A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO D.C.

That's Congressman Eric Massa (D - NY). He's from Corning, NY, and was our representative here in NYS's 29th district from January 2009 until he resigned in utter disgrace in March 2010. 

I was reminded of Massa yesterday when Rush referenced a new study which concluded electric cars may be more harmful than gasoline cars. 

Eric Massa putting HR 676 on the front burner. Eric Massa made a name for himself by carrying a dogeared copy of the then healthcare bill and claiming he was the only member who had read the massive bill from cover to cover. Within less than a week of being sworn in as our new Congressman, he proudly informed Rep. John Conyers that he will co-sponsor HR676.  

But I'll bet you had forgotten all that. I'll bet other things come to mind when you think of Eric Massa , things like tickle parties, "Massa massages," "inappropriate" behavior, and men accusing Massa of sexual harassment:

"He wakes up to Massa undoing his pants trying to snorkel him," Clarke said, adding no one complained for fear of retaliation.

          {snip}

"The harassment is probably much worse than we've heard," Sloan said, noting how quick Democratic leaders were to demand he leave.

He was given the entire hour on Glenn Beck's TV show on March 9, 2010, the day after he resigned. Beck had hyped the show after having met with Massa, believing Massa would talk about the corruption in DC. Instead, Massa, who sounded and looked remarkably like Joe Pesci's character in My Cousin Vinny, played the sympathy card saying how he couldn't fight the White House, the Democratic Party, the ethics charges and cancer simultaneously. All of which caused Beck to say: I think this is the first time I have wasted an hour of your time.

But back to that picture. It was taken the day Massa was driving to DC for his swearing in ceremony. Being the good Progressive that he is, and realizing a fabulous photo opportunity, he announced he would drive a Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell vehicle to DC to be sworn in. Except there was a problem:

“The range of the Equinox Fuel Cell vehicle is about 200 miles, according to G.M., and the distance from Corning to Washington is roughly 280 miles, which means Mr. Massa would have had to refill the tank with hydrogen somewhere along the way — but there are no hydrogen stations on the most direct route from Corning to Washington.

The solution: two Equinoxes.Carolyn Markey, a G.M. spokeswoman, said Mr. Massa drove one Equinox from Corning to Harrisburg, Pa., where a second Equinox was waiting for him. He then drove it to Washington, where the above photo was snapped.In order to deliver and retrieve the Equinox Fuel Cell vehicles, Ms. Markey said, two Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid S.U.V.’s were used as tow vehicles: one to tow the first Equinox back up to Honeoye Falls, and another to tow the second Equinox, which originated in Washington, up to Harrisburg for the trip back down. So essentially, the entire 280-mile trip was also made by a Tahoe Hybrid, which gets about 20 miles a gallon on the highway. Towing another S.U.V. lowers that gas mileage.”

If only it was a parody and not real.

You knew this would happen:  someone gave that picture a new caption. Instead of becoming a champion for single-payer healthcare (which I oppose), Eric Massa became a dirty joke. I think there are a lot of dirty jokes in DC -- on both sides of the aisle. 

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> Speak of the devil...  

Member Of Education Establishment: Parents Don't Know What's Best For Their Children

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TOO MANY ROOMS

There's a scene in Dr. Zhivago in which Yuri Zhivago returns  from the war to his home in Moscow. During his absence it had been confiscated. Whole families now lived in single rooms. As a result, the once-magnificent mansion had obviously deteriorated. Yuri was met by the angry residents and informed that the house was now home to thirteen families. 

I was reminded of that when I read UK elderly are “wasting too many bedrooms”:  London, England - In yet another outrageous piece of social engineering from our coalition government, pensioners will be encouraged to downsize to smaller properties allowing local councils to rent their homes out as council houses and manage the tenancy.

How long before we're told we have too many rooms?

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AN ECONOMIC PLAN WIMPY COULD LOVE

H/t  ZeroHedge for the following...

The laws of economics for the drinker and banks

Here is a dummies guide to what went wrong in Europe:

{snip}

Word gets around about Helga's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Helga's bar.

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"AND THAT,” SAID FATHER O’ROURKE, “IS GOSSIP!”

I learned in my RCIA class recently that gossip is a mortal sin, as in #9: Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Our class had a rousing discussion on the subject and decided that gossip might also be covered in #8: Thou shall not steal. Steal, as in robbing someone of their good character. 

Remember Richard Jewell? He was wrongly identified as the 1996 Olympic Park bomber. For years his life was made hell. When he was finally cleared in 2005 he asked, "Where do I go to get my reputation back?"

One of my RCIA classmates said the sermon in the movie "Doubt," with Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman, was the best illustration of gossip. "And that," said Father O'Rourke, "is gossip!" 

And now for something completely different...

> I'll bet you can't guess what Ozzy Osbourne's secret fantasy is. I kid you not.

> A snoring dormouse. 

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ANOTHER BOOK TO ADD TO THE LIST

I first heard of Gianrico Carofiglio's books last fall while reading Janet Reid's blog:

Previously available only at Bitter Lemon Press in the UK (one of my favorite publishing company names of all time), I'm a devoted fan of this writer.

I had to agree with her about the name Bitter Lemon Press. Love that name. I ordered his first book, Involuntary Witness and loved it, so I ordered the second book, A Walk in the Dark. I enjoyed his second book more than the first.

Carofiglio has a unique style of writing, fairly simple and leisurely, like an Italian siesta. He spares the reader much of the descriptive garbage other writers feel is so friggin' necessary, although God only knows why they do. While there is an element of mystery, I'd hardly describe either of these two books as "thrillers," as the New Yorker did in the back cover blurb of this one. And, yet, I did race to finish each book. When I have the money, I'll order his third book, Reasonable Doubts.

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"YOU HAVE AN IDEA, YOU WRITE DOWN WHAT YOU WANNA SAY"

Bill Peschel's posts are always fascinating, loaded with trivia about famous people. He wrote a book called Writers Gone Wild (I bought 2 copies and gave one to a friend):

"If you’ve imagined famous writers to be desk-bound drudge, think again. Writers Gone Wild rips back the (book) covers and reveals the seamy underside of the writing life." 

I found that picture of Marilyn Monroe, by Eve Arnold, via a link in Peschel's sidebar. Click on the picture and you'll notice the book is "Ulysses," by James Joyce. Somehow I doubt Marilyn actually read the book. I lived in a college town when I was in high school, and I was always trying to impress the college boys with my brains. So, I would prominently carry some snobbish literary doorstop in public, something I'd never read, of course. Eventually, it occurred to me that college boys were not interested in girls' brains. I wonder how many men noticed the title of the book Marilyn's holding? I looked, but then I'm a woman.

But I digress...

In Peschel's latest post, he ponders Why successful writers are doing more than you (and me) :

"If you’re thinking about why you’re not a success, it’s because you’re thinking about why you’re not a success. 

In other words, self-reflective people, people who think about things, start farther behind the success curve as people who don’t think about such things."

I've never wondered why I'm not a 'successful' writer; I know why. I've written a few things, and I've actually sold two pieces. I was paid $125 for a guest op-ed in USA Today back in 1992, and I sold  a short story for $5. In fact I write so little that I can hardly refer to myself as a 'writer.' But I love it when an idea clicks, because even though the writing can be stressful at times, there's nothing like a creative high. So, I began blogging again just to kick-start my brain and get those dusty synapses firing again.

But Peschel does have a point.

There's a great scene in the movie "Get Shorty" in which Chili Palmer (John Travolta) and Bo Catlett (Delroy Lindo) discuss writing a movie script.

CHILI: You know how to write one of these? 

BO CATLETT: There's nothin' to know. You have an idea, you write down what you wanna say. Then you get somebody to add in the commas and shit where they belong, if you aren't positive yourself. Maybe fix up the spelling where you have some tricky words . . . although I've seen scripts where I know words weren't spelled right and there was hardly any commas in it at all. So I don't think it's too important. Anyway, you come to the last page you write in 'Fade out' and that's the end, you're done. 

CHILI: That's all there is to it, huh? 

BO CATLETT: That's all.

Nothing "self-reflective" about Bo. Just write down what you wanna say. That's it. Y'gotta love the simplicity. I'm sure there are writers who can do exactly that: just write. I'm not that kind of writer. I think too much about details before I ever type one letter -- punctuation, back story, names, even script format sometimes -- and it trips me up every time. I don't know how to "just write." And lately the ideas have dried up. I'm hoping blogging will prime the pump.

Btw, I know the conventional wisdom is that Travolta re-energized his career with "Pulp Fiction," but I say it was doing Get Shorty. It's one of the funniest movies ever. And who can ever forget Dennis Farina: "I'm Ray Barboni from Miami"  “They say the fucking smog is the fucking reason you have such beautiful fucking sunsets.”

My writing...

> Briefs and Other Unmentionables

> Kitty Myers: In a thousand words, more or less.

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SNOW

It doesn't look like much, but we had enough snow to put schools on a 2-hr. delay this morning. Then again, this was the first real amount of snow we've had this winter. It rained last night and then turned to snow, but not before icing everything in the process. So while town roads were okay, I can imagine that back roads were a mess. To make matters worse, it was snowing heavily early this morning. I took that picture at 1:00 P.M. -- just a little while ago -- after the road was plowed and salted.

We have enough snow to make this Infiniti Commercial "Snowball" 

> 5:00 P.M. IDIOTS ON PARADE... I sat in Little M's elementary school parking lot this afternoon observing the kids as they filed out and headed home. So many of them were inadequately dressed for the weather. It was a blustery 24* and snowing steadily, yet there were a number of kids whose jackets were open and flapping in the wind. Some didn't even wear jackets. Most of the kids wore no hats, and almost all wore no gloves or boots. There was a woman janitor who was talking on her cell phone as she was salting the walks. She was wearing sneakers, jeans and a thin t-shirt. None of these people lack the funds for winter clothing; they simply chose not to wear it. When I was a kid, even the poorest kids had winter clothing. No one thought it looked 'cool' to go outside without a winter coat. The kids these days are idiots.

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