By now I hope all of you have seen Fahrenheit 9/11. I saw it opening weekend and I was overwhelmed by how many of the shows were sold out or filled to near capacity. I was also shocked to see how many elderly people had come to see the film. When I think of revolution, I don't necessarily think of this generation. However this is the group of people most likely to vote. This is the same group that worries about things that my generation is yet to ponder, Medicare, prescription drugs, social security benefits, etc. This is a group that lived before cable t.v. and video games rotted our brains. They (gasp) read books and walked and went outside to play. They weren't all fat and lazy the way we are now. I don't really want to come down on my generation. But there is something that happens to you when you raise a family through two world wars and when you grow up in the depression that strengthens you, makes you not shy away from hard work and choose the path of least resistance. It's the children of this generation, the baby boomers that fucked us all up.

Moving on, I think that the film was very skillfully filmed from an aesthetic point of view, politics aside. I especially loved the music and the beginning where the credits rolled and we see various sunshine makers of the Bush Administration getting prepped for television. I cried during the parts on 9/11, as did many in the theater with me. I wondered if it was because we were all New Yorkers. I wonder still if anyone can feel what we felt that day, to be locked down and trapped here with all tunnels, bridges and roadways closed for better or worse. I wonder if people could feel the emptiness that we felt as we watched the pillars of smoke billowing from where the two towers had once stood. The fear. The shock. The grief. This movie made me feel that in a way that I had not remembered for quite some time. Then to see the mother that lost her son in Iraq, it was difficult. Not as difficult as the scariest moment of the film: seeing John Ashcroft sing a song about soaring eagles that he had written himself.

When I see Ashcroft, I feel sorry for him. I used to feel nothing but anger but now I feel almost a sadness for him. Look into his eyes. He is terrified. He is the most terrified man I have ever seen in my life. I bet if I jumped out of a closet and screamed "Boo!" he would shit himself and then die. His eyes are slightly glassy and they dart back and forth too often like he is scanning the room for the enemy. Since he is our chief justice guy, he dictates according to his own psychosis. Fear of women, deny them rights. Get their medical records, see what they've been hiding from us. He had a gallbladder operation, which I have written about previously, and I think all of that bile that couldn't be processed by his body was not only from hatred but from an inproportionate amount of fear. This is what happens to you if you are filled with hate and fear. You get an infected gallbladder. Watch out, America. Whereas if you are just filled with hate, like Dick Cheney, your own heart refuses to support your body and you get a pacemaker. If you TALK a lot of hatred, like Farakkhan you get cancer. Look out Bill O'Reilly, next time you call for the assassination of Michael Moore (Hello, FCC, are you listening?) you should go for a prostate exam, get your PSA checked out. If you are a special kind of duplicitous evil, you get Alzheimer's Disease ala Ronald Reagan and Charlton Heston. Soon, he will be just lucid enough to be standing in the 7-11 in his pajamas threatening the clerks to try to pry a slushie from his cold, dead hands.

Today, the super of my building told me the Iraq war started because of the Jews. The other day a woman that I worked with was shocked to find out that the US trained Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to fight the Russians. The look on her face was insane. Like I just told her there was no tooth fairy. ( I will try to keep my personal traumatic experiences out of this blog, but I had to find the cold hard truth when I was in the first grade, which prompted me to go into school and tell everyone the awful news.) Another woman told me this weekend that welfare started because of all of the Puerto Ricans that came to this country and that made them lazy. She was Puerto Rican herself. When people talk to me like this, I have decided to stop yelling, to stop trying to be heard, and to really start listening. I have found that the best way to deal with these situations is to quietly ask why. Keep asking why. If you do then they will be forced to face the fact that either one, they are just repeating something they have been taught or heard on tv, or two that they are making assumptions and have no fact. Revelation ain't easy, so be prepared for more anger then you would have gotten had you just yelled right back at them.

I have been doing extra work this week. My company has started their India Transcription program. Look, I'm not made of stone people. I love new technology. I love the way I can upload the transcription recordings before I go home at night and the letters are in my email when I arrive at work because of the 12 hour time difference. I do feel a line has been crossed however. I don't like being all nationalistic and saying they are taking away American jobs. I just feel that the more private corporations outsource, the more we are becoming a country that just lives here, we don't work here. They sent the manufacturing jobs away, then the white collar tech jobs, now they send transcription away. But why stop there? I work in healthcare and there are alot of jobs that can easily be outsourced. Think long and hard about your job and see if it is really necessary to this country. For example:

1- 911 Service. This is a giant call center. Why do we need to have this service provided in this country? They can do this from India too. And like at Dell or other tech companies, the Indian call center operators can give themselves fake Americanized names so you think that the help is coming from your local precinct.

2- Medical Receptionist- I am a receptionist at a large doctors office. With the new e-voting technology all we really need are ATM-like machines that can take all of your information on entering the office and a giant sign that says now serving number etc., can flash so you know its your time to see the doctor. Not quite outsourcing, but it sorta falls into the category of fucking people over.

3- HMO Nurses and Doctors. Do you have an HMO? When you go to the doctor, they have to precertify CT Scans, MRI's and other tests of that nature. Why have these call centers in America? They have educated people in other countries, I know the accents throw people off, but all of that can be done outside this country.

4-College Professors. Online classes, baby. Who needs to leave their house and go to school? Grade me by e-mail, The OC is on.

5- Pharmacies. Who really needs an Eckerd or CVS so that we can by the latest harlequin romance when we pick up our prescription of Valtrex? Not me. It's cheaper to get your drugs in Mexico or Canada anyway. If it is an emergency and they can't FedEx it to ya, ask the doctor for samples, you know they have them, the drug reps bring it to them when they are stuffing them with free lunches and handing them free pens and post it notes. It's such a racket you would think the mob was involved.

6- IRS worker. Okay, maybe that crosses the line. But I guarantee you that the people in India and Russia can add, and if we are outsourcing for the Iraq war, why not the IRS? The second largest "allied force" in Iraq are private contractors, a.k.a. mercenaries. Can you just imagine accountant mercenaries? Dressed all in black with a pocket protector filled with pencils? A holster with a calculator on the left and a bottle of white out and a stapler on the right?

If you have any other suggestions, send them to me and I will post it for the world to read.

There is one job that the US is providing for in abundance. That is the US Army. They need people so badly, that they are calling up RETIRED and DISCHARGED SOLDIERS to come back and fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Army to recall former military members. According to CNN, "Any former enlisted soldier who did not serve at least eight years on active duty is in the Individual Ready Reserve pool, as are all officers who have not resigned their commission. The Army has been reviewing its list of 118,000 eligible individual reservists for several weeks in search of qualified people in certain high-priority skill areas like civil affairs."

Can you imagine if you resigned from the army, you have a life and a family, and all of a sudden you get a call that you have to go to Iraq? Are you fucking kidding me? This is a draft in sheep's clothing! For anyone who didn't believe me that 4 more years of Bush meant a draft of your sons and daughters, look at what is happening now! They will take away your husband or wife and next year they are coming for your kids. Fuck you very much.

Finally, I am sorry it has taken me this long to write. It's not that I don't want to write and relieve me mental constipation and frustration, I just have a job that sucks the life out of me and sometimes all I can do is come home, eat dinner and watch Teen Titans.

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