The Furious Spinner

So this is going to go away, right? Now I've got a fever, and we can't remember if we're supposed to starve it or feed it, and I'm too exhausted to figure it out. (But it does mean my immune system is working, right?) Ain't it fun? I told Mario if I get better from this I will never complain about anything again. He said, "Sure you will."

OK. Well.

Weekday TV is the pits. Yesterday we watched something on the Nat Geo channel about the Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident. I remember that day rather vividly since I had gone to see the movie The China Syndrome. I got home from the movie, switched on the TV for the news, and heard about the accident. In the movie, they said that a meltdown could wipe out a place the size of Pennsylvania, so it was doubly creepy.

Have you seen the "Worlds Apart" series on National Geographic television? They take American families and have them live with families in Africa, Mongolia, Peru, and other places. The American children often seem so incapable of doing anything—quite spoiled. But in the end, the American families seem to understand the lives they have in the US are often pampered and greedy compared with people in other countries. I find the shows quite moving. (I'm also sick, so keep that in mind.)

Don't worry. I won't keep giving you updates on what I'm watching on TV.

I saw these books reviewed when I was doing my library ordering. I haven't read them yet, but they look interesting. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard (from other women—never from a man), "You can't understand because you haven't had kids." Or "You're not a real woman because you've never birth a baby." Or "I could have had your job if I'd gone to college and not had children."

Mario has been reading Jack Finney's The Body Snatchers to me. We just saw (again) the original film made from the book, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I love this movie, although it does have some plot problems. (Do the pods actually come to life and kill the people or do they imprint themselves somehow on the people's brains, and if they do this, why do the pods have to look like the person?) Anyway, I love the paranoia. I love how horrific it is for everyone to be the same. Although some viewed the book (and movie) as an indictment of Communism and some viewed it as an indictment of McCarthyism, Jack Finney said it was "pure entertainment." What do writers know about their own work...

Here's an interesting article from the UK where the author purports the US is "now in the hands of a group of extremists." I would add, "In the hands of religious extremists." (I skimmed the article, so I'm hoping it holds up.)

Tad Daley has 10 responses for those who say, "I love Kucinich but he can't win."

To end on another positive note, a federal judge in Los Angeles has struck down part of the Patriot Act! So it begins? Yes!

OK. We've come to the part where I'm too sore to sit here any longer. May you walk in good health.

All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.