Went to Colorado, had a great time, and the world continues to go to heck in a handbasket.

Gots lots to do, lots to do, including ripping through perspectives on the world as negotiations continue with the Strive Agency (and I'm really giving the other side an extraordinary swath of leeway in using the word 'negotiations') over a movie project, I await word from two wonderful orginazations (not trying tooo hard there, am I?) as to their decisions to financially support, or not, one of my book projects and, in the "what am I, nuts?" department, I've got a solo performance show coming up on September 6th.

"Let's go to the world outside yourself first, Bob (sorry RW)!"

Recently, the median cost of a house in Marin County, California, surpassed $950,000; generally, that would be a two, maybe three bedroom, two-and-a-half bath, small yard (maybe), fixer upper, complete with terrible traffic jams on the ONE AND ONLY highway through the county, and a population that's pretty neutral in skin color (I believe the current PC term is 'Anglo'), and a truly un-burstable real estate bubble, un-burstable until the next big earthquake (6.0 and higher) pops a few of those fixer uppers right off their foundations. I'm thinking that this particular missive belongs in the "what am I, nuts?" department also.

The 'not really our president because the majority of the people voted for the other guy but too late now so shut up he's the king and everything is happy in DopeyRummy land, both here and abroad' has just signed something that transfers from San Diego to the federal government 'ownership' of a huge Latin cross that sits on top of a war memorial in San Diego (that's how it's being described, distinguishing it from a cross ala Red Cross sort of plus sign orientation, as opposed to the crucifix kind of cross, the kind we're talking abou here, the kind Madonna is using in her act right now; that's the sort of thing that all really talented musiciains and singers use to draw attention to their talent, right?) (someone stop me before I use another set of parentheses). The cross has been at the center of ten years of litigation, the whole separation of church and state thing.

Hey, this ain't no pro- nor anti-religious post here, just an opportunity to say, "Is there ANYTHING that this pompous ruler does at any given moment that DOESN'T
FIGURATIVELY STOMP ALL OVER THE CONSTITUTION?"

Re an earlier post about Mustangs, teens being killed by and in Mustangs, and a commercial showing the bonding of a father and his teenage son as the kid spins donuts with their Mustang in some dark parking lot...After a local newpaper columnist contacted Ford last month about the inappropriateness of the... aw, piss on it, let's just call it stupid, commercial, and the Ford public info guy said, "You're sooo right, we'll remove that immediately", and they did...except...dang if it didn't appear again on TV just last week, and when contacted, PublicInfo guy said, "Ooooo, gosh, we forgot to tell our local dealerships not to use that..." Geez, I don't know if anything I could say here could be as insulting as PublicInfo Guy's response.

Having trouble getting over this, from Associated Press: Did Saddam Hussein's government have weapons of mass destruction in 2003? Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq. People tend to become "independent of reality" in these circumstances, says opinion analyst Steven Kull.

I'm loving that phrase, "independent of reality", it's just so damn universal in this day and age, no?

Stay with me, we're close to the end.

Speaking of close to the end, there's this, via Frida Berrigan, senior research associate at the World Policy Institue's Arms Trade Resource Center: in 2005, the U.S. exported $18.6 BILLION in weaponry; Russia comes in second with a measly $4 billion in yearly sales. In fact, U.S. arms exports accounted for more than half of total global arms deliveries in 2004 - $34.8 billion. While boasting about democracy, security and peace, we sell weapons to dictators, human rights abusers and countries at war or at the edge of war (sometimes with each other). In fact, 20 or our top 25 arms clients in the developing world in 2003 were undemocratic regimes or governments with records as major human rights abusers.

'Nuff said there.

It all gets overwhelming sometimes, but I like to spread this kind of news around, so that when something seems too strange to accept on a small level, or it's just too (insert your own word here), we can keep in mind that weirdness scales both up and down.

Before I go, a shout out to RW, of Vincenzo's: Out here in Northern California, we understand, support and love the engineered art that is the Mini. Feel the love, feel the love.

Down at the local level, I'm doing a show in September based on things I saw in Louisiana when I volunteered during the Katrina crisis; I'll keep you all informed of how it goes, and I'd love for you all to be here for it, but since that's not realistic, here's what I'm hoping the audience will feel when all is said and done: entertained, slightly frightened, slightly humored, slightly educated, highly empathetic, and accepting of our collective responsibility to take care of each other.

What am I, nuts?