.
3. Offenders must verify their registry information every month in person. Failure to comply is a felony.
4. An offender who knowingly does not register and moves to a new state can be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison. If an offender who has not registered commits a violent crime, the offender can be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison.
5. Establishes a sex offender tracking office in the Justice Department.
6. Some sex offenders may be required to wear tracking devices.

The thing is that this is the right thing to do, no matter which side of the aisle you’re sitting on. Ohio has a registry available online, and I searched it about 6 months ago and found that there are 13 registered sex offenders within a two mile radius of both my home AND my office (and one is on the south side of my hometown; the other is on the north side). This is a really scary thing, y’all. I don’t think that pedophilia is curable; “treatment” for those who terrorize, prey upon, and kill children is lethal injection.

Which makes me think that I’m not as much of a liberal as I’d like to think I am, but hey, this is real, honest emotion. The work that I do makes me react like an overprotective mama bear. And since we’re sliding into bad territory there, I’m on to the next thing. The info on this law being capitalized on by conservatives is yet another example of how Dems are missing the boat over and over and over. Anyway.

Check out my articles on Growers and Grocers tomorrow and Saturday; tomorrow’s is about a journey DH and I took to a winery far, far away, and Saturday’s is about your tax dollars at work in mad cow disease testing. It is a editorial and I’m pretty riled about the recent changes to testing standards, which is a bit odd b/c I don’t actually eat red meat. But many of the people I love do, and the danger of the human form of mad cow is real.

Larry King is over and Anderson Cooper is on. He's hot.