(This just in from John Bowman of the WGA Negotiating Committee.)

Fellow Guild Members:

Just had to break free of the festivities here and wish you all a
wonderful Christmas holiday season!
So far I have gained three pounds.
And none of this from Drive-Thru hamburger joints.
No, this is real food. Real fun.

(Breaking news from the WGA - the AMPTP has agreed to come back to the table on November 26th. Now, let's hope they are prepared to make a fair deal. This is progress. Everyone wants to go back to work. Everyone wants fair compensation for their work.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 16, 2007

The WGAW responded to the AMPTP today with the following statement:

Mr. Counter's charge is as offensive as it is untrue. To accuse the Writers Guild of America of blacklisting, when it was we who suffered the most from it in the past, is simply Mr. Counter's desperate attempt to divert attention from the fact that it was he who walked out of the negotiations, and it is he who refuses every day to return to the table. The WGA has an offer on the table and is ready and willing to meet with the AMPTP any day, anywhere.

Look what I stole from Moose:

1. Wrapping paper or gift bag? Gift Bags

2. Real tree or artificial? I think my parents had a real one for my first Christmas, but ever since we have had artificial. When I got married, I inherited one sad looking tree from my cousin, Kathy. Two years ago, the day after Christmas we bought a new artificial tree, dirty cheap from K-Mart.

3. When do you put up your tree? Thanksgiving weekend

4. When do you take down your tree? The weekend of Epiphany

Shakespeare is just too big to be limited to one day, so here is another of his sonnets. I like this one because of the way he plays with his own name and all its varied meanings:

Sonnet 135

(The following is from WGA Member Tom Schulman.)

Fellow Members,

The Essential George Johnston / selected by Robyn Sarah
Erin, ON : Porcupine's Quill, c2007.

This is the first volume of a new series by Porcupine's Quill, called "Essential Poets" in which, they say, an attempt will be made "to offer the best possible introduction to preeminent figures in Canadian poetry."

(This just in from the WGA... I've heard similar sentiment from friends and family all over the nation. The temperature I'm reading -- the whole country is fed up with corporate conglomerates caring only about the bottom line, and not about the welfare of their workers.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 26, 2008

Writers Guild Members Overwhelmingly Ratify New Contract

(News Release from the Writers Guild of America)

Hundreds of Screen Actors Guild Members Join Picket Lines Outside Universal Studios

on Day Nine of WGA Strike

Baby Update: Week 21 (20 weeks, 3 days)

Or in my case pass the Mac and Cheese. My food aversions are slowly but surely lessening as my appetite begins to regain its vigor. This last week I have noticed that the food cravings are starting to kick in. This weekend all I wanted to eat was cucumber sauce (gyro). Last night I had a whole box of Mac and Cheese all by myself. I am also getting nosebleeds, which are freaking annoying. On the plus side, baby’s movements are so strong that they can be felt by everyone else, which Dan is excited about. My weight gain is about 7 lbs.

Title and Author of the book: Belly Laughs by Jenny McCarthy
Reading Goal For the Year: 40/52
Rating for Book: 3.5 stars out of 5

Woohoo it is Friday, which means that after today my big work project will be completed and I can finally rest again. Writing major grants is always a major stressor. I usually want to pull my hair out by the roots at some point in the process. It doesn’t help when I have people needing things from me at the same time I am trying to complete a grant. This weekend I need to finish Bel Canto and start on the Color Purple. I had planned to finish Bel Canto on the plane Tuesday night but there was screaming babies and toddlers on my plane that made it difficult to concentrate.

In the News:

Baby Update: Week 24 (6 months pregnant)

Book Number 46: The Red Tent, tells the story of Jacob and his family through the eyes of his obscurely known daughter Dinah. The bible only says that Dinah was rapped and her brothers avenged the rape by tricking and killing her rapist and all of his family. The Red Tent tells the story though through the young girls point of view. The main point I got out of the story is that this was a story about celebrating women and mothers. We each have a story to tell and we deserve our moment to be heard. All over the world there are red tent events where women gather together and tell their birth stories as well as other activities. Its goal is to educate and empower women and girls. To learn more about it, click here. As for the book I enjoyed the fictional female perspective of the story.

Title and Author of the book: The Birth Book: Everything You Need to Know to Have a Safe and Satisfying Birth (Sears Parenting Library) (Paperback)by William Sears (Author), Martha Sears (Author)
Reading Goal For the Year: 39/52

Hey, folks. Long time no blog. But I just had to add something to the WGA official response to this lovely piece of... disinformation.

As per AMPTP President J. Nicholas Counter III today:

"The WGA is using fear and intimidation to control its membership. Asking members to inform on each other and creating a blacklist of those who question the tactics of the WGA leadership is as unacceptable today as it was when the WGA opposed these tactics in the 1950s."

Katy Ball looks at the big picture in an email I'd like to pass along:

Please read Jon Robin Baitiz's article in the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robbie-baitz/damning-evidence-in-their_b_72411.html

This battle we are fighting is about what's going on all over this country - massive conglomerate corporations sucking up the bounty of America for a tiny percent of its richest.

Think of what will happen to the economy if our unions are forever broken - which is no doubt their goal. The economy will FOREVER suffer. Check out this link about the ever widening income gap:

This is the kind of stuff that makes my day. (Thanks, Todor.)

Find out more about Bulgaria here.

University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato has just published an interesting new book, A More Perfect Constitution, calling for constitutional reform (including a new convention). Not surprisingly, I am a fan, even if I don't agree with him on all of his 23 specific proposals. I have a review in the Austin American-Statesman for those who are interested in finding out more about it. Phyllis Schafly has also reviewed it; perhaps not surprisingly, she's far less a fan.

Pic rules as usual. Credit

Under the looming spectre of the credit crunch (where the hell did that phrase come from by the way) and the - ahem, problems - faced by Northern Rock over recent months, certain financial institutions have starting becoming a little antsy.

Wow! I’ve had the most relaxing weekend
Ever. While winter has been frosting the
Windows and filling the driveway, my
Friend and I have been lazing about
In the hot-tub talking, reminiscing
About so many things. Listening
To a lot of terrific music. Also
Just generally catching up
With each other. Eating
And laughing 2 much.
At one point, I even
Wrote a poem, &

Using foreclosure.com as the source, foreclosure figures are listed first, pre-foreclosures are listed next, with the % of pre-foreclosures moving forward to foreclosures in parentheses. These are cumulative numbers. Special thanks to reader moqui for Aug '05 and June '06 data.

San Diego County
08/25/05: 83/3,087 (2.7%)
06/15/06: 354/4,382 (8.1%)
10/31/06: 998/4,983 (20.0%)
11/30/06: 1,304/5,245 (24.9%)
12/30/06: 1,251/4,637 (27.0%)
01/30/07: 1,475/4,760 (31.0%)
02/27/07: 1,879/5,008 (37.5%)

The First Time

What would you say to my
I love you?
For the first time.
We once wondered.

Tell me to take it back?
Rewind the tape? Or
Say it again? Louder?
As I recall, there was indeed
An echo, but never louder.
Not once did you hear it
Louder, than the first time.

human

i looked up.
they had made their webs
in the rafters,
these two silent architects.
so i knocked them into a foil pan
where they lightly clattered.
exoskeletons, spinning
and disoriented.
so i sprayed aerosol on them
in great amounts, until
swimming to the center of the pan
they found each other,
grappled,
and broke their own necks.
i heard it.
two faint snaps.
i did not look up

Cranberry Lake

An August sun baked our canoe
Where we had beached it, in the sand.
And, taking your small hand
Toward shade, I led you.

Or was it you, me,
Who followed, who led,
When gaily laughing, you said
This bunch here are portabellini?

This bunch of what? said I
Dumb as three brooms.
These here, see the mushrooms
‘Neath the tree where they lie?

How do you know this?
When I stopped you were shaken -
Thinking me angry, mistaken

Here's a sonnet - just one more, I swear I'll move on soon - but here's one which I could not resist posting. It's a bit melancholy for any bookish person to read, even now. It was written in 1841 by book collector William Stanley Roscoe, which just goes to show that obsessive book lovers never change. I do like the final line, with its suggestion that heaven entails being able to converse directly with all the great writers who have gone ahead. That's my idea of something heavenly!

On Being Forced to Part with his Library for the Benefit of his Creditors

As one who destined from his friends to part,