The air conditioning has gone out in my San Fernando Valley apartment and I can't get to sleep because it's so f***ing hot. So while I can't promise that this is going to be the most interesting blog I've ever written, I can tell you that it's the first time I've blogged in my underwear.
Frankly, I think I like it!
There was a line in last week's HBO hit Entourage, where Vince's Valley-phobic meatball brother Johnny Drama (expertly played by Kevin Dillon) called everything north of Ventura Blvd. "Hell's waiting room." I laughed knowingly, but perhaps never fully appreciated what exactly that really meant until this week. The AC went out on Tuesday and the apartment complex cooks in a shadeless, merciless SoCal sun. If you don't have AC in the Valley during the summer, you're a goner. Or else you'd better be prepared to spend the majority of your summer either in the pool or at the beach. I would say that I don't know how people in even hotter places (like Sacramento, Las Vegas or Phoenix) survive in the summertime, but then again in those places I think they make sure that the air conditioning is always working. In those places, AC is more essential than having a mayor, a well-trained police force or a decent school system. If it wasn't, trust me, no one would live there.
Well, I'm done kvetching for now. It's too hot to think. They better have the AC fixed tomorrow, I can't take another day of this!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
*You know THE DA VINCI CODE, about which I'd heard so much negative press, is actually a decent movie. Yes, Tom Hanks' hair is ridiculous and yes, the love story angle from the book has been excised from the movie (I was glad of that actually), but as an entertainment the whole thing works. As an actual theory of the dark, secret innerworkings of the Catholic Church, I think you have to look at it similarly to Oliver Stone's classic JFK--it's compelling and plausible and rooted in some fact, but manipulated and spun to serve the author's/filmmaker's purpose. Still, it's impossible even as a Catholic to argue that the church has historically treated women well. Sure, there's the Virgin Mary, but look at the Church's position on abortion, divorce and it's all-male priesthood and you can see the systematic subjugation of women and women's rights that has plagued the church since the beginning. It can't all just be discounted out of hand.
*The total death toll in Iraq has surpassed 50,000 (according to the Los Angeles Times) and there's every reason to believe that's been underreported by at least 10,000. Tell me again, what we're doing over there? It's not Weapons of Mass Destruction, it's not because of 9/11 (that's Afghanistan, where we're starting to drop the ball) it wasn't just to get rid of Saddam, who while he was a menace to his own people, was also largely neutralized by the global politics of the time. If we're there for the oil, the wells aren't pumping like they should and gas prices keep going up all the time. This Bush/Wolfowicz Folly costs us billions a month, achieves us nothing and leaves the Iraqi people living in a constant state of chaos and disorder.
So what, exactly, are we accomplishing Over There again?
Peace (now)...
No comments:
Post a Comment