(no subject)

[catsittingstill]

Okay, this is such an amusing idea I need to go with it too.

A Letter To The President



Dear "President" Bush,

I don't want to be protected from gay marriage or pornography, thanks very much.

There are some things I *would* like to be protected from, though, as long as you're in the mood. By great good fortune, some of them are very close at hand for you and should be no trouble at all to eliminate.

I would like to be protected from:

Election fraud, and in particular electronic voting machines a teenager could hack and which are produced by a company whose owner has sworn to deliver his state to the Republican party.

John Ashcroft and The Patriot Act and especially Patriot II.

Packing of the US courts with hard line conservative judges.

Dick Cheny, Paul Wolfowitcz, Donald Rumsfeld and the Project for a New American Century. And especially from hasty decisions to invade countries that haven't attacked us and aren't going to. And *especially* from even hastier decisions to lie about the need for the above.

The two top Administration officials who exposed a CIA operative. (What are you messing around with secretaries and janitors in the State Department for? Pick up the phone and call your *top* staffers and ask them point blank.)

The proposal to use "smart" stamps to track the senders of every single piece of personal mail.

Now as I said--these are all close at hand and should be no problem. So next week, I'd like you to get started on protecting me from

People who talk on the phone while driving.

"Gift cards" whose money leaks out.

Telemarketers

The John Lennon song "Woman"

As a bit of truth-in-advertising that I expect you don't hear very much I'm just going to take this moment to tell you that even if you do protect me from all these things I probably won't vote for you. I'm sorry, but you've had your chance to demonstrate your ability to serve the country as President and you've succeded beyond my wildest nightmares.

Yours, respectful of the office, -Cat Faber



I wasn't sure how many trick-or-treaters we were going to get last night--we wound up getting maybe twenty in little trickles of twos and threes. One interesting demographic was that nearly all of them arrived by car. Okay, New Market is a small and spread out town, but it makes me wonder if more and more people are using their cars for *every* bit of travel.

Some of the kids arrived by bike (about 4). Most of these were not wearing costumes. I gave them some candy anyway, after first asking them what they were going as... but maybe next year I won't. I feel kind of cheated. I give out candy--that's my part of the deal as a grownup. But the kids' part of the deal is that they wear costumes. If you can't afford to buy one, it's perfectly okay with me to make a mask out of construction paper and string and pin a towel around your neck---but these kids didn't even *try*.

Hmpf.

Comments

[elysdir.livejournal.com]

I gather that it's becoming more common for parents to drive kids to nicer neighborhoods to go trick-or-treating.

Re costumes: I think it particularly bugs me as they get older. Seventeen-year-olds (or twenty-year-olds) showing up on the doorstep, sans costumes, demanding candy.... Someone was saying last night that perhaps it's time to stop trick-or-treating around the age when the question goes from "What are you dressed as?" to "What the hell are you doing on my property?"

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

The kids I was thinking of were more in the 10 to 12 range. I didn't get any much older than that.

Kip thinks the kids arriving in cars are from the more rural areas where it's a long distance between houses.